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Translated from Bengali by Hiranmoy Lahiri

I arrived late at the station, and my heart almost stopped at the sight of the crowd at the ticket counter: a huge queue, coiled three times over, stretched from there to the enquiry office. After a quick, helpless glance at the clock, I immediately planted myself firmly at the tail-end of the long and winding python of a queue. Otherwise, I would have rapidly fallen even further behind.

Within three minutes, the tail of the line grew by another three metres.

Seeing the situation, many people began to grovel to those who were standing closest to the ticket counter, drenched in sweat: “Hey there, since you’re already buying a ticket for yourself, why don’t you get me two tickets to Uluberia…”

“One ticket for me too, for Kolaghat.”

The person being pleaded with responded, “I can’t do that. I’m already busy trying to buy one for myself…No, no, why are you blabbering on like that? Go on, stand in the queue yourself. Trying to flatter people does not suit me.”

The clock had already struck eleven. The Nagpur Passenger would depart at twenty past eleven, within twenty minutes. There was a massive queue still in front of me. I did not believe I would make it in time.

Ten more minutes flew by. The queue looked the same as before. There was absolutely no discernible difference, at least not one that could be detected with the naked eye. It took them forever to issue a single ticket. At this rate, it would easily have been one-thirty in the afternoon before my turn came. Not even a fraction of this queue would have diminished by eleven-thirty.

I had a considerable amount of luggage and some women, too. Otherwise, I might have given up. Also, there were no more trains for the rest of the day.

Right as I was reflecting on all of this, the queue broke up. I saw people dashing desperately toward the next ticket counter. No one had the time to explain to me what was going on. It was at that moment that I noticed that the counter at which I was standing in line had closed its shutter. I ran to the counter next to me. A significant extent of pushing, shoving, and scuffling was taking place. People who were at the tail-end of the previous queue were now jostling to be at the front of the current one.

One person shouted in a Hindi accent, “Are you saying you were standing here? Be careful, I tell you!”
“Beware!”
“Mind your words!”
“I’ll show you, you scoundrel!”

Within moments, the situation became chaotic, and blows were exchanged. A flood of unspeakable language poured out from both sides.

It was a struggle, but I finally secured my spot in the queue behind seven or eight people. After ten minutes, it was finally my turn to stand in front of the ticket window. But on hearing my destination, the memsahib immediately said, “Not here, number twenty.”

Where on earth was I supposed to find that? Nope, there was no way I was going to catch that train. There was no time left. Although I had put in a lot of effort to be in front of this queue, it made no difference at all. It took a lot of searching, but I found the counter number twenty. There was a queue there as well, but it was not too long. Someone there said to me, “Where are you going, sir? Please get me one to Kharagpur…” My mood had turned sour. I replied rudely, “Why are you bothering me?”

I handed a rupee note to the memsahib, who promptly threw it back. “No change. Get lost.”
I replied, feeling extremely mortified and nervous, “Yes, madam. Sorry, madam. Here, my change, madam.”

I fumbled clumsily to get ten annas out of my pocket. Suddenly, a beseeching request came from somewhere near my elbow: “Babu, if you can get me a ticket to Mecheda…there’s a little boy with me. I can’t squeeze through the crowd. I tried to, twice.”

By then, I was no longer in my right mind. I replied, “Go away.”
“Get me a ticket, Babu. I tried to, twice…”
“It’s not going to happen. Get out of here,” I said, switching to Hindi in my anger.

After closing the chapter on buying a ticket, I desperately rushed to catch the train. I loaded the women’s belongings onto the train first because it looked as if it was going to be quite difficult for me to get on the train myself.

The train was full. On top of that, people had become heartless, rude, and animal-like. They were too cautious about looking out for their belongings and too busy looking for a place to sit. I had been on this train countless times before, and I had experienced an abundance of compassion and affection from the passengers. I remember once a lady had taken some food out of her basket, arranged it on a plate and had her husband bring it to me. As he placed the plate in front of me, he politely said, “Please have something to eat.”

We had journeyed from Howrah station in the same inter-class coach and sat on the same bench. However, we had never exchanged words. The incident where they had offered me breakfast happened the following morning when the train stopped at Kiul station.

