An unusual Encounter

Bangalore April 2 (Around 2:45pm)
"Duto K.R.PURAM'er ticket,koto?"(Two tickets to K.R.Puram,How Much?).One of the two young boys asked the Bus Driver as I looked on with a slight smile.This is Bangalore,and the language the boy spoke to the Bus Driver in was Bengali with a raw suburban accent on it.The driver understood the K.R.Puram part but the number portion was the confusion factor for the man with more than just one responsibility on his shoulders.Driving that huge BMTC bus through crowded streets on a hot Friday afternoon simultaneously collecting money from the passengers,controlling the over-crammed vehicle;hence understandably agitated at the commotion.
"Erudu...Erudu ticket kuri" ("Two...Give two Tickets").I stepped forward to tell the bus driver.The Ticket issue solved,the two Lads came sat next to me."hum howrah jana chahte hai,kaise jaaye?" ("We want to go to Howrah,How do we?"),one of them asked in broken hindi.An ear-to-ear smile spread across the two rather worried faces when I replied,"Bengali?Me too."
Both looked relieved at that statement for some reason.Clad in dirtied clothes and carrying nothing more than a handfull of cash,I was curious about the question they had asked me.As we spoke,I learnt that these were two boys from a small village in Murshidabaad region of West bengal.One was called Qadir,the other was Sulemaan.They wrote their Madhyamik(Class X State board exam) papers this year and wanted to utilise the two month vacation that followed to earn some money for their families.Apparently promised "easy Accounting/Register work" in Bangalore for a month,they were brought into the city 5 days ago by some man called Ramesh Mondol.But soon they realised they had been conned into rigorous on-field labour work at a construction site in North-Bangalore by the men who brought them here.Cheated and dazed by the enormous city buildings and the impossible-to-interpret local language for a first timer in the state,the two had decided to flee back.They left all their baggages and with the help of some broken hindi,and little hand signals and sign language discovered that a train for howrah left Bangalore via K.R.Puram railway station every night at Eight in the evening.At my confirmation of the fact that there really was a train like that,the two looked like they just won a quarter share of the Ambanis' bank balance.But the very thought of actually fleeing to get back home safe away from the alien land probably felt much bigger to them right now.
"Please take us to the station,we are scared to talk to the people,we do not understand a word".
Hundreds of youngsters from poor families across the country are brought in daily to these big growing cities in need of cheap labour with similar fake job promises.Some accept life that way,some turn to flee.Some return lucky while some age and die trying.
I agreed and got off two stops before the one I originally wanted to go to so as to get the two to the station and do the ticket transaction for them making use of the little knowledge that I had of the local Kannada language.I wondered why I was even doing this.As I handed them the ticket and showed them the platform where the Yesvantpur-Howrah Express would depart from in another hour and a half,Qadir held my hand and followed it up with a question I least expected."Allah tomake laakh dua debe.Tumi musalman nah?amaader shahajjo korle?" ("Allah shall bless you a million blessings.You a muslim right,since u helped us so much?).Cofused and unsure of wat to say,I smiled stupidly and said,"Nope" as I turned back to leave a platform which tonight at Eight hundreds of young Qadirs and Sulemaans would crowd,irrespective of caste,creed,religion or place of origin,cramming into a train that would take them lucky few back home.