I

Grey, cold London. Susan and Gloria were having coffee at Russell Square. Andy had texted a message that Susan thought she should share with her best friend. Yes, nothing interesting, indeed terribly boring. So boring that Susan needed a conversation to revive her faith in humanity. Or at least the fifty per cent of humanity known as men.

Gloria read the text. It said, in a matter of fact manner, that Andy was moving to Shanghai for professional reasons and it seemed that it would not be possible for him to continue the relationship as he believes that long distance relations do not work.

“What a jerk.” Gloria said. “Didn’t even have the guts to meet and say good bye.”
“Makes me wonder whether I can at all understand men and what they want.” Susan said, hiding her tear behind her dark sunglasses.
“Oh, don’t be so philosophical. I knew Andy. Didn’t expect him to do something like this either.”

Susan, dressed in bright red, to compensate for her gloomy mood, wiped her tears, and said, “I really wanted to settle down. I told Andy that I have had enough experiments; I am thirty, it is time to build a home and have babies.”

“And what did the jerk say?”
“He said, ‘Oh yes. Totally.’ You know what is terrible? I am disgusted with myself. That a text message like this can create so much damage to me. I thought I am a strong, independent type.”

Gloria squeezed her arm and said, “Ah, well, why don’t you take a break and do something different? May be some other place? May be get out of this gloomy, foggy London to begin with.”

Next three days Susan took leave from office and stayed inside her small apartment and tried to come to terms with the meaninglessness of her life. Should she try to fix an appointment with the shrink? Should she go on an alcoholic overdrive? Should she write a diary like Bridgette Jones?

Three days later she again met Gloria. She sat down on the sofa, took a sip at the glass of white wine and said, “So you think it will be a good idea to take a break?”

Gloria still busy with household chores and said, “Yes, absolutely. Besides you are in the development sector, you have the opportunity to go to other countries.”

“That’s true”, said Susan. “That’s why I went to Sussex to study development. Then this moron came into my life and I thought of settling down, having babies, decent job in an international NGO, and all that shit.”

“You should not be apologetic about that, come on.” Gloria said, finally finishing her chores and picking up her glass of white wine.

“Well, perhaps no. But will I get a break?”
“Have a word with your boss. She’s nice, no?”
“Oh yes. But you know, boyfriend dumped me is hardly worth talking about. Not a serious issue anymore.”

Gloria did not answer her directly. She smiled and said, “Let’s go for lunch.”

Susan’s boss, Liz, turned out to be an angel. She said, “There’s an opening at the British Council, Calcutta. I can fix it for you. Teaching English to street kids. How does that sound?”

“That sounds good. Thank you.” Susan said.
“I was there for a couple of years. Wait till you face the heat, the dust and the traffic jam.” Liz said. “But maybe you can go up to the Himalayas when Calcutta gets on your nerves.”

II

It took Susan a couple of months to settle down amidst the heat and humidity of Kolkata. The big relief was that there were plenty of people who knew English and who were familiar with British life. She started to develop a special interest in the colonial past of the city – the monuments which still stand in the city such as the ones at Dalhousie Square. She had never heard of Job Charnock before, the guy who apparently founded the city. There were plenty of experts too on the history of the city, lot of books, and it seemed that the only thing that was missing was the pub. Besides she could be in touch with Gloria and others on a real-time basis thanks to the internet revolution. She settled down at a small apartment at Salt Lake, a satellite town to the east of the city. She found it to be  leafy and quiet. “Thank you, Gloria”, she said in whatsapp. “it was a cool suggestion.” Gloria said that she was missing her already.

Susan’s work took her to the Sealdah railway station and its environs where a local NGO worked. Kolkata has two stations, an old one named Sealdah and another smaller one called Kolkata. There is also the Howrah railway station, across the river, in the city of Howrah which is often informally seen as part of Kolkata. The two stations, Howrah and Sealdah, are nerve centres of the city, connecting it to rest of India on the one hand and the suburbs on the other. Susan knew about “population density” as a concept but to actually see the Sealdah station during rush hour was a numbing experience. How could so many people squeeze together in shabby local trains which were not even cleaned properly? She was surprised to see that people were hanging on within those trains and somehow also managing to smile and play cards. Vendors, known as “hawkers”, were selling all sorts of goods and incredible discount prices. Beggars were singing songs. “Sea of humanity” is a cliché, but she could not find any other expression to describe the scene during rush hour.

