railway station delhi

15 august, 2009 : delhi

discovery of a cozy place by a street child

Bike booking

True, I am a great procrastinator but another quality also attributed to me.  very few people know about it. I am not interested to brief this quality.  I just want to add another story in list of events of my life. It is true that my life is eventless. But this eventless life becomes eventful because of my lazy bum. Today I bought third railway reservation ticket in a consequence. I could not board train day before yesterday because I had not readied my luggage. the same day in the morning I had decided to go home and book the  bike in the same train. So I almost took the whole day in the process.

While I was going to railway station to complete the booking process my mind was occupied by something. I could not see the red light signal at the ashoka hotel and I jumped the light. Traffic police reckoned me to stop but I did not pay any heed to them thinking that they are indicating the lorry driver then that was next to me. This is common practice in India particularly in delhi that lorry drivers are stopped at many places for checking by traffic police. Though the intention of there is known to any lay man. Interestingly they also keep a note of rs. ten in their pocket to smoothen the traffic flow. I don’t want to discuss the interactions between lorry men and traffic police. By the way I stopped and paid a fine of rs. 100.

At the railway station in new delhi I had some experience how India functions. The illegal agents who works as touts are very smart in taking cognizance of their clients. Specially they are very adapt in identifying the customers who are new/not experienced or who want hassle free service. Money to them is not a big deal. So in their case touts are boon. They leave everything to them and assured of every thing. But people like me can’t afford to pay twice or thrice to enjoy the service of touts. The booking officer demanded many papers to complete the process. I realized that some of the required documents I did not have and others I had got the Xerox copy. When I was checking my documents I found that my bike registration card is missing. I my mind became blank as if power went off and room became jet black. Drops of perspiration started streaming down from my forehead. I said to myself cool! cool! Take your life in control. Control yourself! What maximum could happen. This kind of reasoning brought some sigh. I had got its Xerox few minutes back so I reasoned out that I have lost it. I might have left it at Xerox centre. I dashed off to cannaught place, where I have got the Xerox done. I was lucky the document was there on the screen where it is put for Xerox. I gave me immense happiness. When I went to the booking officer with all the required documents, he gave me nod to go for packing. Earlier he had denied on the ground that I had no confirm berth in the train instead it was a waiting. I told him my designation then he had agreed and asked me to get the bike packed. I took the bike and came out of the booking office. I was intercepted by many people for the packing. I was confused where to go. I left it to the situation to take control me. Finally a boy, who appears to be in his 30s I yielded to his insistence pleading. When he got in his job I realized that he was not in his full consciousness. He might have been drug addict. His age would hardly have been 17 or 18. he was looking wretched wrapped in a rag. His pant would have been blue in colour but was appearing dark grey or black. It was greased and was out of size. He must have found it as discarded somewhere. I can say this with surety because the pant was bearing a sticker of reputed international brand. His shirt was half opened. It had two buttons imperfect shape and another was half broken. But one was at the lower end of shirt which was buttoned. On the top of it was a half and third one was intact at the color. Almost all of his chest was visible. It was very thin as if a chest of lower school kid. Hair was long and locks were coming upto his eyes. He had to push them back on his head so as to have clear sight. His mustache was not fully grown. Hairs of it were very thin and were looking silky.

He was not working satisfactorily still I got interested in his work. however I kept reminding him that he was not packing properly. While he used to say “ sir jee nothing will be damaged in the transportation. Have trust. Before packing he emptied the petrol tank in a bottle. This petrol was confiscated by another man. He seems to be a person employed at the scooter parking. Moreover, he took another bottle and manage to squeeze some fuel by giving jerk and tilting the bike. Meanwhile a police man came over and started abusing him, saying mother fucker!, sister fucker! You rotten brat. ‘How do you pack here?’ you bloody lousy! You create nuisance here. You earn money for buying drugs. While, he continuously refuted the charges and exonerated himself by saying that he works to pay school fee of his younger brother. The constable was right in one aspect. He knew that that lousy brat spent all his earning in drugs. It seems convincing also. If he had really had to take care of his brother how could he indulge in drug addiction.

I asked him, why was constable abusing you? He replied that major chunk of his earning is appropriated by him an he accused him that he had packed another bike whose share he had not given. He had become little friendly and had started dousing my quest regarding the surrounding where he works. Though I showed interest in this new world but in reality I wanted my work done faster. I was not paying attention to some of his responses. He kept twittering and rattling on some queries. Moreover he was mumbling, sometime fumbling for words. His tongue and lips were not harmonized so voice were not clear sometime. Whereas I had to dart off to my room and I had to readied my luggage. all these circumstances made me to loose interest in this unforgetful creature and move ahead. He finished my work and I paid him the agreed money for the work. However, the incidence of his interface with the constable chased me throughout my journey. Finally I decided to lock him up in my diary so as to keep him alive.

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