The Stranded Phantom (standard:Psychological fiction, 3154 words)
Author: Khurki	Added: Apr 16 2005	Views/Reads: 3361/2486	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
His predicament was part tragedy, part farce. I wondered why he stayed on in that hell when he helped me escape it.

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I figured the kiosk owner's name was Lukkha. 

‘What kind of name is IIT?' I exclaimed under my breath. 

‘I don't know for sure, but they say he used to study at IIT, where
people learn engineering to go to foreign countries and earn dollars. 
But, I can't believe that. He is a junkie, a drug peddler, and a slave 
driver. I have heard stories that he sodomises boys and kills them by 
pushing them under the moving trains if they protest ...' he replied. 

‘What's his actual name?' I asked. 

‘Shankar. But everybody addresses him as IIT. The boys refer to him as
phantom. He is inscrutable and scary like one,' he replied; then added, 
‘Let's get going before he returns and claps our ears.' 

‘Wait a second,' I whispered to the boy, ‘where does Lukkha store things
... such as clothes?' 

The boy sniggered and whispered back, ‘So he took your clothes too. Now
if you want to leave this place, you have to walk out in these beggars' 
uniform only. And, don't bother asking Lukkha for your clothes or 
anything else you deposited with him. Those are his insurance. I am 
told one boy had complained to the police about Lukkha's drug business 
but the boy himself went to jail as the police found his shirt at the 
scene of theft in a shop outside the station.' 

I shuddered. But, this information made me more determined to reclaim my
belongings and leave as soon as possible. While I swept and cleaned 
through the morning I kept trying to figure out a way to bullshit 
Lukkha into returning my clothes and books. But I could not come up 
with anything convincing. I told myself to be patient. 

A couple of days went by and my revulsion towards Lukkha and Shankar
multiplied as I saw them drive the boys to the limits of their energies 
and tolerance. I witnessed how relentless pressure and control can 
drain a human being of capacity to think for himself. The boys carried 
on slogging despite curses and beatings without any real resistance. 

On my third day at the kiosk, I was promoted from being the lowly
cleaning boy to the position of mobile tea-seller. Lukkha said he liked 
the fact that I spoke nicely to the customers and he could use that 
skill in selling more tea to the passengers. My new job involved 
running along the halting trains shouting ‘Hot Tasty Tea', pouring tea 
in tiny plastic cups, remembering who ordered how many cups of tea, 
collecting payments, returning change, and depositing the revenue with 
Lukkha or Shankar. It was a challenging job for body and mind both. I 
had to run from window to window with a foot-high steel flask filled 
with hot tea on one arm and a tower of disposable cups on the other, 
pour tea, chase payments, and handle money too. And, at least 
twenty-five trains halted at the platform between dawn and midnight 
everyday. 

The nights continued to be short, yet I stole opportunities to make
friends. It made the labour a bit more bearable. I found one of them, 
Tyagi Driver, treating me more considerately than the rest. Tyagi was 
from Rohtak near Delhi and for that reason he looked at me like someone 
from home. ‘I didn't run away. My father threw me out of the house for 
driving his truck into a pond near our house,' he told me. But that was 
not the only offence of the thirteen-year old Tyagi. He had tried 
driving a Haryana Roadways bus that had been brought to the workshop in 
the neighbourhood and had rammed that into the nearby marble shop, 
making his father cough up substantial damages. ‘I wanted to become a 
truck driver. But now, having spent eight months on this railway 
station, I am thinking of trying out train engines instead. Of course, 
nobody else wants me too,' he said and laughed. 

I enquired about Shankar from him too. I had become more curious about
Shankar as I had seen him betray a softer side of his crusty persona. I 
had seen him light up while chatting about computerization of railways 
or sports or books. I had seen him borrowing books and magazines from 
the neighbouring AH Wheeler shop and flipping through those. Arthur 
Hailey seemed to be his favourite author. Occasionally he brought 
Asterix comics and even allowed me to have a sneak peak in them. 

