The year was 1968 and the month was November. I was working in a town called Kalol in North Gujarat. Being homesick, every weekend I used to visit my friend’s place in Ahmedabad. Normally, after lunch, I used to take a 2’O clock train to go to Ahmedabad. Those days there were three classes of compartments, such as: first, second and third. There was no a/c class as we see today and in the hot summer, we used to keep the wooden shutters closed. After getting a second-class ticket, as usual, I went and sat in the compartment on the train at platform number 4. There was nobody other than me in the second class. I had an Illustrated Weekly and kept reading. The train started off and since the windows were closed, I counted the number of stations the train stopped at. After the third stop, the fourth was Sabarmati, prior to my destination – Ahmedabad, which was near each other, quite like the Marine lines and Church gate stations of Bombay. I came to the door and found that it was not Sabarmati, but an unknown small station. I suddenly got down and found the train was going to Viramgam. As it was a new place and I knew only broken Gujarati, I was worried, confused aand totally perplexed about what to do! I enquired with the station master, who told me “why did you come on this train? Don’t you know from 1st October Viramgam trains would go from platform number four? It was also put up on the Notice Board, he said . Fortunately, he was a good person and told me to sit in his office and told me that he would attend to me after the train left. Being a very small station, the staff strength was very lean and the Station Master doubled up in various roles. He then told me that the next train was at 7 in the evening. I could try for a bus at 5 PM. As I had no option and not knowing the local language, he communicated with me in broken English and Hindi. He also told me he would go to his house close by after locking the office. As there were no hotels available in that area, he told the shop owner, who was a panchayat leader, to rest in his house until the bus time. Since it was a very hot summer, I decided to go with him. With my colorful shirt and pants among the dhoti-worn villagers, I was literally on show for the village boys and children. They all started collecting in good numbers and trying to look and touch me, like I was a showman or a celebrity. The Station Master kept pushing them away. On hearing that a new ‘avatar’ had arrived, many more people and children started coming. to check out this alien. Seeing me blushing, the people arranged a cordon around me. I certainly felt like I was a film star.
The station master’s house was a clean village house. His wife had passed away and he was living alone with his teenage girl. After hearing this news, his daughter who was away to bring the cows back home from the farm, came running …quite excited to see me. The father was busy keeping away all the boys crowding around me and instructing them not to disturb me. He gave me water to wash my feet and pulled up a chair for me to sit down. He instructed his daughter to clean his room and create a bedrest for me, spreading out a clean sari of his late wife’s alongwith with a pillow. He then invited me to go and take a rest. But I was not able to rest and was worried about the situation I was caught in. He also instructed someone to go and tell the shopkeeper to inform the bus driver to wait till “Saab comes”. He told me no bus will leave without his permission. I wonderstruck by the hospitality, sincerity, and love the innocent villagers showered on a stranger like me. I really appreciated it, as we rarely see this generosity from urban citizens. Maybe they have less time and energy for looking at the affairs of others!
It reminded me of a beautiful Hindi movie released at that time called “Bhuvan Shome” of Utpal Dutt as a railway officer who came to a Gujarat Village like this for an inquiry and the story seemed to have simply continued:
Exactly at five, he woke me up, brought water for washing and a big jar of pure lassie (buttermilk), and informed me that the bus would come anytime. He also told me not to hurry up as the bus wouldn’t go without his permission. He owned the one and only shop in that area and was also the leader of that village. He was respected by one and all. Thus I reached Ahmedabad at around 7.30 in the evening after the chaos and disturbances of my plan. My friends were upset and worried about me, as I was known to be a very punctual man and very particular about getting to places sharp on time. The communication facility was very poor in those days. Our entire plan to go for a movie got spoilt.. I was not upset about the failure of our weekend program; on the contrary, I was ecstatic to gain a lot from those villagers. Until that time, I did not have an opportunity to interact with the village fraternity. This gave me a direct experience of what was true and sincere and how love one should be offered without any expectation. In my heart, I thanked the railways for creating the confusion around the platform as otherwise it would not have been possible to get this fascinating direct experience of true village life!
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Another interesting memory was in Bombay.
I was coming out of Kurla station and two young blind girls also got down and requested me to help them cross to the other side of the road and I promptly agreed. They held my hand firmly and we were about to cross over when another young girl came and held my hand. I was surprised to see as she caught it raher firmly. She was a beautiful college-going girl. Immediately I shook her away and told her why are you holding my hand. She was surprised. I told her I am not blind. Only I was helping these girls to cross. I then realized that I was also wearing dark goggles quite like those blind girls. On learning this, she blushed furiously in embarssment and ran away from us and the Bombay crowd enjoyed this comedy of error.
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One more instance coming to my memory was an interesting story.
It was sometime in 1993/94 after the Bombay bombings. I was coming from Ahmedabad to Bombay in my car. I was near the Andheri railway crossing and while waiting for the train to cross, two police officers came and asked me to come out of the car and I did. They asked a few mechanical questions about where I was coming from and my name address and all. After a few minutes, they allowed me to continue my travel. Then I was told that they suspected me to be Tiger Memon, a wanted person by CBI and Interpol for investigation. Tiger Memon was a former member of D-Company, a gang led by Dawood Ebrahim. They saw me wearing a red shirt and goggles, similar to their photo, and only one letter difference in my surname. The same Bombay crowd came in large numbers and gazed at me and my red and white Standard Herald car. Seeing the crowd was increasing I took a diversion and drew away. I am still scared of the scene as the crowd could so easily have assaulted me even if it was a bare suspicion.
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