Divine-mandate

A young man of around thirty summers, well clad in branded Western attire, got down from a train at Khandwa railway station in MP, India. Sheraton Svedberg was raised and educated in Finland. Of course, he was pretty fair, but not as fair as the Westerners, especially the Scandinavians are. 

He strived hard to inquire in the RPF office about the location of a nondescript village. He talked only in English. However, he could manage to say just a few customary phrases in Hindi, albeit in a foreign accent, and that too while intermittently looking at the digital display of his very latest Android mobile set.

Nevertheless, he eventually decided to start his journey to that imaginary destination. He came outside and hired a battery-operated e-rickshaw. He talked to that rickshaw driver and instructed him to take him to that village. For him it was quite difficult to instruct the rickshaw driver the exact way he wanted to go. Nevertheless, he reached a nearby village. Nothing appeared familiar to him. 

 The villagers wondered why a man of foreign origin came to their village. His gestures were fairly similar to those of the foreign tourists, and his Scandinavian accent was pretty prominent. 

Scantily-clad children were observing him from a cautious distance. The assistant sub-inspector of the local police station and the postmaster tried their best to communicate in English. But it was all in vain. Both of them couldn’t converse in English with him quite properly.

 To his utter distress, no soul was found well-versed in English. The curious crowd of onlookers noticed that he was carrying a small black-and-white photograph of a lady and two small boys, possibly the mother and her two kids. He was showing that small snapshot to every soul in the village he came across on the way.

Young Sheraton was taken aback. None could give him any clues about his mother, his brother, or his modest house in the small village, his birthplace. He was earnestly looking forward to seeing his mother and his brother. 

The next three consecutive days, he repeated similar futile attempts, visiting different nearby villages. Thus, he felt utter discouragement. He was staying in a hotel close to Khandwa Railway Station. 

Next morning he stood on a platform of the railway-station closing his eyes he prayed the almighty with intense concentration. And in that very instant, out of sheer luck, he recalled Nita, whom he had come across through a social networking site about a couple of months ago. She was doing her master's in contemporary literature at a university in Sweden. Quite a number of times, he shared his anecdotal true story with her bit by bit. 

Without wasting much time, he immediately communicated with her through whatsApp text messages.

Hi, how are you doing?

Hi, I’m fine. What’s up?

I’m stuck at Khandwa railway station in Central India.

Are you okay?

I’m so-so. You see Nita, out here, at times I spot something or other that seems pretty familiar to me. And in the next instant, I find certain other things quite unfamiliar to me, while my subconscious part reiterates that it is the same railway station where I would come with my elder brother. I don't know, how can I find my home. 

When did you reach out there?

Just a few days ago. I hope you know that I presumed the station could be Khandwa based on my hazy memories, and you’d also earlier agreed with me. Do you remember?

Oh, yeah, I do. Have you ventured into any nearby villages?

Quite a few, but all in vain. I've lost hope now. It’s too heartbreaking. What should I do now? My visa would expire soon.

Listen. Have faith in God. Submit yourself to the Almighty. Pray to him and ardently ask for help. Close your eyes for a minute or so. Try to visualise your childhood days. Any direction that triggers you out of sheer spontaneity, move towards that. Have faith. You move with such sheer confidence that, as if you had already promised your mother, you would meet her soon. Don’t lose hope.

Although it was quite mysterious, that morning he followed her instructions uncritically. Looking at the text lines flashing on his mobile screen, he paused for some time. Soon he closed his eyes for divine favours for a brief span. 

And then he walked up to the main entrance of the station. He came out and started walking mesmerizingly in a direction that he didn’t choose. It occurred just by sheer chance. He walked. He didn't hire any vehicle. 

He reached the outskirts of a small village around five kilometres away. Within his subconscious mind, he kept thinking about his elder brother. While walking, he compellingly moved on as if he were following his elder brother, walking ahead of him and reassuring himself persistently that he would meet his mother soon.

He would request anyone on the way showing that old photograph, the prized possession of his life, A middle-aged man named Bhurio recognised the lady in the photograph. And he told his companion, "Look, Kanha, this lady in this photograph appears very much like our Kamla Kaki." Kanha tried his best to communicate through gestures. Soon, they both steered Sheraton towards that old, dilapidated house.

Reaching there, infront of the main door, Sheraton's eyes miraculously sparkled. It appeared as if that house was very much known to him. As three of them entered the house, gently pushing the old wooden door that screeched as it did every time. 

Bhurio shouted, addressing the owner of the house, "Kamla kaki, Oh Kamla kaki, where are you? See, someone has come from Khandwa railway station with a small photo of yours and is searching your house." 

Her sunken eyes fell on that man, and just after that motherly glance, the old lady shouted with joy, "O Bhurio, this is my Sheru; my lost Sheru has returned. Bhurio, my lost Sheru has returned." 

The old lady embraced her son with tears rolling down her shrivelled cheeks. Holding his mother, the man wanted to ask something; his voice choked out of intense emotion. He could utter just two words, "Ma" and "Haalu."

Several other villagers gathered there; they couldn’t make anything out of those two words he uttered. But his mother immediately said, "My son is asking about his Halu bhaia." Immediately, she beckoned someone to call her elder son, Harun. 

