"chal changa fir" I said to shashi who had come to drop me at railway station. It was 4'o clock in the morning. My train was to leave at 4:15. It was quite pleasant breeze blowing at that time, though days are quite hotter in pune in the month of May, the pre-monsoon month. I had booked tatkal ticket in sleeper class. I knew it would feel scorching hot in a non-AC coach after being used to conditioned air for past three years. Entered the station premises with the usual unceasing crowing of the people around. Suddenly stirred up the fears that time had done well to dispel. I remember when I was in train the last time.
I was in mumbai many times for my interviews in b-schools just after the 26/11 carnage. I had to travel by mumbai local train. Things were not the same for me after that traumatic expreience. Though most of us watched it on television, it left wounded everyone. My eyes fixating on the washroom doors at CST as I quailed at the thought of seeing some kasabs popping out, flauting their AK-47s and slaughtering all of us indiscriminately. I scurried across the platforms to board my train. U never know when any of the choked up coaches would be in flames with the explosives. I was mulling over it throughout my journeys in the local trains. I was very vigil what was happening around. My body sprangled with big beads of perspiration, but I still had to fulfill my obligations as a citizen. Making sure no suspicious baggage is left beneath me or my fellow passengers. I wonder if this was my cowardice to apprehend like this or my job to police. But both ways, I knew who was suffering.
I felt very unfortunate for us to be traumatized like this. We have no peace of mind while travelling in these cities. Absolutely no security in our own den. Fortunately my interviews were over and I was back in pune, only metro city not victimized yet. Then I pondered over the reason behind the attacks. All were enraged against pakistan for its wicked acts. I know how we were ready for a decisive war against pakistan after 26/11, though it would be fatal for both sides. Calling the shots were the fundamentalists in pakistan and a handful of pak leaders. When it came to censuring, the whole pakistan became synonymous with those people and in fact the whole religion. The decision from muslim community not to bury the terrorists in mumbai was encouraging but couldn't mollify the execration of non muslims. Their religion, innately having some evils many think, has earned a bad name in the past decades and it's getting worse than ever. Religion , supposed to be a very personal affair, has become the basis for the wars of our time.
There came my train, 20 minutes late. Lalu's profit making wagon had arrived. Thank God he has been sunk in the last general elections. I got one of the newest of the seats in the coach, the newly added berth between side upper and side lower berths, the most inconvenient one. Anybody will make profit with such preposterous innovations. I chained my bag with the security hook beneath the lowest berth. Others in my compartment were already snoring. One doesn't have the luxury of bedding in sleeper class. I dusted the grimy berth with my hands. And laid prostrate.
"Allah-hu-Akbar, Allah-hu-Akbar" I , bit drowsy, heard something like this. I wondered where it came from. I woke up to saw. It was around 5'o clock. It was two Muslims standing erect in a peculiar direction. They were practicing their first namaaz of the day. I heard somewhere that it was their religious duty to do it 5 times a day. One of the two wore a black turban and other one a white muslim cap. Both wore white kurta-pyazama. Both had full grown beard. I conjured the repeatedly shown footage of similarly dressed up talibans with weapons in their hands. The image has been ossified as one of a terrorist by the media. The supplication was over and the two people moved away. Before I could sense it was over, there came another pair dressed in the same fashion and started their namaaz as well. I then noticed they were around 7-8 in that compartment. All came in pairs and performed their namaaz standing on the same sheet and in the same direction. I was trying to sleep but couldn't. The rummy site put me into swithers for some time. I guessed it may be their last namaaz before they executed some heinous act. I noticed whatever they did and slept after all of them were lying on their berths.
The mornings in trains are always indolent rendering u catch ur breath; not allowing u to chase ur destiny; putting off ur perpetual comeptition with the peers; avoiding ur spanking ur soul to meet deadlines; not intimidating as ur boss in the meetings. My eyes suddenly went to the same compartment. There were 8 of those. All in kurta pyazamas. The kurtas were with shortened sleeves and pyazamas with short lengths. All looked squalid at first sight from their dirty clothes and unpleasant countenances. One wearning the black turban was reading aloud a religious book written in a language greek to me. He was reading aloud the content and elucidating it to the 7 others who were keenly listening, sometimes even raising queries. It looked like they are from a madrassa as all were too much into the religion. Then came the time for second namaaz. Same process repeated. But the direction was different this time. I later found that they stand in the direction of Qibla, the holy Ka'bah, which is situated in Makkah. The train veered sharply towards right while the namaaz was going on. The direction of Qibla, so I realized, was just a faith. My body shranked again to make sitting space for another one of the many hucksters queueing up in our compartment; waiting for the standing duo to finish their proceedings; grumbling about the occlusion for obvious reasons. Hunting for the way were a few passengers; some young n some old. The ire on their faces was more than palpable. Their wrath of course had some stimulus from their animosity towards the religion. I suddenly imagined a peckish hindu man storming in, unable to brook the hindrance, started mistreating those pious aliens and incited something undesirable.
The day passed taking note of the exotic things some of us witnessed. They did it five times that day. And rest of time they tried to get closer to almighty's eden reading its texts. A third thing they did that day was to eat rice. They ate only rice in all their meals and I wonder if poor people gobble their food keeping their tongues from tasting it. I thought, for a moment, how better we are to afford the pricey chicken biryanis. How hard their life may be, I could see through their dedication; allegiance to their writings. I question myself how they can afford time to think of any malevolence out of their busy schedule of namaaz and more they also needed time to earn their share of rice.
As I flaked out I grew sympathetic towards them not only because of the wretched condition they were in but the onerous disgrace they, along with their religion, carried. How it happened that I couldn't think of them as orthodox mortals, my instincts could determine everyone of them as terrorist, why their beard boded something calamitous, why their piousness reassured the evil. How the hatred sourced from the psyche of some brutal leaders like hitlers, jinnahs, saddams and bushes of course spreads quickly and petrifies in our heads. How we can't see victims as mere humans and terrorists as mere devils rather than identifying them with their religion. I unknowigly have been making the rivulet more acidulous. So been u. And so ve been they all. It's now upto us to sweeten it. It will take a long time I know but only this can counter those few satanic leaders putting hatred in our minds to emote us into doing what is utterly baseless. We may have shelved veds, granths, qurans or bibles in our dwellings but our religion for this world is humanity. Let's try it once, break the veil of hatred, look around with unconditional and unending love, and fill the rivulet with everlasting sweetness. So that the tree of world it leads to yields something sweet that till now has been shelling out nothing but a sour fruit.
