Desi Train

Chapter One : The Chase Begins

The train took a brief halt at San Jose. “5 Minutes” – the conductor announced as he walked passed the cabins in the car. The door of 6A slid open. The conductor smiled as he quickly glanced at the passengers inside. Businessmen. In his 25 years of service in the Railways, he was now adept at concluding the profession of a person, by a simple, quick glance.

“Anything I could help you with Sirs?”

The man in the white buttoned down shirt spoke.

“Could you ask the cart-lady to drop by? We would like some Pepsi and snacks.”

“I’ll do that right away Sir” That’s the leader of this group.

The guy sitting far away from the window slid back the door to a close.

The conductor was right. Partially.

Cabin 6A had 5 people sitting in it. They had packed their bags a few hours ago to meet at the Amtrak station in San Francisco. Feigning ignorance to each other, they had boarded the train in different carriages and then walked through the length of the train to reach Cabin 6A located in the fourth car from the front.

The man wearing the white buttoned down shirt was in his mid thirties. He simply carried a leather briefcase strapped to his shoulder. He sat next to the window facing the direction in which the train was moving. His destination, like the rest of the four in the cabin was, Los Angeles.

Next to him sat a person who looked like he was quite close to retirement. His hair was grey and combed back at an angle. The wrinkles on his face showed the tough life he had lived in his youth. The gap between the cuff of his pants and his sliding down socks on his right leg showed the beginning of a scar that moved right up till his knee. He had received that as a gift in Vietnam in ’69. Bill Rosedrum, was given a desk job after his return from the war. He gladly accepted.

His wife never understood that. How could Free Bill be chained to a desk job? She was right. A traveling all over the world job would have suited Bill perfectly, yet for the next 33 years he simply traveled to the same work place, the same desk job. If he was not bound by the oath of secrecy he would have told his wife. He would tell one day, years after his retirement - that his desk was placed in a highly secured area. Bill Rosedrum was one of the key figures at NSA, the largest intelligence group in the world.

The man facing the white buttoned down shirt man was reading the map. It was a map of Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan and India. He traversed his finger over a red marked line that originated at Islamabad and ended at Dar-shuk a small village in Afghanistan. He checked the distance, for the umpteenth time, before making some notes in his small pocket diary.

KC is what he was known as. From working in the marines to working “unofficially” as the strong arm for various intelligence agencies, KC had come a long way. His action in the field had taken a backseat after he was nearly killed by Hezbollah in Beirut. Though he longed to go back and complete the one mission that he had failed in, the collared guys sitting in their plush air conditioned, soft carpeted, mahogany desk offices in Washington had gone quite jittery.

KC now was assigned soft jobs, one that did not involve Middle East. But no one knew Middle East like KC did. Yet the dearness for their jobs gained much more importance than application of expert resources. A repeat failure was no option for the men in Washington.

When he first met the buttoned down collar guy, KC knew, he had to do this. Besides, the money was huge. It would help him retire. Buy that beautiful ocean facing house in Santa Cruz and lively happily forever, with his beautiful Anne.

The man sitting on his left was bent forward, pitching his plan to the buttoned down collar guy. They called him the Planman. He was thin, had a long nose and the grey strands of hair just over his ears were religiously plucked out each morning. The dark circles below his eyes did not hide the fact that he hadn’t slept for quite some time. 79 hours to be precise. And that’s the reason why he was always the guy on the watch tower during the Iraq war and the few unspoken unofficial ones before that.

His penchant for intelligent planning had seen him move quickly higher up in the ranks, until 12 years later, the Pentagon offered him a job. He accepted. And lasted about a month. The desk job was a death job for him. He hated it and quickly moved out to start his own company that was now hired by the various government agencies. For the last 10 years his contract jobs remained focused on Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

The man on Planman’s left was checking the list handed over to him by Bill Rosedrum. He had a small black device in his right hand that he was moving from the top to the bottom of each page. The device was scanning and storing on its miniature drive, the entire page, as he quickly moved from one page to the next. DJ was the youngest of the three sitting opposite to the buttoned down collar man. He was also the most knowledgeable in Electronics and Communications. Logistics was his other expertise.

The degree from SJU was the point in his life he had been waiting for so long. He walked to his car after his graduation ceremony and drove straight to the Assistant Recruiting Officer at the Pentagon, who had promised him a job the day he got his degree. Having lived the war for over two years in Iraq and then another 4, years later in Iraq and Afghanistan, DJ wanted to do more. The means to reach the source, and crush it, so there was no more evil.

His expertise found him moving to Islamabad where the local office sent him on many a trip that fetched valuable information. It was a rainy night in Chennai, India, when he received the phone call. The money was too good to resist. But it wasn’t about the money anymore, when he met the buttoned down collar man. The job had become his personal mission. He wanted this to be a success. Reach the source and kill it

The buttoned down white shirted man, was deep in thought while looking out of the window. The men in cabin 6A were there because of him.