I had said sheepishly, “Oh no, no. Why all this fuss for me? You are supposed to eat this.”

“No, I wouldn’t hear of it. You must eat. There won’t be any food on a station like this, but we’ve got plenty. Please help yourself to some.”

Where have those days gone? Nowadays, a puffy, fried bread, or puri, costs an anna and is only three inches wide. It’s so tiny that it resembles a kachori. Where did the brotherhood of man disappear?

A crowd of beggars gathered outside the train window. One gaunt woman with a small boy in her arms pleaded with us, “Babu, must we suffer like this when you can help us? We haven’t eaten all day. Spare us some money.”

Someone said, “Where am I going to get the money from, eh? A maund of rice costs forty rupees now. It’s the end for everyone. Go away. I can’t help you.”

There was a skinny man with a greedy look, begging by showing his dirty poite or ‘sacred thread’ to everyone. I could hear him approaching from across the compartment, seeking alms. Supposedly, he was facing countless challenges at home. His elderly mother was bedridden, and his wife and son were starving to death. I felt my anger and irritation rise the closer he approached. “Where do you think you’re going?” I snapped at him as he came near me, “Can’t you see there’s no room in this crowd? I have no spare change to give you – couldn’t even buy myself a cup of tea for lack of change.”

As the crowd in the compartment increased, all the doors were pushed shut to stop anyone else from entering. Some people tried to force their way in through the windows, leading to occasional brawls.

“Hey, could you move over a bit?”
“Where to exactly? Oh great, so now you are sitting on me!”
“And what about you taking up all the space? Can’t you see there’s a crowd?”
“So that justifies you sitting on me? What a gentleman!”
“Don’t you dare insult me; I am warning you!”
“Oh! And why? Are you Nawab Khanjah Khan or something? Why should I be afraid? You don’t own me.”
“Beware! Watch your tongue. Don’t use that tone with me! I’ll smack you so hard that…”

Soon after, a full-blown war broke out, with one person wielding a broken umbrella and the other with clenched fists. Other people in the compartment immediately tried to get between the two of them, desperately trying to stop the fight. Pieces of valuable advice were given. Comments such as “We are all on this train for such a short time, why fight? Listen to me, people are going to get off at Andul station,” were heard.

The train continued on its way past factories, people’s houses and paddy fields. At the stations, people would hang from the handles outside the compartment. Often, one or two persons were known to have fallen to their death. As we made our way toward each new station, we were greeted by massive crowds at every stop. Platforms were packed with people from one end to the other; women and men frantically racing about with trunks, bundles, bags, earthen pots full of molasses, sacks full of stolen rice, umbrellas, and sticks, trying to get on the train at any cost.

In our compartment, twice as many people were standing as there were sitting.

“Move on; the next one is not crowded,” was said to anyone trying to get into our compartment. Some people fell for this false promise and moved on. Some people pointed out its inaccuracy and said, “That’s not true, Babu. Go and see for yourself. Not even an ant could squeeze through into the next compartment. Please open the door; this is the only train for the whole day and night.” A bearded Sikh gentleman was our gatekeeper. “Move on to the next compartment,” he bellowed.

Meanwhile, a Muslim man, wearing a lungi and sporting a trimmed moustache, was trying to make his way down from the top tier to the lower tier by swinging his legs. His first attempts were thwarted by the crowd, so he resorted to climbing down by almost placing his feet on someone’s shoulders. Tall and slim, the man’s face gave off an air of wickedness. As I looked at him, he seemed to embody all the discord, disputes, and cruelty I had witnessed today. He sat down on the front bench calmly and nonchalantly and darkened the whole place with the smoke from his cheap cigarette.

Every conversation that took place in the compartment went something like this: “Excuse me, how much does rice cost where you’re from?”

“Forty rupees. And in your locality?”
“The last time I saw it, it was thirty-two and a half.”
“Which place?”
“Towards the south – Diamond Harbour.”
“People will starve to death.”

