It was fifteenth of May Nineteen Ninety Seven,
I remember that day I turned eleven,
The new day brought with it new courage in me,
All I wanted to do then, was to set myself free.
Free from the world of hatred and lies,
Where everyday someone close to me dies.
My mother awaits her inevitable death,
My father stinks of alcohol in his breath.
Fed up with poverty, misery and fight,
I decided to abandon my fateful plight.
My tears that night subsided with rain,
I boarded the Bombay bound express train.
The next morning saw a new dawn,
I stayed back at the station when everyone was gone.
This was it, I found my heaven,
My new address was platform seven.
I collected plastic bottles from the trains,
And refilled them from the nearby drains
Sold them again when I was in luck,
Or gave it as scrap and made a quick buck.
Life was good with lots of friends,
Equally appalling were their life’s trends.
Rani deceived the pimp and fled from the bar,
Altaf had come to be a Bollywood star.
The cops were the greatest evil; they’d beat us like thrash,
Their bribes had changed, from money to hash.
At times their sins reached an ugly height,
They’d take and “detain” Rani for the night.
Then one day one Didi came,
She curiously asked us all our name.
We thought she was a tourist wanting to preach,
Little did we know she had come to teach.
So sweet was her smile, so nicely she spoke,
Despite our mischief, her resolve never broke.
This was the roll of our lucky dice,
Being treated humanely felt so nice.
She’d teach us from her son’s old books,
She was the only one who didn’t judge us by our looks.
In a few years she changed our life,
Rani became a beautician and Altaf’s wife.
Then one day, I went to her with teary eyes,
I wept away like a baby cries,
And touched her feet as my heart sank
She just queity asked me “Which Rank?”
That day, for the very first time,
I asked why she did all this for us and her answer was divine,
She said,
“I couldn’t bear to see you’ll grow up to be wild,
I decided this, the day I had lost my child
Remember the time you helped carrying a body on your back,
Of a young boy who died crossing the track”
I was amazed at the confidence the lady had,
In a man who’d seen nothing but bad,
I got my result; the IAS exam was done,
I got the rank she deserved, yes it was “One”
I remember that day I turned eleven,
The new day brought with it new courage in me,
All I wanted to do then, was to set myself free.
Free from the world of hatred and lies,
Where everyday someone close to me dies.
My mother awaits her inevitable death,
My father stinks of alcohol in his breath.
Fed up with poverty, misery and fight,
I decided to abandon my fateful plight.
My tears that night subsided with rain,
I boarded the Bombay bound express train.
The next morning saw a new dawn,
I stayed back at the station when everyone was gone.
This was it, I found my heaven,
My new address was platform seven.
I collected plastic bottles from the trains,
And refilled them from the nearby drains
Sold them again when I was in luck,
Or gave it as scrap and made a quick buck.
Life was good with lots of friends,
Equally appalling were their life’s trends.
Rani deceived the pimp and fled from the bar,
Altaf had come to be a Bollywood star.
The cops were the greatest evil; they’d beat us like thrash,
Their bribes had changed, from money to hash.
At times their sins reached an ugly height,
They’d take and “detain” Rani for the night.
Then one day one Didi came,
She curiously asked us all our name.
We thought she was a tourist wanting to preach,
Little did we know she had come to teach.
So sweet was her smile, so nicely she spoke,
Despite our mischief, her resolve never broke.
This was the roll of our lucky dice,
Being treated humanely felt so nice.
She’d teach us from her son’s old books,
She was the only one who didn’t judge us by our looks.
In a few years she changed our life,
Rani became a beautician and Altaf’s wife.
Then one day, I went to her with teary eyes,
I wept away like a baby cries,
And touched her feet as my heart sank
She just queity asked me “Which Rank?”
That day, for the very first time,
I asked why she did all this for us and her answer was divine,
She said,
“I couldn’t bear to see you’ll grow up to be wild,
I decided this, the day I had lost my child
Remember the time you helped carrying a body on your back,
Of a young boy who died crossing the track”
I was amazed at the confidence the lady had,
In a man who’d seen nothing but bad,
I got my result; the IAS exam was done,
I got the rank she deserved, yes it was “One”
