The great train robbery.

Every Monday morning I take the 7.15AM Sabari express to Kayamkulam for work. Even with the harthal the train was crowded today with many familiar faces. Smartly dressed men and women who commutes to Kollam or Kayamkulam for work. Government servants who could not pull enough strings to get the transfer to hometown but only to a commutable distance. I always watch them talk about everything under the sun from the soap last night on the television to the fascist in Delhi. From adar premam to Antartican ice shelves and about the correct way of conducting a harthal. I like these men and women sharply dressed and ready to serve the public even on this public nuisance holiday.

As the train raced past the long lakes at Kappil I was distracted from my book by a sudden collective movement of bodies in the corridor. An exodus of my friends was happening towards the next compartment. The ones walking past me smiled a smile that my kid does after going potty in his knickers and winking at their colleagues and acquaintances. In reaction the ones sitting stood up and joined the beeline. I was bit hurt that no one winked at me or tried to explain what prompted this movement even when I craned my neck to see what was behind them. A predator is unlikely and snakes on a train will surely involve Samuel Jackson and or Vava Suresh. The trains next stop is at Kollam and it’s still more than thirty minutes away so what caused this march of PSC appointees?

A man in Black coat with an ugly scowl and a cop in tow appeared on the far end of the compartment. He carried his weapon clipped in a plastic folder. A railway ticket checker. The monstrosity that frequents the AC compartment have entered the sleeper coaches to hunt. My good law abiding friends did not want to be caught not abiding the law and decided to bolt. Manu Joseph, myself and the Tamil beggar boy who was shooed off by one the babu with the advice to get some work instead of begging looked open mouthed when last of the robbers walked out of our compartment with a mutter

“ Harthalinu evenokke veetil irinnude?”