The man from Diamond Harbour replied, “Will die? They are already dying. Just that day, some impoverished women from our village came to me and said: we are going to dig out all the taro from your forest and pluck the new leaves from your wax apple trees.”
Someone asked, “I didn’t know you could eat the leaves of the wax apple tree?”
“You bet they can. Just go and see for yourself. You’ll probably find that there are no leaves left on those trees and that they’ve eaten up all the wax apple leaves in the entire country.”
Another person reported, “Two more beggars were found dead on a footpath near Sealdah this morning.”
“Is this news to you? Several of them die every day. Yesterday, an old woman died gasping for breath in front of our shop in the control rice queue at the Baithakkhana bazaar.”
“What kind of shop do you have?”
“A detergent shop. I’m getting off at this station, let go of my bag…even flattened rice is two rupees per seer.”

I remembered that where I grew up, there used to be women of the Sadgope caste who sold flattened rice at two annas per seer. Murki, or sweetened parched rice, was four annas for a seer. It was delicious. Will those days ever return?

The train stopped at some station or the other. The Sikh man rose to his feet. It was time to shut the door firmly and prevent any more passengers from boarding. Another wave of chaos erupted, marked by shouting, cursing, pleading and threatening howls. Outside the platform, a small boy was screaming.

In spite of his desperate attempts, a man who was trying to get in through the window was pushed back by the people inside, and the window was quickly shut. I thought to myself, “Serves you right for trying to get in through the window!”

Faced with a crisis, the spirit had turned cold and merciless. It no longer wanted to care about the well-being or difficulties of others.

At one railway station, there was nothing to see but an endless expanse of water. I tried to find out and asked, “What’s this? A flood?”

Someone else said: “It’s the flooding of the Koshi river. So many rice fields are now underwater. Two villages were completely flooded.”

The Sikh gatekeeper answered, “Not a chance. Go to the next compartment. That one’s empty.”

Another asked, “Won’t everything be completely washed away? The weather warning said that it would be…”
A voice from the corner said, “Keep your weather warning to yourself. Downright liars, all of them.” The man was evidently disappointed not to witness the cataclysm that was mentioned in the warning.

The aforementioned lungi-clad man sat up alertly and said, “Babu, a kind of fever has broken out in Nandigram, where we live. Those who catch it die within three or four days. Last year, there was a storm in Aswin. This year, besides the flood, there is also a fever outbreak. You see, my twenty-two-year-old son…” As he said this, the man suddenly started weeping uncontrollably.
“What happened to your son?”
“What else, Babu? He is no more. I am returning to my village after hearing this news. I work in a factory in Kolkata; last year our house was destroyed by a storm. Now, this year, my twenty-two-year-old son…”

He started sobbing again. As if under a magical spell, the people in the compartment suddenly fell silent. The Sikh gatekeeper had stopped his bellowing. Some people sitting near him tried to comfort him. The sound of his crying was filled with helplessness.

“Don’t cry. What’s the use of shedding tears? Ah, only twenty-two years old. Life and death are beyond anyone’s control, brother. Come on now, light this cigarette.”

It was as if the atmosphere of the whole carriage had changed in an instant when the tears of a grieving father flowed. The shameless struggle and desire to hold on to even the tiniest of spaces ceased altogether.

“Move over here. There’s space on this side.”

A small boy had been standing with a bottle of coconut oil in his hand for quite some time. At long last, someone finally reached for his hand and said, “Sit over here, child. We’ll make some space somehow.”

As I looked at the face of the lungi-clad man I had previously assumed to be a gang leader, I now felt pity and compassion. There was an ill-fated father; perhaps his son could have provided him with support in his old age. Maybe he was the only child he had. How the sound of his crying had surprisingly changed the atmosphere in the compartment. The barbarism, cruelty, and ruthless selfishness I witnessed from the Howrah station onwards only depicted a vivid image of man’s bestial nature. However, the tears of this man managed to erase all of it completely. It was as if the people were ashamed of what was an insult to humanity. Everybody seemed to be vigilant.

The next stop came. The man was to get off here. There was an old, bearded man sitting in the compartment’s corner. He said, “Are you going to get off here? All right, my son, may the Lord bring peace to your heart. I am an old Brahmin; I bless you. Good luck will come your way; it will come your way.”
 

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ⁱAswin refers to the sixth month of the Bengali calendar