‘Is this thing about Shankar being a paedophile and murderer true?' I
asked Tyragi. 

‘Absolute bunkum! Lukkha has spread stories to keep the boys in line,'
he replied. 

‘Why doesn't Shankar correct the impression about him?' 

‘Why should he? It suits him fine that the kids fear him, which keeps
them from taking liberties with him.' 

‘But why is he so nasty with the boys?' 

‘He hates himself and he suspects that everybody else hates him, except
Lukkha, who appreciates him in his present state; and since he can't 
bite his own butt, he bites others.' 

I laughed and asked Tyagi what did he mean. 

‘Hmm ... this IIT was not a bad guy when I first saw him six months
back. He used to come to the platform on the weekends and teach math 
and English to the urchins here. But he made a terrible mistake in 
befriending Lukkha. Actually, it's not Lukkha's mistake. IIT was too 
arrogant for his own good. He taught platform kids because he believed 
he could change the world and not because it was good for the children. 
When Lukkha started giving him free smack powder to mix with the 
tobacco in his cigarettes, he “tried” it; when Lukkha started charging 
him for the same, he said he could “dump” the “dust” any time he wanted 
to; and, when he began to borrow money from Lukkha to buy his fix, he 
maintained he was going to “divorce the bitch” and return Lukkha's 
money. But within a couple of months of befriending Lukkha, Shankar was 
thrown out by his college as well as his parents, and he turned up to 
live here at the station. Bloody moron!' Tyagi said. 

The teenaged school dropout passing judgement on the much older IIT
dropout seemed odd to me. ‘You seem to feel sorry for him,' I said. 

Tyagi advised me to mind my own business and stay away from that
“demented dervish”. 

But then on I couldn't resist wanting to get on talking terms with
Shankar. I tried to chat with him about cricket and contribution of the 
neighbouring Shivaji Park to Indian cricket. He dismissed me with a 
stare of his sunken yet fierce eyes. Then I tried asking him for tips 
to clear IIT entrance examination: he ignored me completely. I wrote 
down the one of the math problems that I had mucked up in my test on 
the back of a paper napkin and passed that on to him. To my surprise, 
he didn't tear up the paper though he gestured me to get lost. When I 
returned after selling tea on the next train, he gave me a piece of 
paper with the solution to the problem. My attempt to thank him was 
ignored with equal disdain. 

Though I was beginning to feel a bit settled because of Tyagi and my
improved perception of Shankar, I kept thinking of getting out of that 
squalid world. But the unrelenting grind of chasing faces pressed 
against the bars of coach windows, selling tea, collecting money, 
refilling flask, and doing it twenty-five times over in a day was 
crushing me. It barely gave me time to plot my escape. Worse, by the 
fifth day I was feeling worn out and sick. But on railway platforms 
there is no provision for sick leaves. You work till you drop. But, the 
sickness came as a blessing in disguise for me, as between trains I was 
allowed to go atop the kiosk and lie down to rest. Being there alone 
presented a good opportunity to steal my clothes back. I had guessed 
that Lukkha stored everybody's stuff in the trunk kept on the kiosk's 
roof as there was no place to store anything in the kiosk itself. 

There was no way to steal the key to the big padlock on the trunk as
Lukkha tied his keys to the waiststring of his pajama. I tried prising 
open the lock using the fire poker lying on the roof of the kiosk. That 
made the matters worse as the lock didn't break but I scratch the box 
and the lock quite extensively. Fortunately, the noise of the milling 
crowd suppressed the racket I made while doing so. I waited for Lukkha 
to find out about my endeavour and punish me. But nothing happened 
until a day later. 