Watching local trains was not of course what Susan’s job was. She was supposed to teach English to a group of young boys and girls who were looked after by a local NGO. These children, she read in reports, had left their home and lived in and around the station. There were various reasons for leaving home – violence by parents, neglect by step mother, sense of adventure, false ideas about exciting life in the stations, so on and so forth. Once they start living illegally at the station, they fall in love with the trains, make money as porters and beggars, enjoy various forms of substance abuse and sex. It is a life they get addicted to. However they also love the care and attention that they receive from the local NGO’s drop-in-centre. The NGO looks after their health, gave them training on various issues, tried to introduce a certain amount of routine discipline, negotiated with the parents with the hope of reintegrating them back into the family. Different organisations working with such children have different methods, Susan found out.

What came as a surprise to her initially was that the children preferred to live in the platforms rather than in the safety of the NGO’s shelter home. They, at least most of them, preferred to retain a certain amount of independence from the NGO, Child First. This was common to the experience of all such organisations. The children got used to a certain kind of freedom, which included sex and addiction to glue sniffing, and therefore did not want to become subservient entirely to the routine of the NGO’s safe shelter. It was always the endeavor of the NGO to attract the children towards a disciplined life but some inevitably remained stubborn and fiercely independent.

Sultan was one of them.

III

Within a week of starting to visit the NGO, Child First, Susan became a popular teacher. The young boys and girls, about twenty of them, of various age groups, loved the novelty of learning English from a proper English lady. She was vivacious, she was enthusiastic, she loved to be with them. The children were initially somewhat shy and apprehensive to see this new lady who looked different from what they have usually seen, golden hair and white skin, but soon they began to feel comfortable in the presence of Susan didi (elder sister). Susan did not know their language, either Bengali or Hindi, and they didn’t initially understand what she was saying. Hence Susan had to start with the direct method of teaching and use lot of gestures to explain what she was saying. She also made the group speak aloud. Once they started to speak aloud, and get some rudimentary words and expressions right, the children began to feel more confident and started to enjoy themselves. There was a girl named Shefali and boy named Arjun who were particularly bright and managed to pick up the language.

Susan wrote to Gloria – “all my depression is gone…I am feeling great…super busy…hugs…”

Gloria wrote back – “so happy…enjoy…hugs…”

Few days later she found that there was a teenager sitting in one corner of the class. He was quiet, had intense but somewhat blank eyes. It was his first day in the class. He didn’t participate as much as others did, seemed to be somewhat aloof. He had thick, curly hair and somewhat exaggeratedly long nose. Susan wasn’t sure whether he was listening to what she was teaching. However, since this was his first day, she didn’t say anything.

After the class, the head of the NGO, Mr Alokesh Sen, told Susan, “You have achieved a miracle. Sultan attended your class and kept quiet for the whole period.”

Susan was surprised. “Why? Why is that a miracle?” she asked.

“Well, he is the wildest of the lot. We have failed to bring him under any kind of discipline. He is intelligent, manages to earn some money. But he is also into glue sniffing and other things. We are worried that he may become a criminal and go completely in the wrong direction. But you seem to have cast a spell. Let’s see whether he comes tomorrow or not.” Mr. Sen said.
“That’s sad. Where did he come from? I mean what is his story?” Susan asked while sipping her tea.
“We are not sure. We have no idea. He is the only kid who has not disclosed his background. In fact, although he calls himself Sultan, we do not know whether this is his real name or not. He is intelligent and can clearly survive. He has leadership quality, which is why we are worried that he may end up in crime soon.” Mr. Sen said.

Susan was surprised initially but then she thought that indeed that is a possibility. She remembered watching the movie City of God on Brazilian favelas.

“Can I be of any help?” She asked. “Unfortunately, I am not an expert in these issues.”

Mr. Sen looked at her, smiled and said, “Let’s see whether he comes to your class tomorrow or not. If he does, then we shall start thinking further.”

“I hope he does.” Susan told herself, as she returned home, tired and exhausted. She was also missing London.