Andy Raheja, had a billion dollar empire that was first started by his grandfather. Andy was a third generation Indian. He had never been to India nor knew any of its many spoken languages. He had joined his family’s traditional business of oil and real estate, at the age of 22, and now 14 years later, his vision and hard work had seen the profits multiply manifold. The business had now expanded into software, communications and satellite parts manufacturing.

Life had been rocking ahead at jet speed for Andy until, at the insistence of his wife, Christina, they had take a vacation to India.

Christina wanted Andy to visit his roots. And she wanted to be a part of the experience. Her spiritual bent of mind, had her pouring Eastern Religion texts on many evenings and she was fascinated by her first visit to an Indian temple with Andy’s mom.

The visit to India changed everything. It had been almost a year since his return. He had passed the strings of his business back to his father, while he had spent the last year knocking on the corridors of each and every Intelligence agency in Washington.

As Andy looked out of the window, the same thought passed his mind again…

Is this what I was born to do? Is this why I was made? Why me? Why me?

He did not have answers to any of the questions.

He would have those answers. Pretty Soon.

………………………………………………………………………………….

The two men looked at the signature carved on the inside of the ivory quarter-moon pendant of the man they had just stopped a couple of minutes ago. It was a signature.

The signature was meant to let the bandits know they should not touch the men who wore such pendants. It was also a sign to let any member of the Taliban know that the men wearing such a pendant were on their side.

The two men had stopped the guy riding the horse with the intention of robbing him. Dust and sand covered the rider head to toe. His face showed that he had not had food and water for days together. A Kalashnikov was strapped on the left side of the horse. The men set aside their AK-47s and helped the rider step off his horse.

“Salam walekum, O traveler. Forgive us. We did not know who you were”

“Walekum salam. Do not be afraid. You are forgiven for having realized your folly”

“How can we help you Sir?”

“I need some food and water. I need to rest for a few hours before resuming my journey. Is there a village around here?”

“Yes Sir. Two hill tops over the east. We live there and it would be our honor to have you rest at our humble home.”

One of the men offered a water flask, made from camel skin, to the rider.

“Please have this Sir, please drink slowly so you don’t choke on it”

The rider took a few sips. The water was heavenly. He licked his lips to moisten them. They were dry and cracked up from the intense heat and dehydration.
“Let’s go”

The men helped him back on the horse and started walking towards their village.

“Where are you headed to Sir?”

“Dar-shuk. Do you know how far it is from your village?”

The men looked at each other.

“Umm… perhaps 6 hours on a horse from here. But avoid taking the Bardukher mountains. We heard the Americans will be coming there for combing operations. If you avoid that and ride by the western streams, you will be safe. It will take a bit longer but you will be safe.”

That was news to him. He had not been aware of the arrival of the American armed forces in that region.

“May Allah bless you for giving me that information.”

His journey to the destination just got a bit longer. But it was safer. He took his ivory moon pendant and kissed it.

“Allah be praised”

He slowly bent forward and lay over the back of the horse on his stomach. Days of exhaustion had taken its toll. He soon passed out.

………………………………………………………………………..

You never find the Guru. The Guru finds you.

No one knew where HE came from. No one ever knew when he left. No one knew where he left for. He would arrive suddenly in a small town and few people HE had revealed HIMSELF to would rush for HIS darshan. HE would sit on a cot made of coir ropes and laugh. The people would take whatever they could prepare for HIM, as soon as the news spread that HE was in town. They would lovingly feed him, rub HIS feet, pray to HIM.

No one knew who HE was or where HE came from. HE was always dressed in an off white dhoti and a blanket over HIS shoulders. HE would vanish if HE saw more people coming to see HIM, for their own selfish desires and benefits.

HE changed lives. Just by the flick of HIS finger. HE could see the infinite moments of your past and the infinite moments of your future. HE never gave any sermons, never asked for anything and strictly instructed HIS small group of followers spread over many small towns and villages, to refrain from talking about HIM, to their friends and family.

They did not know whether he was a Sufi Saint or a Hindu God.

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HE was truly awakened. HE was THE.

BABAJI, they called HIM. No one knew about HIS past. No one knew where HE was born at or where HE grew up. All they knew was one fine day BABAJI arrived in their lives and they fell down at HIS feet crying out loud and hard, letting out all that they had accumulated in the body of theirs. Peace would envelope them, they could see very clearly. Maya never touched them again.

They had become, truly free.

BABAJI made that happen. No one knew HIS real name.

The oldest story known to his small group of followers was when HE was kicked out by a train conductor on the platform of some obscure village. HE did not have a ticket and had been sitting on the floor next to the door.

Looking every bit a homeless man, the passengers wanted the dirty looking old man out of their expensive air conditioned car-compartment at once. Someone pulled the chain. The train stopped at the station and the rich people in the car had the train conductor pushing the dirty old man out of the train.

