As I climbed the last step in the Dadar Station the clock showed the time 07.00 PM. I am late by three minutes today. My Andheri fast will enter the station at 07.03 PM sharp. I have just three minutes to cover the long over the bridge, get down on the platform 5 and board. I started running, pushing my way through the overflowing humanity. Two minutes and I had reached the first steps of the stairs when I saw the Andheri fast entering the platform. Oh, God! The train is early today. I have to catch it. I now ran madly, jumped two steps at a time, reached the end of the stairs and just when I touched the platform, the train had started moving.
I now ran madly like an Olympic sprinter running for gold. I reached the moving train and running along with it, caught hold of the vertical bar and then I swung myself in and was inside. I felt so good. Every day, catching the train at any cost had become my obsession. I looked around. People were stuffed in the compartment like bees on a honeycomb. But surprisingly today I did not feel any of those being crushed out of breath feeling.
Suddenly the train screeched to a halt. Everyone peeped out of the train and there was a big outcry.”Someone has fallen off the train” People jumped out, curious to see the accident. I also pushed through them and jumped out.
That man was on the platform, his face and head drenched in blood. Sympathy words poured from everyone’s mouth. I looked at the man again. Strangely there was something very familiar about him. Someone reached the man and turned his body to see the face. “Oh God No” It was my own body! my dead body in front of my eyes! How is it possible? I am very much standing here. I shook a man by his shoulder. But my hand was not touching anything. I looked at my hand. There was no hand, no leg, No Body. OH God! I am dead and now me, myself is a body less ghost. I was sort of floating in the air.
I screamed loud, “Oh God, this is not justice, Oh God where are you?” I felt a soft cloud surrounding around me, and a velvet voice whispered,” Yes my son, what is your problem?”, I turned around to see the source of the voice.
There was no one. I said, “Oh God how can you do this. I am just 34 yrs. And I am dead” The voice answered with a half-suppressed laughter, “So what? People can die anytime. Did anyone tell you that you will live till hundred?” I said “Oh God, I am so young. What will my wife and my one-year-old twins do, all alone in this world? How will they survive?” There was a soft laughter as the voice answered, “They will survive just like the hundreds of women who lose their husbands young. She will learn to live”
My mind raced through all of my finance positions. Bank account, Mutual funds, insurance and everything“ Oh God! Everything is password protected and my wife Madura does not know my password. I jealously kept it hidden. Now, what will I do? Had I known that I will die so young I would have given her all the papers. Oh God! yesterday the bonus cheque of 5lakhs, I hid it among my old books so that I can surprise her by getting her a gift? Now after my death she might even throw away all my books and the cheque with that. I imagined my wife with a torn sari begging on the streets with my twin kids on her lap. I screamed “ Oh God please, please give me a chance just for only once… let me go and tell my wife all my passwords” There was no answer now. I wanted to scream but no voice came out of my throat. But then I remembered that I don’t have as a body to have a throat!
I imagined my wife with a torn sari begging on the streets with my twin kids on her lap. I screamed “ Oh God please, please give me a chance just for only once… let me go and tell my wife all my passwords” There was no answer now. I wanted to scream but no voice came out of my throat. But then I remembered that I don’t have as a body then how can I have a throat!
I felt a warm soft hand on my forehead. Finally, God is taking some pity on me. Now I heard very faintly the murmur of voices. Are there many more ghost around me? But then, how to see them? I tried to open my eyes involuntarily forgetting that I don’t have a body for the eyes. But for the first time felt my eyes were hard like rocks.
Now the voices were becoming louder and I could open my eyes a fraction. I saw green dress all around me and one was looking very close. I heard the green ghost calling, “Karan, Karan, can you hear me?” My eyes opened further and the misty images became sharper. I could now recognise the doctor with a green scrub coat and mask hanging on his neck and the other green ghosts were also doctors. Are they all doctor ghost? He repeated again, ” Karan can you recognise me? I am your surgeon” I tried to nod my head but could not move. No noise came out of my mouth.
The doctor said, “He is coming to consciousness. Call his wife in” As I stared wide-eyed trying to gauge the situation and the reality that I am alive and is in the hospital, I saw Madura coming near me. I could see her face was all swollen and tear-stained. She just kept staring at me without talking anything. The doctor was saying “Madam, your husband is a real lucky person, and he had actually come out of the jaw of death. Lucky, that he fell on the platform instead of the gap between the train and platform.
I tried to speak. Seeing my moving lip movement doctor told Madura, “ Maybe he wants to say something to you”
Madura leant closer to me and said, “Yes Karan, tell me” With a great effort I managed to say, “ The password. is….”
Before I finish she stared at me for a moment and her expression turned into a shocked one, as she turned to doctors and half screamed “ Doctor, look at Karan, I think the accident had affected his brain. He is blabbering something” The doctors rushed to me.
From a teacher, to the parents 