Life is to Whistle and not to Run

          Life is to whistle and not to run

  It was not as if he didn't know his place. The only thing he dreamed of was to move along the train and to whistle with it. 

        Road to his home ran besides the old rail track. He grew up waking up by the shudder of train passing over the narrow bridge, under which lived the boy, all by himself. Life finds the way and that is the only reason he lived. How many infants abandoned on rail track would live, tell me?

         Nobody taught him anything. No mother to teach words, no father to let support of finger while he learned to stand up, no neighbours to teach how to behave, no sister to teach sharing, no brother to teach jealousy, no grandparents to teach love. If he had somebody to teach anything, it was the train and the bridge. And yet he learned well. The bridge taught him to stand all the pain when trains of disparity, of sorrow, of cruelty, of ignorance, of indifference, of hate passed over. And the train taught him to move ahead despite anything and everything. And that too whistling with joy, contentment.

          Long back he mastered the lessons taught by the bridge. Now only thing he had to live for was to learn what the Train has been trying to teach him for years. To move ahead whistling.

          Trains ran as slow as bicycles and yet too fast for two tiny legs running barefoot. Everyday he kept running, whistling. Neither could he match the train nor could he hear his whistle in overwhelming sound of the train whistle.

          When he was able to, he understood the futility of how he tried to accomplish the only purpose of his life. He started repairing punctured cycle tubes. He would take one of the repaired cycles and drive along the old road. Now he was much faster than he was on his feet. But now even the train ran faster. Boy turned into a young man, motorbike replaced bicycle. He was confident, now he surely will run along the train, whistling his way through. The train always got better of him. After all she grew as he did. 

        But he never gave up. One day while he was chasing, he suddenly found that he was running along the train with the same speed. The moment had come for which he always longed and waited for. But he didn't feel as happy as he expected. Something important was missing. It was then that he realised that he was not whistling anymore. 

         And this is how he realised what the train tried to teach him all his life. Not to run with her but to whistle, with joy, with contentment. And now he learned to live, the way giver of the birth has always wanted.

                      - Amol Mandave(ACP/DYSP)   ©