Journey Delayed by 15 hrs.

Punctuality: the virtue admired by all of us is almost absent in Indian Railways. It was the day ,when I was to leave Varanasi to be at Dhanbad.

Arrival time of the train was 9:00p.m.It was initially delayed by 10 hrs. This meant that there was going to be no trace of 3308 till 7 morning. At least!

I returned home only to be back at station at 6 morning next day. There I learnt that there was further delay of 2 hrs.

Winter nights usually extend to 7 a.m. Inspired by Harsh Mander ,I took this opportunity to observe the dark underbelly of city residing on platforms.

Most beggars were sleeping at that time. Some were awake to start a new day.

I overheard a conversation among a group of 3 beggars.

Beggar 1: Hurry up you two bozos. Mahanagri Express is about to arrive in 10 minutes.

Beggar 2(shocked):What?Let’s move to platform 4 soon. It carries a lot of passengers & foreign tourists too.

Beggar3:OK.Afterwards we will move head for Rajdhani on platform 1,it also pours in a lot of tourists.

Beggar1:Good! Each one of us will make about 300-400 today.

They moved swiftly to platform 4.

My mind echoed their words. My God! Begging provides oneRs.300 a day. Damn it. Is this what Harsh Mander called ‘the dark underbelly’?No work altogether!Just go to people ,cry and pocket the money! They even don’t seem to care about their future generations.They drag them too into it.One could make a decent life with 300 rupees in a city like Varanasi.Where do they spend the whole money?

An announcement broke my thought process.The train was further delayed by 3 hrs.It meant a total delay of 15 hrs.3308 will arrive at 12 noon.So,it was the time to yawn and curse Indian Railways.

Suddenly I was worried about my luggage. I forgot about it during the whole process. Thankfully, it was safe near the bench some yards away. Nobody had touched it.

A child beggar came to me, begging for a rupee. I abused him to move ahead.