DEAR DEPARTED | Part 1

Who becomes instrumental by incarnation to protect you at times of perils is not known to anybody.

Your ardently loved kith and kin or your bosom friends may rarely turn to be your saviors in predicaments. It is the mysterious plan of Almighty God, how to protect you and who should be his representative as a protector.

Twenty long years ago, there occurred an incident that inspired me to come to the aforesaid universal truth. I received a call one day when I was working in Trivandrum after retirement. The call was from one of my ESM(Ex-serviceman) friends from Kozhikode, that one ESM family, consisting of a mother and two grown-up daughters coming to Trivandrum in Gauhati Express and to receive them in Trivandrum. He also said that the family was separated from their father, Ex, Sgt Nath, at Bhuvaneswar, where he got down from the train to buy something and the train departed. This Gauhati Express was supposed to reach Trivandrum at 12.30 am. As it was a family, and unfamiliar to me I took my wife also to Trivandrum railway station and waited for the arrival of the train. The train was late for one hour and arrived at 1.30 am. We searched all along the train and platform for three female Assamese faces who are not familiar to us. We could not identify them either on the train or on the platform. Three times we walked along with the platform up and down to find them out. We visualized the three faces as Assamese appearance, as our Assam life in Chabua in 1976, contributed that knowledge. At last, we came to the lady's waiting room desperately. The lady's waiting room was demolished and was under repair. Nobody could be found at the entrance. So we thought of returning at 2.30 AM with anxiety about the fate of the family and our unfulfilled mission. Then suddenly, I noticed a group of ladies sitting on the floor of the undemolished portion far away from the entrance. My wife was my confidence to enter into the midst of those ladies. There again we searched for Assamese-looking female faces, but could not find them. But I found three females sitting, bending head on their knees, not showing their faces. I spoke aloud," Gauhati se koyi aaya he". No response. But I perceived that those three head bent females were fearful to respond, so not raising their heads. I spoke aloud once again " Mr. Nath ka parivar he idher".Then those three faces suddenly raised and found the mother and two angel-like daughters, the culmination of Assam,s feminine beauty, one of eighteen and the other of twenty-two, which later I came to know. I told my wife to speak to them. Being unable to speak to them in Hindi, she spoke to them in English that we are E S M family and we got the call from another ESM from Kozhikode. They knew this Kozhikode ESM, who was their family friend. They were not fully convinced with our confession as they were like the cat which fell in hot water being afraid of even cold water. There is the reason for their suspicion, which I shall let you know in a suitable context. So again my task was to convince them of my KYC, as Mr.Nath had no communication with the family since the family had no mobile with them. The mobile phone was not popular those days. Those girls knew English and could speak to my wife. They half-heartedly identified me. They said that they had seen some time ago my photo in one of the professional journals associated with defense, in which I was writing those days. Their faint memory simplified the problem. The daughter's words were the guarantee for the mother to come with us to my home in my car. I passed the information of the safe redemption of the family, to the Kozhikode E S M friend, who in turn passed to Mr. Nath, who had solace with this news. He got my phone No. also. Mr. Nath called me on phone. I listened to his feeble, half-dead whisper from which I could perceive how much was his agony. His odyssey from Bhuwaneswar with only the family railway ticket and some pocket money without any reservation is another long story. The journey of the family to Trivandrum without a ticket, without any money, and the head of the family for two days is yet another story. The story, unheard is more pathetic than a story, heard. This will be told in the next instance to get rid of monotony.

Thank you.