Soon Harun came home rushing, and he found his lost younger brother, a totally transformed Sheru. He was lost for words. And for a few moments, he remained speechless, keeping on looking at him. That brightly dressed, smart gentleman is his lost little brother, Sheru. It was unbelievable for him. Tears filled his eyes. And he could utter just 'Sheru'. 

Bhurio and other villagers were all surprised to know that around twenty-five years ago, as a little child of barely five years, Kamla Kaki’s second son, Sheru, was lost in Khandwa railway station. And that lost Sheru has returned from a foreign country.

Harun, Sheru’s elder brother, used to sell mundane articles to the passengers in the railway-station and sometimes within the train compartments too. Their father died when Sheru was merely three years old. It was lung-cancer due to tobacco addiction.

On that fateful day, Harun was busy selling his commodities to the passengers inside a train compartment. Sheru was told to sit in a small cell just near the door. Out of tiredness, little Sheru felt the insurmountable urge to sleep. He found his convenient space under a seat in that compartment. 

When the train was about to move out of the station, Harun was frantically searching for his little brother, but he failed to trace him. Thinking that Sheru might have already alighted and thereafter little Sheru might be looking for him, his elder brother, ‘Haalu-bhaia, as he called him in his typical childish utterance. Therefore, Harun got down hurriedly and continued searching for his little brother, Sheru.

The train whistled. And soon, before his eyes, the train moved off the platform. Harun remained a mute spectator on the platform. Panic-stricken, he ran from one end to the other, hither and thither in all directions, not knowing where to go. People scattered all over observed with sheer inquisitiveness the frantic cries of Harun and his nervous movements in search of Sheru, his little brother.

There were very few passengers in that compartment, and by the time people noticed the sleeping child underneath a berth, the train had already travelled a few hundred kilometres. 

Railway police tried to interact, but the child was too scared to utter anything properly. Finding all the faces of unknown people around her, Sheru started crying in real fear. Tears rolled down from his eyes, and his flushed face was convulsed with fear. He could say just two words, ‘Ma’ and ‘Haalu, and he was crying unconsolably. The TTE tried to soothe him by taking him to a family with kids travelling on the train. The little child reiterated his sob.

Finally, the railway police handed over the child to an orphanage in Calcutta. And incidentally, within a month’s time, a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Svedberg from Finland, adopted little Sheru. With them, Sheru left India for good.

***

Years passed. Sheru’s subconscious mind time and again reminded him of the faces of his mother, his elder brother, the surroundings of the railway station, and his mud house in the small village premises flanked by rows of toddy palms. He could remember neither the names nor the places of any of those childhood days.

After his graduation, he did a technical course and then joined an MNC. In those days, he was living in a small town around 100 kilometres away from the house of his adopted parents. Since then, he has started searching Google for pictures of places with railway stations in India. His adopted father was told by the orphanage that as a child of barely five years old, he was found inside a train moving towards Howrah Junction, the busiest railway station in Calcutta city. 

His father never objected to Sheraton’s search for his real mother, but his adopted mother never liked that. She always fussed whenever he would talk to his adopted father on this topic. Often she would express her opinion nonchalantly with discouraging words and sulky gestures.

"Almost all small stations in India look unfailingly very much alike." Looking at the pictures on his laptop, Sheraton would soliloquize calmly. But he never lost hope. At times, he would search for several hours together, spending many sleepless nights.

During those long nights of browsing, he came into contact with Nita Mathur, a post-graduate student at the University of Sweden in Uppsala. Often, he would exchange his thoughts in the form of text messages with her.

The world has been amazingly changing. An individual would get acquainted with another in the seemingly real but virtual world.

***

The triumphant Sheraton returned to Finland. Nita was very glad to know that the son had finally and successfully found his biological mother, albeit in another part of the globe. The episode of a mother meeting her lost son was very heartwarming. There was hardly any soul present there who wouldn’t have been moved. The son had no difficulty in understanding the language of his mother's tears. People present there realised that many things can be said without words. Expressions of emotions don't require the words many a times. 

Through text messages, Sheraton came to know that Nita was invited to attend a seminar and a get-together in London. He meticulously saved all those details about the venues and the time. And thereafter, he made up his mind to meet her face-to-face in London. 

But he kept his itineraries a total surprise.

 She had no inkling of the same. His presence in the megacity was still a very well-maintained ‘secret’ for her.

He is looking for her, who does not know he is around, and the incidents that have brought him there were also unknown to her. He has no reasons to be discreet, but he still has to be careful. He is standing near the doorway and surveying the golden banquet hall, which is filled with refined bodies in saris and jackets and beautiful young women with straight hair who never make facial expressions. But they will soon—any moment now.

Sheraton met Nita, the beautiful young woman with straight hair, in that golden banquet hall.

Both of them still wonder, what exactly hinted him to pinpoint Khandwa railway-station? Why not any other station? Aren't many stations in India look unfailingly alike?

That of course remained a mystery. Neither Sheru-aka-Sheraton nor Nita had any plausible explanation of it. Certain happenings remain awfully unanalysable rather divine-mandate. Let’s not bother to ponder over the credibility of anything and everything under the sun. Certain happenings should better be kept aside and not to get involved and try to analyze and apply logic.

 

                               *******