The next day Lukkha discontinued my rooftop rest breaks between trains.
‘If you get soft with one for a while, they will all be on your back, 
screwing you, in no time,' was his wisdom behind that decision. I 
continued my tea-selling drill, moving like a zombie, almost looking 
forward to fainting. The hopelessness and drudgery had robbed me of 
even the thought of faking unconsciousness. However, by the end of the 
day, my drone-like will to work on was replaced with reckless defiance. 
I ignored all remonstrations of Lukkha as I dumped the steel tea flask 
and plastic cups on the kiosk counter and climbed up the ladder to the 
roof to lie down and rest. 

But what I saw on the roof revived me instantly. I saw my school uniform
and books stacked up neatly on top of the locked trunk. I did not 
bother with who or how of it. I promptly changed into my own clothes; 
it felt good; I felt blood rushing to my head and limbs. I felt free 
again. Thoughts of home came surging back to me: for the first time in 
days I imagined my parents faces–I saw my inconsolable mother's 
exhausted face and my father's sorry yet defiant visage. I wished I 
could be home in that instant. I looked at the station clock; it showed 
eight o'clock. Dehradoon Express was about to arrive at Dadar on its 
way to Delhi and beyond. I tucked my books under arm, climbed down the 
ladder and walked towards the farther end of the platform where 
unreserved coaches would stop. I ignored the kiosk and its occupants as 
if I had never known them. 

I suppose nobody recognized me in my school uniform as they got used to
seeing me in shoddy, worn out T-shirt and shorts. I must have looked 
like another middle class boy trying to spot my family in the melee of 
the passengers' crowd. I stationed myself where I wanted to be without 
any problems. 

The train arrived at its due time and I climbed into the most crowded
coach. I had a theory that the greater the density of crowd in a coach, 
the less the chance of ticket inspectors bothering with it. I decided 
to hang around the toilets just in case I needed to dive into one of 
them if need arose. 

Suddenly, I felt a snatch at my collar. A hand grabbed my collar first
and then my neck and pulled me back towards the door of the coach. The 
hand belonged to Lukkha who was trying to drag me off the train. ‘Where 
do you think you are going, you thief? I will fix you good for stealing 
from me,' he shouted theatrically to prevent people from saving me. I 
tried to shake off his grip, but he was too strong for me. 

Lukkha pulled me out of the coah and dragged me near the gap between it
and the next coach. The sight of glistening rails pressed under the 
weight of train's wheels filled me with a sense of foreboding. ‘Return 
my brown packet or I will have IIT throw you under this very train. I 
thought you were from a good family but you stole from me and that too 
my precious brown package,' he screamed at me as he shook me by my 
collar. Nobody came to my help; either because they thought I was 
getting a well-deserved treatment or they just didn't care. 

The train whistled to warn people that it was about to move. I
desperately lunged to get rid of Lukkha's grip but he quickly regained 
control of me. He hit me on my face and head, and as the train budged, 
he started pushing me into the gap between the coaches. I bit his hand, 
but he didn't let go of me. Then, I saw the lean frame of Shankar tower 
over Lukkha. He grabbed Lukkha's free arm and twisted it till Lukkha 
screamed in pain and released me. 

‘Jump into the train, kid! Go home and never again stray anywhere near a
place like this,' Shankar hollered at me. 

‘What's got into you, IIT? Leave my hand! Don't let that thief get away;
he's got your stuff,' Lukkha pleaded with Shankar. 

‘I have taken the stuff myself and you'll get your money,' Shankar told
Lukkha and pinned him to the platform floor. 

The train was beginning to accelerate and I jumped into the coach in
front of me. I hung out at the door and watched them wrestle until I 
lost them behind the crowd on the platform. I could not help worrying 
about the diabolical Lukkha implicating Shankar into some crime and 
getting him jailed or even getting his criminal chums to bump him off. 
The thought that nothing so dramatic might follow my escape and they 
might return to their routine lives also crossed my mind. But I could 
not be sure and I worried on through my journey back home. 

I prayed for Shankar. I wished he himself did what he told me to and
helped me do. I wished he could see the farce of his tragedy; forgave 
himself and others; and returned to where he belonged. 


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