The Last Trip

Umesh Rao was lying in a bed in the ICCU ward. Relatives of patients weren’t allowed inside the Intensive Cardiac Care Unit, except for visiting hours. Fortunately for Moyna, his bed was the second one from the door, hence visible through the glass see through portion. She could see from outside, her unconscious father almost lost beneath all the blankets. No sounds, no coughing, no heavy breathing. Absolutely still. The only sign of life was the blinking Electro Cardiograph, monitoring his heartbeats. It was about two pm in the afternoon. Her mother had gone below to the first floor to consult the doctor who had performed the angioplasty on Rao. After staring continuously at her motionless father for sometime, she let go. But she kept a watch on the ECG monitor. She was shaken when she realised what she was doing, how could she, her father will be all right, but she couldn’t help it.


Then her thoughts slipped. She was staring at the monitor but saw herself --- folding chapattis into a stainless steel Tiffin box which went on top of another two containing rice and dal, inserting all of them into a long cylindrical steel container. It was for her father. This was just last week. As usual, he had called after reaching office and told her what time and to whom, his lunch was handed over to. Moyna had reached Santacruz station at the precise time and was gazing at her home visible from the platform, while waiting for Rao’s friend to arrive. Lunch was handed over and it travelled the fastest way to Churchgate station where it waited for Rao. But that was last week. A week is too long. Time doesn’t need a week to change your life. Time doesn’t even need a minute.


Moyna wondered what must have triggered the heart attack; maybe his unforgiving job had finally taken its toll. She shuddered thinking how he was found. It was a kid who spotted him. He was playing cricket next to the railway tracks in front of his home. He was batting. He saw a man with a briefcase approaching from the other side of the tracks. Through the corner of his eye he also saw an oncoming train that would pass between them soon. The boy who was bowling waited till the train had almost passed and then bowled. The kid unintentionally hit it onto the tracks. When he turned to see, the train had already passed but the man disappeared. He ran and found him lying face down right next to the tracks. He ran back screaming “Baba, Baba” and brought his father back. His father found the man still alive but lying only a few feet away from what could have been certain death. He along with other slum dwellers rushed him to a nearby hospital. His briefcase found next to him had phone and an I-card among other things. He was surprised at what the man’s profession was. He started searching the contacts list on the phone.


Umesh Rao had been a motorman for most of his life. Most of his colleagues called him ‘Rao’, and the younger ones called him ‘Rao Saab’. He had been running local trains for the last twenty-four years. He had joined the Western Railways when he was a twenty four year old youngster. He married a year later and was a proud father of baby girl after another year. Moyna. He had a son two years later, Manish. A year back, twenty year old Manish died in an accident. He was trying to hang on to the door of a Churchgate bound train, when he couldn’t sustain the pressure of the crowd inside and fell off. His head hit a concrete slab. He could’ve easily taken a ride in the motorman’s cabin. His father always told him to do so in case there’s too much rush. But Manish had always felt a little self-conscious to travel with his father’s colleagues, a little embarrassed, hence he would travel the usual way. Rao couldn’t get himself to collect his son’s body. He feared it would be as severed and mangled as the bodies he had seen at his knockdowns. But thankfully he was spared that horror. Only a deep cut on the head, but otherwise ‘Whole’.


In his career of twenty-four years, Rao had had at least thirty knockdowns. When one’s train ran over somebody, it was known as a ‘knockdown’ in motorman parlance. Something that every motorman dreaded. Something that every motorman went through. A motorman will never forget his first time. Rao had been a motorman for only six months then. He had been lucky till then, except for a few close calls. But when it happened, it couldn’t have been worse. Right in the middle of Jogeshwari and Goregaon. The strike itself was a blur but the aftermath was frozen in time as a horribly vivid memory. It was a suicide. Rao had seen a young boy standing besides the tracks, as if waiting for the train to pass, so that he could cross. But when the train was about to pass he jumped in the way. Maybe he was scared, maybe unsure. Rao applied the brakes, which he knew was futile. The brakes are automatically applied only in stages. The train halted. Rao closed his eyes, but he couldn’t think. The protocol demanded that the train could be restarted after removing the body from underneath as a mark of respect for the dead. Rao got down. The guard at the back was already down. After walking back a little he saw a severed hand next to the tracks. He stood there, gathered his nerves and went ahead. The guard an experienced man helped him pull the crushed body from underneath. Rao got a lot more blood on his shirt than the guard. After laying the body beside the tacks, he restarted the train and honked thrice when he reached Goregaon, a signal to the porters to rush and bring the body. Completing the rest of the trip had called for all the resolve and steel that Rao could summon. He wondered ‘Why him?’ His mental agony did not let him realize then that fourteen of his colleagues went through the same that day. Fifteen families mourned that day. That was the statistical average--- fifteen. These thoughts kept him awake that night, though.
The pressure and stress had slowly taken a toll on his health. His son’s loss last year accelerated it. Three days back he had done his mandatory medical check up. He had high B.P, bad reflexes and a week heart. A decision was taken yesterday.

