One Morning as usual:
I stand on a concrete platform with a lot of noise all around. People chattering like a zillion of honey bees when they are together. Arms swinging in the air. Hissing sounds from frustrated tongues. Women and girls are running helter skelter, so are men and boys.
Where am I standing:
If you think I am standing on a railway platform, you are absolutely wrong. Coz, only me knows where I am standing. It’s a battlefield. And you know what? The war is on. Troops are ready with their ammunition. All eyes set in a direction waiting desperately to catch sight of something in a way, that gives an impression that no human eyes have ever experienced the expected object. A electronic box hanging up there somewhere shows the seconds remaining for the heavenly object to arrive.
First Phase Of War:
A freak sound is heard when heads turn, eyes grow intense, fists grow tighter, feet are half away from the ground.....
And lo a long chain of large boxes is seen running on wheels as it approaches the battlefield. The vehicle has not yet arrived, when war cries touch the skies. And it has not yet properly halted when warriors jump onboard. The vehicle carries warriors too. Very much in the same state as the warriors on the battlefield. What follows is a deadly clash when the troops collide against each other. Both armies trying to move in the opposite directions. War cries have filled the environment, pain of shrieks has captured the atmosphere, stink of sweat has mixed with the stillness of the air.
The vehicle slowly starts moving, gaining speed slowly but surely. Warriors haven’t yet given up. Still they are fighting to step onboard as the train leaves the platform. Sometimes, some do fell down in their attempts to step in the moving vehicle, but that doesn’t happen often. In maximum cases they do win. For the unlucky ones who fell down on the battlefield, hope is still not lost. They get a life only to wait for the next moving object. However trying to step on this object when it is moving is against the laws of war.
Second Phase Of War:
The best part of this war is the motto of the war, ’’Fight And Forget’’. Hatred is here for the moment. Once the mission of gaining shelter in the moving object is accomplished, hatred is left back on the battlefield. Now a new war starts all from the start. This time it’s about creating space for oneself inside the vehicle. Some warriors who step in at the earliest second, win the privilege to have a seat according to the time gaps between their entries in the moving object. Skills of winning the seats do matter a lot here. Sometimes even the late entries gain seats by using their skills at war. As for the ones who lose to these skillful warriors, they have the liberty to make faces and move on to get another seat.
Interval:
Once every warrior has settled down, a sense of brotherhood grows. Newspapers and magazines are shared amongst each other. However not all enjoy this warmth of brotherhood. Warriors as they are by religion. Some entertain themselves by getting engaged in tongue fights, while some get entertained by engaging themselves in fistfights.
However some have already got bored of fighting so they simply doze off. Here brotherhood of the warriors touches heights. The ones, who doze off, feel free to use the able and strong shoulders of their fellow warriors as a pillow. Some warriors don’t mind this liberty at all coz, they themselves are using somebody else’s shoulder. Some hosts aren’t that generous. They try to get the sleeping heads off their shoulders by simply tossing them off. The warrior whose head just fall down all of a sudden has woken up with a start. But as he is a warrior by religion, losing hope is a crime. A few seconds pass by and he again takes the liberty of using his neighbor’s shoulder.
Some warriors are too busy with their cell phones to indulge in any of the above activities. So they simply stay in their own virtual worlds.
The Third Phase Of War:
But this period of entertainment and relaxation is short lived. Warriors as they are by religion, another war awaits them with open arms. Each warrior has a particular battlefield as his/her destination. This time the mission is to get down the moving object when it halts at the battlefields respective to the destinations of the warriors. One battlefield before their respective battlefields are reached, the brave warriors get ready for the war. They collect their arms and ammunition and head towards the door of the moving object. By the time the battlefield arrives nearer, a large army waits to be unloaded from the vehicle.
Fierce eyes, Forceful muscles, Fists full of energy. The battlefield has not yet caught the eyesight and there goes a strong fierce push. When a warrior looks behind to see the face of the one who pushed him, there comes the expected answer, ’’Not me. The one behind me.’’
The one behind him says, ’’The one behind me.’’
And so on till the last man standing says, ’’The one behind me.’’
So much does each warrior wishes to fight the person behind him / her, but his urge to get down on the battlefield + some brotherhood that he shared just now with him doesn’t allow him to do so.
The Last Phase:
At last the battlefield arrives when impatience isn’t sparse both inside the moving object as well as outside. War cries are heard once more. Both the decent and indecent ones. The vehicle hasn’t halted yet, when there jump a couple of warriors and soon a couple of warriors more. Then as the vehicle slows down a lill’ bit, the number of warriors jumping out increases. By the time the train halts, there is a clash once again between the warriors on the battlefield and the ones inside the vehicle. Some fell down on the battlefield as they are trampled beneath the feet. However humanity has not yet died. Warriors who have successfully landed on the battlefield graciously help the fallen ones to rise. However if no one tends to help, the fallen warrior gets up by himself / herself and faces the fact that he fall down by himself.
A few tension packed minutes of war pass by when teeth are gritted, hands are used as weapons, sweat is spilled on the battlefield and the moving object starts it’s moving activity. A bunch of warriors are seen hanging out of the door as some are still struggling to jump down the moving vehicle while some are still struggling to jump on it. Some win in doing so while some fail. But warriors as they are by religion, hope is not to be lost. If not this vehicle, the one following. As for the ones who get stuck inside the vehicle, the next battlefield awaits.
End; Is it?
Wait. the war hasn’t yet come to an end. The war goes on and on through out the day and the day after and the day after that and so on. I mean to say that this war doesn’t end. It has to go on. If this war stops all of a sudden, one can say, it’s Bombay bandh. However even on a Bombay Bandh, this moving object does it’s daily duties.
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