Dacoits All

Ten days in Jammu had really flown and we were going back home, my sister and I .

There was a retired naval officer and a BSF officer occupying the seats in front of us and on the berth near the window sat a young pleasant looking boy whatsapping, and on the upper berth sat a pretty girl oblivious to everything around.

Suddenly three men materialised on the scene armed with nothing but smiles. They accommodated themselves next to the young boy, and one of them , stockily built and older than the other two pulled up his feet on the berth, reclining his back against the partition dividing his berth from the next, and hid his smiling face behind the curtain.

“We are policemen investigating the robbery in the Shatabdi express on 5 April.” The tall, pleasant looking man said, answering our inquisitive glances. The boy stopped whatsapping, and the girl playing temple run on the upper berth stopped playing and leaned down to get a clearer picture of what was up.

“In plainclothes?”

“Yes”. The stocky man peeped from behind the curtain and smiled in our direction.

“But why are you investigating the robbery in the Shattabdi express in the Pooja express? “

My query was met with the broadest smile I had ever witnessed.

From behind the curtain.

“All the trains are under surveillance.”Said the small man with the small smile.

‘For us everyone is a suspect”. Seconded the big man with the big smile.

The man with the broadest smile was now again hidden behind the curtain. Probably gorging on one more Tiger biscuit.

“Even the two of us?”

“No, no, not the two of you,” and saying this eyes riveted meaningfully in the direction of the other compartment.

“There is a lot of drug addiction amongst the youth,” the one with the big smile said, through clenched lips, his smile temporarily in abeyance, and his eyes fixed on the young boy whatsapping.

“It is the drug addicts, and boys from well to do families who are involved in these robberies.” His eyes were boring holes in the boy, who would steal sheepish glances in our direction every now and then.

“We know a criminal when we see one,” he said nodding his head knowingly, his eyes reduced to chinks as they surveyed the youth.  I watched from the tail of my eye as the man hiding behind the curtain polished off one entire packet of Tiger biscuits.

The two plainclothesmen smiled expansively, perhaps trying to smile away the rebuff of not being offered a single biscuit.

“He is our boss,” the man with the broadest smile said, pointing towards the curtain.

”The one who is polishing off biscuits without offering you a single one?”I gobbled up this query before it could jump out of my mouth.

Why was he smiling gratefully in my direction? Perhaps he had intuitively known that I had very considerately refrained from asking an offensive question.

Ah, that explained his biscuit eating spree.

Only a boss could eat biscuits without offering them to his subordinates, I surmised and he smiled.

From a chink in the curtain.

You can smile and smile and yet be a villain. What if he really was a villain-a smiling villain?

In every person sitting there, they were seeing a villain, a dacoit, a robber. Were we also suspects? I did catch them looking at us furtively. 

The train had stopped somewhere.

 “It is Ambala cantt,” the man with the broadest smile said, reading the question on my lips. He had this remarkable knack of reading lips even from chinks in the curtain, and even commenting with the mouth stuffed.

With Tiger biscuits.

 What if he suddenly metamorphosed into a tiger and gobbled us, like he was gobbling up the biscuits? I did not air my misgivings, but sat quietly. An island in a storm tossed ocean.

“The dacoits can hit anywhere”, he said, running a tongue over his lips.

Suddenly we were hit!

By a human avalanche-men, women, and an entourage of servants, an assorted variety of bags, baggage, suitcases, bags of rice, packets of almonds and walnuts! They elbowed and nudged us into nothingness. The officers sitting opposite us hastily descended the train, maybe pre-empting what we were in for and not wanting to be part of the impending calamity.

“This is not done, these are our berths, and there are only four berths here.”I tried to make our presence felt which was on the brink of extinction.

“Only for the time being.” That patriarch of the family said with an arrogant toss of his head, and slumped down on the berth.

For the time being, they pulled out their dinner packets-purees, aloo bhaji, and rice, pickle. We exchanged helpless looks.

“We have talked to the T. T.He will allot us seats.” The matriarch said, standing akimbo and glaring at me.

With indecent haste they quickly made themselves comfortable on the berths vacated by the decent officers, nudging, elbowing, pushing and shoving, and beaming with triumphant joy at the unexpected success of their territorial aggression.

 And then they attacked the food, the oldest and the most belligerent looking male of the joint family, burping to his heart’s content. But his heart refused to be contented, so he burped some more.

They talked loudly, burped loudly and then before we could object, the belligerent looking male stretched himself on the berth and started snoring loudly. Tired but satiated.

When  would the T.T allot them seats, I wondered, closing my ears to the snores, and opening my mind’s eye to the beautiful locales we had left back home.

Positive imaging, positive imaging, my head whispered and my heart obeyed. Ignoring the raucous snores, I heard the sloughing of the Pine trees; I saw not the bald pate of the folically challenged man but the sun beams reflecting off the bald mountain tops.

The man behind the curtain pulled out another packet of Tiger biscuits, and started his biscuit munching spree.

The needle of suspicion in my mind had suddenly become hyperactive. It kept pointing towards the plainclothesmen.

What if they are the robbers? How do we know they are really cops?

After every few minutes, the Tiger man would peep from behind the curtain, smile in my direction, and then nip the smile by stuffing a Tiger biscuit into his mouth. Was he the brand ambassador for Tiger biscuits, this man in plainclothes?

A tiny   boy from the next compartment belted out the popular number GANDI BAAT, and the Tiger man, as if stung, gobbled up the biscuit, along with his Adam’s apple and then quickly pulled back his biscuit stuffed mouth behind the curtain, and was lost to the world!

Suddenly appeared a man on the scene, his face a craggy pile of displeasure.

“Yes?” he mouthed flicking his fingers in the direction of the noisy family, and almost immediately the compartment was filled with garlic fumes, his head covered by a halo of smoke. What if he suffered a spontaneous combustion? I almost found myself hoping.

 He crushed his cigarette brutally under a heavy shoe and now followed an exchange of glances openly and some more exchange not so openly. No, he did not suffer a spontaneous combustion, but he turned on his heels and left, the patriarch in tow.

Bargain struck, the patriarch returned.

Now, the raucous family settled more comfortably on the seats, and when dinner time came, the matriarch doled out food packets to her hungry minions with the air of an empress distributing largesse.

Morning came. In the dim morning light, it was plain that the plainclothesmen had disappeared, probably to search for dacoits in some other compartment. But I had my dacoits, but ah, I missed the Tiger man.

I looked through the window; the sun was only a seam of fire in the Eastern sky.

But the family was all fire and brimstone, and more belches.

  And yes tooth brushes too. Brand new ones.

And they tried their very best to brush away our existence. I jumped down from the upper berth like an alien not wanting to be noticed and hurried towards the washroom. But then stood rooted to the spot!

In the other compartment , an angelic  looking    four year old   boy who was sitting in her ten year old sister’ s lap, nervously probing the insides of his mouth with a small thumb ,his brown hair  all crazy angled cowlicks  gave me such a broad smile which seemed to banish all the negativities from the compartment !

The dacoits who had robbed us of our food, of our sleep, of our patience were still there, but with that sweet smile of his he had restored everything back.

I Iooked at the girl as she tickled the back of his neck with her chin and he squirmed, and she smiled.

And I smiled too at this restoration. Home was just a few hours away.