THE LAST TRAIN.

The last train reluctantly left the platform.

A sparse number of the nocturnals were occupying the seats. The night scenario was entirely different. The people were lounging with their feet up on the opposite seats. Their was an eerie silence in the compartment. It looked as if the train had purged all its occupants. There was a spright in the pace of the light train.

The day time sloth pace with the packed up sardines in a tin can seemed like a faded memory.

A group of small frail, clean shaven bow tie clad boys were frolicking in the compartment. They were the attendants at a recently concluded wedding reception. They looked happy and satiated. They had a full meal today. Besides, they were carrying tiffins for their starving family, back home eagerly waiting for their supper meal. The hosts had liberally tipped them in a tipsy state. They eagerly awaited the next wedding in town. The early morning school beckoned them but they were least interested.

I saw another couple of aged waiters who somehow seemed upset. They were working in a sleazy seedy bar which used to generate a lot of income for them. The new government had clamped down this business. The bar hardly drew any customers. Their once beaming smiley faces looked distraught. They were looking for an alternative. An escape route.

I saw a bespectacled gentleman scribbling on some papers using his dirt laden briefcase for support. He was a clerk who worked shifts to make his ends meet. The bulk of work would mean unfinished targets. He was as busy as a student preparing for his exams. The pen which he used to scratch his ears, would be licked by him in case it didn't write. The work would be carried home, a decrepit old chawl where the pack of copulating dogs would hound him throughout the night.

A few tired inebriated workers returning from the 2nd shift looked uninteresting as they were fast asleep in the train. The cool breeze near the window seats was their only air conditioned comfort in life. Their clothes too bore marks of grime and sweat. They would wash them in the night and reuse them all over again tomorrow. A sleeping solitary beggar was too tired to ask for small change. He had to conserve energy for tomorrow.

She sat in the corner wearing a black skirt, dazzling all of us with her cheap jewellery and dark exposed legs. She was spic and span at this odd hour of the night. Maybe, she wanted to work all the night. Her outlandish lipstick and kohl lined eyes with the rouged cheeks would never fail to elicit customers. She hid her pock scarred face from the crowd gazing at the never ending tracks. Her life too, was just passing by.

They were such class of people who lived for today. They would never know about their charted course in life and an unplanned future.

The last train carried them nowhere.