 

IV

Three months passed. In the meantime, Susan picked up a fair amount of Hindi and Bangla. She was surprised by her talent for picking up the languages. Sultan also became a regular student, much to the surprise of Mr. Sen. He was of course delighted and told Susan that he didn’t know how he could thank her. Susan said, “You have no idea what a difference this class has made to my life. Trust me, I am doing this for my own selfish reasons. Can’t remember the last time I felt so good.” Mr. Sen smiled.

Sultan not only started to attend the classes, he in fact began to do very well. Mr. Sen had told Susan that he is intelligent and Susan could see that once he put his mind to it, he started to pick up the language very fast.

Learning to speak in English, for these boys and girls from the gutter, was not just about picking up another language. It was also about empowerment as in Kolkata English was the language of the elite, the bhadralok. Traditionally only they knew how to speak in both chaste Bangla and proper English. To be able to talk to the upper class in English was a dream that the poor always nurture but never manage to fulfill.

Susan paid special attention to Sultan, not just because he was a good student but she remembered what Mr. Sen told her about him. He was difficult to discipline and there was a chance that he would drift towards a world of crime. Susan found it challenging to bring him towards a respectable life. May be, just maybe, she thought, he would be a changed person before she leaves. She dreamt of seeing Sultan joining the hostel of the NGO and taking vocational training and finally getting a decent job with the help of the NGO. Who knows one day he might even become an important staff of the NGO, bringing more children like him into the fold of respectable life.

One day Sultan requested Susan to come with him to see the station with him. After a brief hesitation, Susan agreed. Sultan used to call her “Teacher”. She used to laugh and say, “I am Susan”, trying to be non-hierarchical.

He had his way of convincing the Railway Police Force to go to places where normally outsiders didn’t have access to. He took her to show where the trains are garaged, where they are washed, how the engines come and join with the compartments, and constantly explained to her in a mixture of Bangla and English how the station functioned from morning till night. He took her to show how the signals work, how the station starts to prepare for the major train, the Rajdhani Express from Delhi, coming in the morning. He introduced her to the different kinds of people who lived in and around the station – the coolies, the vendors, the police, the guards, the ticket checkers, the “hawkers”, the magazine sellers, the fruit sellers and even the prostitutes who had their kothis not far away. He also showed her around Sealdah area, the many kinds of retail shop, and then not far away the College Street, the city’s book market, and the thousand and one small eating joints. She was amazed to see how much detailed knowledge Sultan had. He even knew the pickpockets. They went around for a whole day and Susan didn’t knew when time flew. Yes, there was something special about Sultan’s smile.

At the end of the hot day Susan was completely exhausted but also very happy. She went back home, took a shower and came out to see that there was a call from Sultan. She called him back wondering whether something has gone wrong or not. She said,

“Hello, Sultan, did you call?”
“Hyan, yes.”
“Why, anything wrong?”

There were a few seconds of silence. Then Sultan said,

“I love you”.

Susan did not know what to say.

 

V

That night Susan could not sleep properly. It was partly because of the sudden and unexpected phone call from Sultan. She should have dismissed it as teenage nonsense and gone to sleep quietly. But she could not. The really troubling part was that she actually liked what Sultan said. It was unexpected but not shocking. She had to admit to herself that she was also in love. Yes, in love with a seventeen-year-old street kid.

She skyped Gloria. Gloria was excited to receive her call.

“Hello, hello, what are you up to? What’s happening? Is it very hot?”
“Ah well yes.”
“Why not go up to the hills?”
“Yeah well…may be…”
“Is anything wrong? Are you ok?”
“Well, I think I am in love Gloria…”
“Oh! That’s great! Who’s he? Bengali intellectual?”
“No.”
“Then who? Suspense, suspense.”
“Sultan.”
“Sultan? Who is he?”
“A street kid. He is in my class. He is seventeen.”

Gloria’s jaw dropped. She could not speak for a few seconds. Then she said:

“Listen, Susan darling. We have to talk. I am coming down as soon as I get the visa. Please don’t do anything silly till then.”

Susan didn’t get the chance to do anything silly. That night an express train ran over Sultan who was sitting in one of the tracks, intoxicated and dreaming about Susan. His crushed body was discovered by the Railway police.

 

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