There was an uncle in a certain town who was forced to go abroad to look for better job to increase prospects for his family. He worked hard in spite of numerous obstacles and difficulties so as to save money in foreign land and look after his family in his native country.

Years passed and other relations began to migrate too and a close contact was established with the new arrivals. In few years he was blessed with lots of nephews and nieces and which he, out of his kindness of his heart, looked after and supported financially wherever he could. But the relations took that generosity of his heart as his weakness and began to harass him for more and more money. Further more each one of them was looking forward to clauses in his will as the uncle had never married and had no issue. All of these were expecting him to make that individual as the sole beneficiary of his will.

He sensed that though they professed to be looking after his welfare, each one of them was concerned with their own ego, as they wanted to get rich on the fats of his uncle’s money. One or two of them were the worst of the bunch and pressurized him constantly as to be made as the sole beneficiary. Being a kind soul, he did not want to make a scene with those greedy ones and just indicated that he might do that. But in his heart of hearts he knew that they were a common lot without any sensitivity and subtlety of emotions. In fact they were like vampires who were living in the hope of sucking a lot of his financial blood in not a distant future as they prayed, he expected, for his early demise.

They thought their uncle as a simpleton, a fool, a man to be easily manipulated and milked financially and had no regard for the uncle’s literary career and thought that he was just wasting his time in scribbling and publishing books. That was a sheer waste of his life and time and instead, he should devote all his time in increasing and amassing his wealth. As other members of the society at large, their mind had been conditioned by the prevalent culture and media that a man’s success had to judged only in term of monetary value and anything else was just a waste of one’s life.

‘ Uncle! the rich are very powerful and glamorous and they are very different from you and me.’ they would say to him.

‘ Only difference they have is that they have more money, that is all.’ uncle replied

‘But every one worship them as pillars of society & culture.’

‘You must be joking. They have as much intelligence as any of their pets, no more.
Only they have the knack and inclination to make more money. Their only virtue being
their rampant materialism.’

The nephews did not like that reply and thought that their uncle was getting flippant by preaching them a philosophy and which was a device to undermine the ‘ common people’ like themselves.

The uncle being a fair person drew a will and divided his assets equally among all the nephews and nieces. He thought that0 it was of way of doing justice to all. He forgot all about his will, as he got busy with his day-to-day activities.

One day he was sitting with some of his relations as they were discussing the future prospects and uncle casually remarked that there would be sufficient money left by him to give a good start to each one of his beneficiaries. He noticed that one of his nephew’s face fell with a tortured expression and to which the uncle remarked.

‘How you could do this to me.’ the nephew said with an angry look.

‘You promised that you will leave everything to me.’

‘I did no such thing.’ uncle replied

‘ You did promise and you are a liar.’

‘ You should not be so rude and should not insult me in such a way.’

‘ You are a useless person, a man without any principle.’

‘ That is rich coming from your mouth. You never cared for any one in your life.’

‘ Do not talk rubbish uncle. You promised and that is that.’

‘ I did not know that you were such a mean person, only caring for material things.’ the hurtful uncle remarked.

‘You will regret that.’ the angry nephew stated and stormed out of room.

*

The uncle was going to his native land in order to rest and to recuperate his spirit by getting away from it all. He still had the threat posed by the nephew at the back of his mind but being kind natured, he was always looking for good in people and never wanted to do any harm to them as long as they are on level with him.

He looked out of his hotel windows and saw the narrow streets being tread by the crowd and eclipsed by the shadows of tall buildings lined on both sides. A patch of light came filtering through the net curtain and cast a luminous shadow on a white wall opposite the window. It was quivering as if with life of its own and looked fantastic in its disguise through which he could go to some imagined worlds of his mind. As the wind blew even the patterns of shadows rippled like waves in a sea into which a stone was thrown. A bird flew outside across the window and its shadow cast a stir on he wall.

He wanted to experience that novelty of the moment. He went out and walked. As he moved along the street suddenly opened into an open space of tree-studded square where jittery green but still clear against the evening sky. The trees were subdued in their immobile silhouettes like some uniform sentries tired off from the daylong vigils. He wanted to travel to some unknown place and proceeded towards the railway station. He got a ticket to a destination which promised peace and quiet, as suggested by the ticketing clerk and boarded the train in a sleeper class railway compartment, with a reserved berth. There were three other people sitting and one in his reserved place but ha he vacated the allotted bunk at top when he explained to them about his reservation.

He spread his bedding over there but as it was still light outside, he did not want to get tucked in so early. He climbed down as not to miss passing panorama across the carriage. He sat down with the people watching countryside and villages outside the window. Soon they began to chat about everything under the sun. The food trolley came along and he bought snacks for himself and his fellow passengers. Top-notch samosas, sauce and cups of fresh tea to go around. The samosas being heavy on the stomach, being fried in oils, soon induced drowsiness and he wanted to take a nap. He did not need much sleep due to his age.

The train was flying through the darkness enveloping the countryside outside, and each change of speed created its own rhythm. Thak, thak….. And then thaka thak, thaka thak…. Etc. You could put words to the sounds of train rhythms and it would instantly spin it into a song. In his drowsy state it became soothing and peaceful he forgot all the complications of his life and just moved with the rhythms of the train and his remembered songs and it was marvelous. Soon he passed beyond horizons of waking consciousness into forget-fullness of deep sleep

When he woke up and looked at the watch, it 2pm and the night darkness was still there. He get down from his upper sleeping bunk making sure that he did not step on the passengers on the lower bunk. Only there were two passengers there, spreading out and in deep sleep. He found room beside the window to look at the darkness outside. It looked that he was in a different planet full of darkness yet a luminous darkness without any hopes or despairs of human kind. He had a function of just traveling on, an endless journey without end, may be like life itself. The train began to sing of a popular song:

Chalna jeevan ki khani
Rookna mot ki nishani

Movement is the story of life
Resting is the sign of death.

Out of darkness tiny glowing lights arose like twinkling stars and soon they spread in the space all around, they were brilliant and exquisite. Thousands of fireflies were celebrating the advent of the night and darkness by swimming into it.

Suddenly a veiled figure appeared outside the glass compartment door and raised his hand and before the uncle could comprehend, a bullet was fired aiming at him but it missed. The sound of gunshot woke the other passengers who rushed in alarm at the gunman. The gunman ran to get away and jumped out of the moving carriage although the train was going full speed. The guard came running and the passengers tried to persuade him to pull the chain for stopping the train. The guard waited for the next tiny village station before he did that and police were called in who went in search of the alleged shooter.

After the initial shock, the uncle recovered somewhat and began to think about the alleged assassin. Suddenly an idea struck him that the man who tried to kill him might be his nephew though in a disguised appearance. He set out of the train at the next city stopped and enquired at the stationmaster’s office about the incident.

It was reported that the alleged assassin was in search of his uncle who was traveling somewhere in the land. As a result of his jump from an express train, he was gravely wounded and taken to emergency operation to save his life. They did saved his life but sans his legs and he had to remain in disabled chair for the rest of his life.

Durlabh Singh© 2009.