He was not drive anymore. Had he completed a year more he would have been promoted as a Deputy officer, but now he had to choose between being a clerk in his own department or take a voluntary retirement. All of a sudden it was over. It was to be his last trip.


Moyna pondered, the last year had been so hard. Her brother’s death coupled with her father’s ill health. They had barely begun to put the pieces together, and now a heart attack. She wouldn’t let her father ever run a train again. Little did she know? Then she saw something, then again. Her father was waking up. She rushed in. When he opened his eyes, Rao couldn’t grasp his surroundings. Everything was hazy. He tried to get up but he couldn’t. Then his daughter appeared. Now he remembered. He blurted out malformed words. She didn’t understand. But he just wanted to go back in, back to wherever he was. He wanted to scream but could only gasp. He couldn’t bear to remember that fateful scene.


It was his last trip. He hadn’t thought of an end like this. His last trip was already over. He reached Santacruz and was crossing the tracks to go home. He thought of his past, the briefcase in his hand, will he ever carry it again, without any need to carry his uniform, timetables, remark books. Will he ever work again? He had never done anything else but run a train. What now? He didn’t know where he was going. At forty-eight, his world came crumbling down all around him. That’s when his eyes caught something. He looked up again----- there he was. A boy around his son’s age, was kneeling on the tracks facing the oncoming train. ‘Not one more’, Rao screamed and leapt, but something made him stop dead. It seemed unreal. Surreal. Rao had seen them all, had seen them praying with their backs to the train or lying down clutching the rails, sometimes screaming over the blaring horn, but this was a first. He was kneeling on the rails, stones piercing his knees, with outstretched open arms and smiling. Rao was ready to turn his face away when the train would hit him. But what happened made him drop his briefcase. He was smiling at the oncoming train and stretched his arms wider as if to embrace the train, when the moment came.


The train didn’t hit him. It just went through him ----- without a sound, like an arrow shot into water, like light shooting through a reflection. The boy’s upper body disappeared into the train while his lower body was visible below it. The boy emerged again from the end of the first bogey. His eyes were closed, arms still stretched out, his hair blowing backwards, looking heavenwards. In a flash he disappeared into the second bogey. Rao felt a pain shoot from his chest. He saw him again after the second and the third bogey. Rao fell on his knees clenching his piercing pain. By the time the fourth bogey passed, Rao had collapsed. Lying face down he could see the boy’s lower body, his bent knees, continuously beneath the running train, beneath the loud drumming noise of the train. By the time the sixth bogey went through the boy, Rao had passed out, while the drumming continued for a few more seconds.

The Mark

It had been a long day for Chandu. In the afternoon a bunch of hawaldars had taken him for some questioning with reference to some pick pocketing case. They roughed him up a little bit along with two others and let him go. 'Just to fill up their quotas' he guessed.Besides he never cared much for these petty jobs. But it was better to put up with it than being locked up for what he actually did.Traveling so far out to the suburbs had been exhausting too. It was 1 am in the night, Chandu was anxious to finish the job and go home. But why was he taking so long, he should have been here by now. With a .22 caliber pistol of desi make clutched in his right hand, Chandu waited for his mark to arrive. It was Birju Shetty. He was sitting on a bench in a dark corner of a deserted road. It was a slightly chilly night,at Nalasopara. If at all a passerby was curious enough at this sight,of a man, at this hour, seemingly hiding something, none would have the slightest nerve to turn back for a second glance and inspect. ButChandu didn't care, because he knew nobody did. As long as the job itself was done minus any witnesses, he was fine. Then there would be big bundle of notes awaiting him.
Now it was getting really late. Chandu removed a small bottle from under his T-shirt and took a few swigs from it. He noticed a faint silhouette of a woman approaching from the far side of the road. He replaced his bottle and took his earlier position. From what he could make out, he saw a young woman wearing a blue salwar kameez and she had long, bouncy, wavy hair. She hurried past him, clutching her bag tighter without looking directly at him. It was only when she was about ten paces past him, that Chandu had a feeling that it was her.But how could it be. At this place, at this hour. But what if it was her? She was moving fast. He got up, put his pistol back in, and took a few steps. Her breath quickened on hearing his footsteps.
He calledout. 'Nandini..…Stop!'

