MYSTERY TRAIN

 MYSTERY TRAIN                                                                                                APRIL 28, 2023

 

 

Saroo didn’t know that his life was more unusual than any other child’s.  He didn’t realise that most children his age, in almost every country in the world usually had more than one meal a day, and every day, in fact.  Saroo didn’t know that most children of his age in almost every country of the world went to school nearly every day.  He would have been shocked to hear that many children of his age had more than one pair of shorts and more than one pair of sandals, and that they often received clothes that nobody had worn before them.  He would not have believed that there were children in the world whose mother didn’t have to work in a quarry moving large rocks from one place to another to earn the money to feed her family.

 

If you had asked him whether he was happy, he would not have known how to answer.  What was happiness, after all?

 

Saroo’s days were spent following his two older brothers around and trying to join in with what they were doing.  A favourite activity was to get on a train and try to avoid the conductor who would come around demanding the one rupee fare.  The boys would normally get off at the next station and take another train home.  One afternoon, when Saroo was about five years old, he and his brother Guddu, took the train to the next town where Guddu said he had to do some business.  Guddu, like many teenage boys in India at that time, had learned that their survival depended on being able to live by their wits, stealing, buying and selling,  and so on.  The boys had become very experienced in avoiding the conductors on the train so arrived safely without being caught. 

 

At the station, Guddu told Saroo to wait while he went off to do his business.  It was very quiet on the station platform, Saroo was tired and soon fell asleep on a station bench.  He woke up much later to find it was already dark and Guddu had not returned.  Unsure of what to do, he noticed a train waiting on the platform with the doors open.   He thought that, perhaps Guddu was already on the train so Saroo climbed on board. He was still not quite awake and he stretched out on a wooden bench and went off to sleep.

 

When he awoke, Saroo was surprised to find that it was already daylight.  The train was speeding along but there was nobody else in this carriage.  Many thoughts crowded in his brain.

 

“Where did Guddu go? Why did he leave me? Why isn’t he on this train? Where is it taking me? I want to be with my mother! Where is my sister, where is my brother—where is my home? ”

 

The train continued on.  Occasionally, it stopped at a station and, when it did, Saroo rattled the doors hoping that he might be able to open one but was never successful.  He tried the windows, too, but none would open.  Why was this train travelling along with no passengers? There were no guards on the train either; Saroo was alone.  It was a mystery.  And why was this train travelling so far?  Saroo had never before been on a train which travelled for so many hours.

 

 

Saroo had no food but found a little water in the filthy toilets at each end of the carriage.  He slept a great deal and gradually his anxiety about being discovered changed to a concern that he might never be found.  Was he fated to spend the rest of his life on this train?  Would he die before it arrived at its final destination, wherever that might be?

 

After a while, the train began to pass through small villages where Saroo could see children playing by the tracks while their mothers cooked on little fires or did the laundry.  No one seemed to notice a lone child with his face pressed to the window of the otherwise empty carriage.  The towns became bigger and soon there were no more fields.  There were many cars on the roads, more cars and trucks than Saroo had ever seen.  

 

He was awake when the train pulled into its final destination.  He felt it slowing down and finally coming to a stop.  Saroo noticed porters wheeling luggage on trolleys and hordes of people pushing and jostling to make their way to the station exits.  Eventually, he heard someone open one of the doors of his carriage and, without thought, Saroo leapt on to the platform.  He didn’t know what might happen to him but he ran and ran as fast as he could away from the strange train that had been his prison.