Free Berth : Part 2 of Bloodbath at the Brothel

I never saw Purnima or my city again but I think of her every day. How different my life would have turned out to be had she not did what she did. She knew I was a part of a massive scandal and sub-inspector Purnima had risked her own job and reputation to save me. Bloodbath at Brothel, they called it. I heard of it for many days after leaving the city.

So what did I do after Purnima left? I walked out of the police station and hailed a rickshaw. Getting down at the railway station I caught the train which had started to move as I entered the platform. I ran and a man extended his hand to help me up. I had never travelled on a train before and it did not occur to me that I might have to pay to avail of this transportation service. So when the TTE came around he found me clueless and blabbering.

Are you running away from home?

My heart lurched even as I emphatically shook my head. What if he came to know that I was actually running away, not from my home but after committing a murder?

‘Are you accompanied by anyone?’

‘No.’

‘Where are you going all alone?’

‘To Delhi.’

‘Why’

‘To work?’

'What work?'

'Any work.'

'Where are your parents?'

'Dead.'

'Come I will give you a seat. I followed him through the length of the train until we reached an empty compartment.'

'Does a seat come for money?'

'For you its free, he smiled revealing his stained teeth with gaps between each on of them.'

'How much the seat costs?'

'I said it's free for you.'

'I don’t want free.'

'Then you pay me but not with money.'

'Then how?'

I will show you how he said sliding his hands over my waist. I pushed him away and fat as he was he couldn’t maintain his balance on the wobbly train and went down buttocks first. He was on all fours trying to get up when I registered him another kick in the face and ran. I had no doubt that at the next station he will call the cops and have me arrested. 

The train was running at full speed passing through vast green fields when I opened the door and jumped. Most things can be expressed in words but that moment when you have to choose between an evil intentioned man and the laws of physics cannot be expressed in words of any language. When I jumped bringing to a sudden halt my body that was travelling at a speed of more than 60 km/hour it refused to stop. Fortunately the train was running on the track closest to the fields so when I jumped I landed not on concrete but mud thus saving myself serious injury but nevertheless I was unable to get up for as long as I remember. 

A villager going back to the village in the evening noticed me and called up other villagers. I was carried to village and given food and water. I remained there at their mercy for five days. To my relief I was able to get up and walk on my own after six days. I do not know how far I was from the only city I had ever known. Turned out thatI wasn’t even in the state of Bengal anymore. It was a village in Uttar Pradesh. A remote desolate village where people didn’t have much except the cloth on their backs. It was drought hit and the fields were cracked clay. Their cattle, women and men all were emaciated. Still for the ten days I lived there households took turn feeding me a roti a day. They didn’t ask me who I was or where I was going. They had probably seen to much misery of their own to be interested in stories of anyone else’s misery. Besides the mind doesn’t seek much when the stomach is empty. I don’t remember the name of the village now so I call it Reham gaon. On the tenth day an emaciated group of men a women was leaving for Delhi to find wor in its factories and construction sites. I accompanied them and bid Reham Gaon goodbye.