A Stranger at Platform No.8

 

Rohan was sitting on the platform near his luggage looking over the running trains on the bustling platform. It was a breezy afternoon. The wind lifted his hair from the back of the neck. Rohan was thirteen and his parents, father and stepmother, were sending him all alone to a boarding school as they thought that he was old enough to live on his own terms. Although he always looked for positive nuances in every situation but this time he was grappled with a queer feeling of unease. He could not place the source of his discomfort.

Suddenly, a screech snapped him out of his thoughts. There were bags being pulled on the floor and people were ambling on the platform as their train arrived. Rohan was looking at families waiting-their mother taking care of their children while others laughing with each other- while he was all alone with no one to take care of him. He had just one person to wait for- his friend Dev who went to buy food and water at the station.

He reminisces of his beautiful times with parents but his world turned upside down with his stepmother stepping into his life. Suddenly he woke up from his world when someone placed a hand on his shoulder- a wrinkled and small one surely not of his friend. He turned to look an old, calm lady with a thin and wrinkled face, wearing a white sari, approached him. He greeted her warmly. She held back herself-responding nothing- when he greeted her with Namaste,  which made her suspicious and weird. But her eyes said everything. She looked at him as if there was a deep emotion hidden with the child.

She asked him ,"Where are you going my child?"

"I am waiting for my train so as to go to my school", replied Rohan hesistantly.

She talked to him continuously as if seeming she wanted to just gain information about him. Rohan initially found it weird and strange as she wanted to know much about his life but later realized her pain and understood her mental condition. They talked about his school and excitement for new term. Later they talked about their families and she explained how his son has left her on the station alone and she has nowhere to go so she was just waiting for his son to return at the station. “How innocent was she”, thought Rohan as he felt sympathetic for her. He was sad and angry on the way her son left her at the station with nowhere to go. He knew the value of a mother and wanted to help her but knew no way.

Later they shared food and poured their hearts with each other. Rohan knew it was dangerous to trust a stranger but something in her made him confide in her. He felt a shadow of his mother in her and made him feel her presence after so long. As the sun set in the horizon his conversation grew deep with the ‘motherly stranger’.

His friend arrived at that moment informing that the train was going to arrive in 15 minutes. He offered to call her son but she refused in a hesitating manner. When he insisted she tried to dictate the number in a very vague manner," 9210..........2............4......ummm.....231.....yeah that's it."

It seemed strange to him that she doesn't remember her son's number. He asked her for last digit and she replied very nervously," Oh yes! 1 ....1 is the last digit." But he ended up calling the wrong number. When he turned around she disappeared! It all seemed so bizarre! 

While he was trying to put all pieces of what happened with him, he heard a loud noise of machines hooting. Dev bent to look at an engine shunting up and down at the station and the bell clanging upon its arrival. Dev became very excited but couldn't resist the confusion on his friend's face. He tried to break him out of his bubble by patting his back but mistakenly pushed him near the rails. As Rohan was going to fall flat on his face the lady appeared and clutched him in a fear as if she had encountered a similar situation before. The old lady just hugged him, shared a piece of advice and waved goodbye. He couldn’t come out of the situation as he couldn't thank her but just waved back at her.

Rohan and Dev hopped in the box and bid Dev's family a last goodbye as the train started to depart. They were crying ,when Rohan's eyes fell on his bag and suddenly realized the purse was missing! He panicked in the moment but then saw the white lady in a distance holding the purse to her waist. He joined all the pieces together and understood how he was betrayed by a thief and felt heart broken as he made an emotional connect with the woman. But he realized that the circumstances might have compelled her to turn into a thief as she was not bad at heart. She too had emotions. However, he was scarred and never wanted to trust anyone again. 

From that day on he always remembered her advice to be more cautious and not fall into a trap by anyone.......but he would never get to know what made her do that to him and hurt Rohan so deeply..........