BUTTERFLIES
Every morning about eight o'clock they thronged the Poona railway station. Nearly a hundred of them in blue and white filled the station and hovered around for just ten or fifteen minutes. It was not a very big station, just about four operational platforms and two isolated tracks, which were mostly used for goods-trains. As is the case with any other station, platform number one was the most used. All the railway offices, stalls and shops were located on this platform. Little wonder, therefore, that this was the favourite place for the butterflies. At the end of one of the isolated tracks was a shed where once in a while a goods-trains was unloaded. Most of the times it was cement or wheat or some other grains, but occasionally a wagon of sugarcane or oranges came by. The butterflies had a field day on such occasions. The Railway staff was all too familiar with them. They had seen these little angels year after year. Their faces changed, they grew in size, yet they remained the same playful little children in blue and white uniforms with red ties and ribbons. These were the children of the Nav Hind High School, whom the Railway staff referred to as butterflies!
On the east side of Poona station was the main bus stop. Most of the city was connected from this side. The school was on the other side of the station. Although there was a proper road, with a bridge across the tracks, about a furlong away from the station, the children always found cutting across the station right into the school compound far too convenient. Once in a while, when there was some train on the platform, the railway staff tried to stop the children from coming to the platform. Even then the children passed through the many other gates which were used by the railway staff. How could they miss such a good chance of walking into a train without having a to buy a ticket! They would cross the tracks by entering various bogies from one door and getting down the other. The brave ones even tried to show off by walking through the entire compartment. The bravest of them all stayed on board till the train started moving and then jumped off. Some even went under the train! When caught, their bravado was rewarded by a loud scolding by either the passengers or the railway staff. They were rarely hurt by anyone - those were innocent years, the mid-fifties. Everyone loved, respected and cared for young school-going children.
This flock of butterflies, like the real ones, moved around in small little groups of five or six. Some groups had the elder sister or brother, perhaps, looking over the younger ones. Some, just a bunch of friends, brought together by the dividing factors of the school, called "classes." Then there were some all-male groups and some all-female. A few of the very young ones of them were just a pair of two, mostly siblings, who were generally looked after by the others but maintained their own separate identity as a group. The other kind of group that went about in pairs was that of the grown-ups, the ones who were trying to discover adolescent love.
The butterflies may have appeared to be the same for the common eye but each had its own character, developed by its own small community in the group. Various group activities that they indulged in defined their character. Some went about scanning the bookstall, some spent most of the time at the toyshop. The females rarely wasted time at the platform while the males were always out looking for new adventures. The young ones always had endless questions about everything while the adolescent lovers sought silence and lonely moments. Life went about as the railway staff accommodated them with all the affection and attention.
Eight-year old Anupam was the adventurous type. That was because of his elder twin brothers Ajit and Amol. The twins were fourteen years old and had explored every nook and corner of the station in their nine years at the school. When the twins first came, they were a novelty to the railway staff. Few of them had ever seen twins in their life and definitely never, such cute boys with light coloured hair and green eyes! Everyone wanted to meet and talk to the twins. Ajit and Amol were taken around the station initially by the staff. Soon everyone was known to them. They too were as inquisitive as Anupam was. Over the years they had not only learnt how the trains ran but also how the Railways operated the trains. From train schedules and transportation of goods to managing the signals and mechanism of the engines - they learnt about everything a layman would never have given even a thought.
Anupam arrived at Poona station with half of the knowledge his brothers had acquired with great effort over the years. He too was as much a darling of the railway staff as his brothers were. It was not surprising that he had never seen a train from inside, for he never had travelled by train. Though he had been to far places like Bombay and Shirdi but it was a bus journey both times. He had a great desire to see how the toilets in the compartments looked like! He had heard a lot about it from his brothers but could not believe everything they told him. How could there be a toilet in a four-foot by three-foot room? Back home they had a toilet almost half the size of the whole compartment!
His chance came almost three months later. This train from Sholapur arrived just when they got onto the platform. Usually trains stopped at Poona for about ten minutes but when the train ran late, it stopped for a shorter period. That was the case with this train. Anupam had enough time to satisfy his curiosity. Soon as the passengers alighted, he jumped in. Outside the toilet it was all chaos. There were too many people squatting on the floor, along with their bags and baggage. Adding to the confusion was the ever-shouting passengers who were trying to board the train. For a moment Anupam felt lost. He feared that the train might start moving. The inflow of passengers assured him that there still was time. He was being trampled. He was so close to his destination. Without thinking of anything else he jumped towards the toilet hopping over a sack of mangoes. The man who owned the sack let out a loud curse as Anupam reached for the door of the toilet. Scared that the man would catch him, Anupam quickly ran in and closed the door. Amidst other noises he could still hear the man shouting at him, cursing the school children who always came in the way of the passengers. He even called them "thieves." Poor innocent children! Some day some child might have picked some mangoes from his sack just for the fun of it. That does not make him a "thief!" Children just want to have fun.
