A Little Muslim Girl On the Train

 

On my recent train journey, a middle-aged Muslim woman and her 6 to 7 years old little daughter boarded the train from Prayagraj railway station. The woman seemed illiterate, spoke too loudly, did not have manners, unnecessarily interrupted co-passengers with some or the other help, and it felt sad to travel in the same compartment as hers. But her little daughter left me totally in awe and seemed like a fairy of some kind!

The first thing I remember hearing from the little girl was when a teaseller passed in the morning, and she said to her mother, “mummy chai kharido” (mother, buy some tea)! From the way she sounded, it seemed as if she was asking for tea for herself. Her mother ignored her at that time, but later in the evening, she did buy tea from a teaseller, and she had ordered “two cups” of tea! It was shocking to see that she had taught her little girl to take tea from such an early age! And this was not the only thing out-of-age about the little girl.

The little girl used her mother’s phone to make several calls during the travel. I found that she was in habit of calling her mother “mummy” instead of “ammi” and father as “papa” instead of “abbu”, the latter terms are typically used in Muslim families. But she gave away her religion when she called someone over phone and called “Assalam valekum”, which sounded so weird coming from a little girl.

She remained on her berth along with her mother most of the time, and early morning next day when the train was about to reach the destination, she came down with her too. Her father called over phone and the little girl picked up the call and after saying “Assalam valekum”, the father went silent; and the girl asked, “Aur?” I was shocked to see such a little girl using this trick of saying “Aur?”, “Aur?” during phone calls to extend the discussion and probe the other party to talk more. Her father seemed to be totally non-talkative type because he was at loss of words even though it was he who had made the phone call. The girl herself asked him, “Aap majaar ke paas milenge na, jaisa pichhli baar mile the? Ham log majaar ke paas wait karenge”. I wondered what majaar she was talking about (later after reaching the railway station, I saw a small majaar (shrine) made on the Railway land just besides the main entrance; she was talking about that as a landmark). She told her father about the count of bags she and her mother were carrying. Later she gave the phone to her mother. The father asked the mother “who all are coming?” and she said, “no one else came” (meaning only she and the daughter were coming) in a voice of disappointment. The father again went silent and then said he was cutting the call, and it almost felt as if he did not like his wife much.

Just before the train was to arrive at the platform, the woman went to the loo after telling her daughter to remain sitting at her berth. But she did not specifically tell her that she was going to the loo, and hence after a minute the little girl became anxious and ran towards the way her mother had gone. By that time, I was already standing near the gate waiting for the train to arrive at platform, and I told the girl to wait at her seat and not to move, but she totally ignored me and went to the toilet door and banged it till her mother shouted from inside. Then the girl came back to her seat. I was really impressed that the girl had not trusted her mother and was fearing any untoward incident (like her mother leaving her behind and vanishing), which was a crime stuff from the newspapers. I guess such things happen in the worker-class families and such kids learn to trust only their instincts and not any other from their childhood.

When her mother came back and both were sitting on their berth, the girl looked at her luggage and after finding several loose carry bags, she said to her mother, “Ye allar-ballar lekar ham kaise utrenge?” (how shall we deboard the train carrying so much loose stuff?). Her use of the term “allar-ballar” (or something like it, if I don’t remember exactly), totally floored me! It was like cherry on the top, climax of a thriller novel.

I think the only one who vanished from the train was me, since I shall cherish the little girl and her interesting talks for a long time to come. May she always have a good and happy life; like a little fairy she is.

- Rahul Tiwary