HE walked and sat down on the cement bench of the station. HE covered his head with the blanket put HIS feet up and laid back on HIS elbow looking towards the sky. Smiling. HE was in a trance. Drinking the nectar of THE, every second of the time HIS physical body lived on.

The conductor blew the whistle and flagged the green. The train did not move. The engineers for the next three hours tried to find every possible problem that was preventing the train to move on. There weren’t any problems. The train, inspite of their many attempts, refused to move an inch.

The old couple from Calcutta had witnessed the entire incident. They were returning from a visit to their Guru, Heda Khan Baba, whose ashram was in the beautiful hills of Himachal Pradesh.

They stepped off the train and walk towards the dirty old man half lying, half sitting on the cement bench of the station. They knelt in front of HIM and touched HIS feet with their forehead.

They prayed to HIM to come with them. They took HIM and boarded the train and paid the train conductor for HIS ticket.

Five minutes later the train took off.

Such and many more miracles of BABAJI made the rounds of HIS followers.

Today he sat under a banyan tree outside the Hanuman temple next to the river in the city of Lucknow. A small group of people sat in front of him. One of them held HIS feet and was crying incessantly.

With HIS back turned away from the crying man, BABAJI was laughing and talking to a few woman who had made kheer for HIM.

HE kept kicking the head of the crying man intermittently. The man would fall back and then roll forward to hold HIS feet and kept on crying.

“CHUP BE GADHE. Don’t keep crying like an ass” HE would laughingly tell the crying man and then turn away from him.

Brij stood behind BABAJI. He had been accompanying BABAJI wherever HE went for the last two years. A school teacher by profession, Brij met BABAJI at the house of a friend, BABAJI had visited one hot sunny afternoon. As soon as Brij entered the room BABAJI was sitting in, everything inside him collapsed. One look at BABAJI had him falling on the floor. He had just seen God.

Two years later BABAJI asked him to accompany HIM. Without any hesitation, Brij went ahead. Miraculously the school he worked in, to this day, keeps sending his monthly pay check to his wife at home. Brij never asked how this miracle happened. It’s BABAJI’s play. Why should I bother myself with it?

BABAJI as usual was in a silly mood.

“Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr………………….. poooooooooooooooooook”

He kept singing that word all morning. Durpok. In Hindi, it meant, a meek, fearful person. Brij did not understand what it was being used for by BABAJI. But as had been the case, seen innumerable times before, the meaning of BABAJI’s incomprehensible actions would become very clear in its own subtle way.

The crying man kept on pleading.

“BABAJI, please forgive me… please forgive me for all my sins. Please save my son.”

In return he received a few more hard kicks. “GET OUT YOU ASS… GO HOME”

The man simply went back to crying on HIS feet.

“Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…………….. poooooooooooooooooook”

The rest of the people were laughing whenever HE uttered the word. Every laugh set them free, their eyes were filled with tears of boundless joy.

“Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr………….. pooooooooooooooooooook”

HE looked at Brij.

“Give him some kheer and take him away” HE pointed to the crying man.

Brij picked the man up and took him away. He very well knew what had just happened. BABAJI had just granted the crying man his wish. The life of his son fighting for life in the hospital would be saved by HIM.

“Durrrrrrrrrrrrrr……………. Poooooooooooooooooook”

“Brij……….. let’s go…………. Get a taxi” HE announced.

The people went berserk.

“BABAJI…….. PLEASE DON’T LEAVE US…. YOU JUST ARRIVED LAST NIGHT… PLEASE BABAJI…. WE BEG YOU”

HE looked back at the one who had pleaded the loudest. With a smile and piercing eyes HE looked into the eyes of the person…

“You want to imprison God?”

The people went silent. Brij held BABAJI’s arm and put it over his shoulder. They walked towards the private taxi.

The driver prostrated at HIS feet and opened the door. Brij closed the door and sat next to BABAJI in the backseat. The driver started his car and turned back to ask Brij…

“Where to Brij bhaiyya?”

Brij looked at HIM

“NAINITAL” HE said in a booming voice.

“Take me to Nainital. Kanta is remembering me a lot and I want to see her”

Brij looked at the driver – “Nainital it is”

The car took off towards Nainital, about 14 hours north of Lucknow.

“Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr……………. Poooooooooooooooook”

Brij was peeling an orange for HIM.

“Pray Babaji…. What does this all mean? You’ve been singing the word durpok since morning”

BABAJI looked at him with a surprise.

“Durpok… who is saying Durpok? You are becoming a BIG LIAR BRIJ. I WILL THROW YOU OUT OF THE TAXI AND NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN”

Brij smiled. Another of HIS games that only HE knew about. Brij took a piece of the orange and fed BABAJI with his hands. He then took the hand towel to wipe HIS lips.

“So what are YOU singing BABAJI”

“It’s not Durpok you idiot”

“Then what is it?”

HE winked at Brij and answered with a mischievous smile…

“It’s Dar-shuk”

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006 at 1:36 pm
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