Inside the toilet, all the fun had vanished. Anupam was now very nervous. As it happened, he had to relieve himself! Precious time trickled by as his thoughts returned back to the structure of the toilet. Holding his shorts down, he looked around. It was really amazing - the way all amenities had been fit into that small area. There was this wash basin with a mirror, small racks for keeping toothpaste and stuff, a small soap dish, hooks for hanging clothes and even this big, airy window to keep the bad odour away! To top it all there was this handy flush handle as well. As he buttoned up, he smiled at the ingenuity of the designers. He felt the desire to see how the flush worked. He pulled the handle down and suddenly there was a spray of water that began gushing out from the handle itself. Quickly Anupam left the handle and moved back to save himself from getting wet. That did no help as the water continued to gush out in all directions. He had little choice but to try and reset the handle at the cost of getting wet.
He was still struggling with the handle when he felt the train moving under his feet. In extreme panic he rushed out leaving the handle as it was. To add to his woes there were more people now blocking his way to the door. He began to cry and make way for himself. This added flame to the already irritated mango-man. The train was now picking up speed and there was no way that Anupam could have made to the door, leave alone jump out. The mango-man caught hold of him and started cursing him. He even gently slapped him on the cheek. As others began to react to Anupam's plight, the mango-man threatened to hand him over to the police at the next station. Anupam was now crying loud and uncontrollably. An elderly passenger tried to show sympathy towards Anupam but the mango-man was in a bad mood. He now claimed that he had caught Anupam stealing. Anupam pleaded innocence, crying that he only wanted to use the toilet. The mango-man searched his pockets and took away the one-anna coin that Anupam had.
By the time the train left the station, there was some order among the passengers as they began to settle down. At the same time there were more sympathisers for Anupam. An elderly man took charge of the situation and consoled him. Anupam was now a little composed and started recalling, what to do when stuck in such a situation, all the training that he had received from his elder brothers. The elderly man was shocked to find such clarity of thought in Anupam when he heard of Anupam's plans - that the Bombay bound train would stop for a few minutes at Khirkee, if not at Shivajinagar - and that he had to get down at either places and take a rickshaw or walk back home. That would have been a pretty long walk, remarked the elderly man. Anupam could still gather his wits and reply that if the mango-man had not taken his anna, he would have taken a bus. The mango-man had been busy narrating his tale of woe to the other passengers. He still wanted Anupam to be handed over to the police.
Luckily for Anupam, the train stopped at Shivajinagar, about ten minutes from Poona. By now the other passengers had coerced the mango-man to relent and let the boy go. As Anupam got down he was more than happy to see his brother Ajit coming towards him along with another friend. He was very angry at Anupam for having got them into such trouble. Anupam told them that it was the mango-man who had held him up. As he wondered how they managed to come to Shivajinagar, they explained that when they realised he was still in the train when it started moving, they boarded the train. This they had learnt from their seniors.
Couple of months passed by. This incident was soon forgotten and everything was back to normal for the butterflies and the Railways. Not many people knew of Anupam's ordeal and it would have remained a secret but for Anupam himself, who had not forgotten the loss of his one anna. One fine morning he spotted the mango-man, sitting by the door as ever, in a train that was just arriving on the platform. He immediately told his brothers, who asked him to leave the platform before the mango-man could spot him. Suddenly there was movement amongst the butterflies all over the station. Sure enough the message must have reached the school as well, because within minutes about fifty more children, mostly the seniors, some carrying hockey sticks, landed at the station.
What followed was chaos! Just as the train was about to leave, the butterflies barged into the compartment and dragged the mango-man out along with his two sacks. Before the Railway police or any one else could know what was happening, the mango-man found himself beaten black and blue, lying in the bushes adjoining the school's playground. All he remembered was one of the boys telling him that they were just taking their anna back along with the interest!
A week later there was police at the school along with the Railway staff. The next morning at prayer time the Headmistress announced that children were banned from crossing the station. In this regard the Railways had been given full authority to arrest anyone attempting to do so, at the same time parents of all the children had been told about it. On its part the school decided to put a barbed wire by the tracks that fell along its compound.
From that day the butterflies of the Railway staff disappeared. Poona station was never the same again.
© S. Ravikiran Shastry