The Border

The station was filled with foul smells, howls of agony and anguished whispers. Geetika shivered as she stumbled along with her six-year-old daughter clutched in her arms and her husband leading the way. "Stay close," he warned. "And keep Anu close."

Geetika snorted. As if she didn't know that they were as safe here as in a nuclear blast zone. One mistake and they would die. She hated the burqa that she had had to put on, hated the false beard and mustache on Angshuman's face. But they were necessities if they were to survive.

Geetika still couldn't believe that this was happening. That they were truly being forced to leave that place where they had been born and brought up. That Anu would never see east Bengal properly.

"Almost there." Angshuman panted as he dragged Geetika free of the crowd and towards the door of the overcrowded train.

"Ma!" Anu wailed.

"Be quiet." Geetika clamped her hand down on her daughter's mouth.

The child lapsed into a confused and hurt silence. Her mother had never spoken to her so roughly.

"Get on." Angshuman prodded her. Geetika's hands were clammy and she was shivering with fear, revulsion and grief.

'Pull yourself together.' She scolded herself.

Geetika almost slipped and fell as she tried to hoist herself onto the cabin. Angshuman caught her. "Hurry." He said tersely. "And be careful." She clambered onto the cabin and lifted Anu up into her arms.

Angshuman had just clasped the hand holds by the door when an unearthly screech erupted close by. The crowd surged, quite suddenly ,in every possible direction and the train began to move.

Angshuman lost his grip and went tumbling into the sea of tangled bodies.

"Baba!" She shrieked.

"Go!" Angshuman choked as he was dragged further and further away from the train. "I'll meet you there."

Geetika watched in mute horror as her daughter bounded towards the door of the cabin and stretched out her hand as if hoping that her father would clasp it with a grin as he always did.

It was a spear which shot past an inch of her daughter's face that brought her back to her senses. With a muffled sob, she lifted Anu into her lap and jostled her way further into the cabin, and finally collapsed in a corner.

Anu too, was sobbing inconsolably, her eyes swollen and her cheeks red.

"He'll meet us there." Geetika whispered, hating herself for lying like that to an innocent child. She realised that this was what their lives would like from now on. A widow, a refugee from Bangladesh with a daughter who would wait forever for her father to fulfill his last promise. She ripped off her burqa and tossed it away.

And the station? The station tucked her daughter's agonised cry into an unexplored nook.