That was her name all right. She gulped… and turned around. Nandini saw a tall lanky figure running for the first few steps and then slowing down till he was about two feet from her,she was still holding her breath. She started to have a faint recollection… 'Chandu! Is that you!!!' Now that they were close, he could see that she was wearing light blue eye shadow to match her blue dress. Her smoky eyes still had the same old innocent wet gleam. Her radiance shone through her cheeks even in the dark.
'Nandini you recognized me!''You almost scared the life out of me!!…
What are you doing here!!''
I could ask you that too.''
I am on my way home from my job.''
What sort of job is this, at this hour?''
My my, you still ask a lot of questions. Don't you? I work at a callcenter in Mira road.
'You…! You… in a call center!'
She replied with her teasing eyes. ' Why…? Can't that be?'
'Of course it can be…it could be…I mean…it's just difficult you know,after all these years, when I see you, you working in a call center and all…imagine the Nandini I knew, the perilous girl, cynosure of all the eyes, with all the boys behind her.'
'People change Chandu, I have changed, the world has changed.'
'I can see that.'
'But I see you haven't changed; you still haven't given up drinking. Have you?"
Chandu tried to cover his mouth slightly.
'It's all right; it's not a big deal. Do you still gamble?'
'No.'
'You dropped out of college in eleventh because of all this right?'
"No no, not that. Listen! Lets not go there, but I am happy for you.'
'Oh Chandu, I am sorry.'
'No no, Really! Good going.'
'Thanks.'
'How long have you been working here?'
'Oh just three days! Actually I have just joined, earlier I was at one in Borivali.'
'Great. And when did you move to Nalasopara?'
'It's been a few years, actually after baba retired." She suddenly held his hands and cast her eager eyes on to him.'Listen you shouldn't have left, I used to miss you a bit. I was kind of angry."
''Really."
''Ya."
''Actually I used to think about you too.'Now her eyes looked down softly, while her lips pressed to suppress a smile. Then suddenly…'Shit!! I am late. My mother doesn't sleep till I reach home.''I wish…''
Ya, I wish we had time too.''Do you go home everyday at this time?''
Yes, will you…'
'I will come tomorrow also then.'Her face lit up.
'Bye then.'
'Bye…'
Chandu stood there watching her go around the corner looking back at him and vanish. As she took the corner Nandini had a surprised look on her face. She had always known, Chandu had a thing for her, everybody did, but she hadn't thought that after all these years, he would still be in love with her, back then of course, he never had the guts to spill it out.


Birju Shetty wouldn't arrive for another half an hour. While Chandu dreamt. This deal would get him enough money to make a fresh beginning. Maybe she still liked him. Ah… his possibilities were endless. Would she marry him? He would change himself. It was their destiny, they were meant to be, otherwise they would not have met tonight.
Birju Shetty recognized him, but was surprised. He said 'Hi'. They shook hands, but then Birju saw Chandu's eyes go wide as if he had seen a ghost behind him. By the time Birju turned behind to see, Chandu had drawn his pistol and placed it at his right temple. Only one shot was all it took. Chandu didn't want to see him in the eye while doing it.Birju fell like a tree and Chandu vanished within no time.
Madan Shetty was at his dance bar in the evening when Chandu came. He received a warm welcome. 'You have removed a big pain off my butt; the rascal in spite of being my cousin was wrecking my business. 'Here.' A big bundle was thrown to him.
'You are yet to see your actual reward.'
He called his doorman.
"Mumtaz ko bol ready hone."
'She is my latest catch. An expert. She's already everybody's favourite. Go to the room, she'll be waiting.' He pointed with a grin.
Chandu thought, that he might as well enjoy his final reward.
Mumtaz was waiting on the bed, with her back to the door, in a bright red backless choli. When she turned to see Chandu. The horror in her eyes drained her face,
Chandu startled,'Nandini……… you!!!!!'