It was 13:37 as Colonel Pervez drew up outside the main Matunga railway station. He steeled himself to run the gauntlet of journalists and curious onlookers that had gathered outside the station. As his staff car slowed he waved his hand at the armed Police guard that were stood outside the entrance to the station concourse. He commandingly gesticulated for them to come forward and protect him from the throng of people. They all moved as one brandished their bayonetted rifles, pushing aggressively against anyone who pushed back. A police sergeant quickly, smartly, stepped forward and opened the Colonel’s car door, as he did so he stood bolt upright and saluted the senior officer. Colonel Pervez manfully strode into the train station not quite prepared for what was to confront him that day.
There was a river of abandoned luggage trolleys filling the station concourse, like an awkward log jam of mangled metal. They sat there holding hands like so many small scrap trains being marshalled into a breaker’s yard. Policemen were hurriedly, feverishly, moving trolleys out of the way of the Colonel so he could get closer to the scene.
He made his way partially onto the main station concourse and stood still, shocked to the core by the sight before him.
Colonel Abbas Farrokh Pervez slowly looked round the human carnage scattered across the train station floor. Not one dead body had been moved in case there was evidence that they had taken part in this attack.
“What a waste, to gain so little. What a bloody waste of so much good life.” he said to no-one in particular; just openly to the entourage of soldiers and police that had accompanied him.
His gaze alighted on the battered, bloodied torso of a small child, their shrapnel torn tiny arms were grotesquely, tortuously twisted outwards as if fending off an attacker. In that moment he noticed that the child had the same tee shirt on he had bought for his grandson for his birthday last week.
As he looked around amongst the bright colours of the scattered sari’s he saw the torn and shattered, blood stained body of a man dressed in a pale linen suit. Small pieces of torn, bloodied, linen were now strewn across the brightly coloured sari’s of dead women. Nails were sticking out of the flesh of some corpses like some bizarre religious rite had taken place.
He saw that a few yards in front of him a battered and bloodied police issue automatic machine gun still had its bright red safety catch firmly on. That gun had been issued to one of his men that very morning. Now it lay abandoned and orphaned by the dreadful spectacle that was laid bare before him.
The very faint crackle of a police radio could be heard stuttering out unacted commands among the debris of death and destruction, certainly not by the owners of those radios.
The Colonel stepped forward, halted and then furrowed his brow and stutteringly drew breath in that faltering half cry of emotion that such sights often evoke. He cast his gaze around the scene before him; taking in the shattered, bloodied body parts and the twisted remnants of suitcases, luggage trolleys and shop fronts. His gaze settled on and then into the crater left by the massive explosion. Parts of the splintered station looked like a bizarre washing line hung by the Grim Reaper, with ragged clothes and body parts hanging from the twisted and shattered cast iron and steel of the concourse building fronts. There was a strange piercing silence that almost hurt his ears, broken only by the intermittent crackle of the police radio on the floor. His nostrils rapidly became filled with the acidic, acrid smell of spent explosives and the rank, sickening, clinging odour of rapidly congealing blood and strewn viscera. Abbas slapped his thigh with his silver topped swagger stick to snap himself out of the self-hypnotic stare that had overcome him.
“Let’s get on with this damn job.” He angrily snapped at his lieutenant colonel. His anger was not with the junior soldier but with what he, what they all were now confronted with.
“What a bloody stupid waste.” he thought to himself as he turned away from the scene and made his way back to his staff car.
Colonel Abbas Farrokh Pervez was the head of the terrorist unit in the city. Colonel Abbas Pervez had been in the position for only six months and had seen three attacks of a similar gravity in that short time; his predecessor had been killed in one of those brutal attacks. He did not take on this job lightly. This was a deadly game of terrorist cat and mouse that he was involved in.
His father would have been so proud of him in such a high position. He had armed guards and a staff car, he was a Colonel. He smiled inside at that thought. His father worked hard but had only made being a Sergeant before he died in a road accident. By then the Colonel had only then just joined the Police cadets, he wanted to be like his father, a policeman. Abbas had risen rapidly through the ranks, taking his sergeant’s exam at 27, seven full years before his father had. He had stepped on heads to do so though. Now he was feared and respected by most and also hated by some.
Now he had a job to do.
As Colonel Pervez left the station a multitude of camera flashes made him blink into the false sunlight they created. As the flashes subsided, journalists shouted some unintelligible questions, TV crews tried to jostle his guards away from the Colonel so that they could get a close up of his markedly, upset furrowed face.
Earlier that day no-one took much notice of the two happy young men joshing with each other as they got off the overly crowded 12:37 local train and made their way up the platform towards the station concourse. They were laughing and pushing each other in that way young men do when they are stupidly, overly happy.
As they got to the ticket barrier they patted their pockets in that ‘where are my tickets?’ kind of way. Then dramatically finding the tickets like a rabbit out of a hat they gave their tickets to the platform guard. They pushed each other and patted the guard on the shoulder.
“Come on old man, we’ve got things to do!” one jokingly said.
These boys were giving the ticket collector some cheek and it irritated and yet amused him.
Babar Bilal Goshtasp, ‘Ali’, had been a station employee for 47 years and had seen everything known under the sun happen here: births, deaths, divorces, accidents, bridal processions and happiness. 47 years he mused to himself, that was way before these two cheeky idiots had been born.
Babar looked down at the tickets, then back up at the boys and then back down to the tickets. He was going to take his time with this pair of jokers. He looked down at the queue of waiting passengers, they could wait for a while whilst he dealt with these two fools. He was going to play a joke on these two jokers. He palmed the tickets so that they vanished and appeared in his other hand. He often did this for small children when he knew that they had travelled alone. Both men laughed and patted the back of his hands.
An elderly well dressed couple began to tut and shake their heads, they wanted to get off the platform quickly.
“Come on! Get a bloody move on man!” the old man said out loud “My son is coming to meet me! He’s an important man you know!”
Their eldest son, Sajad, was meeting them to take them to his house where he had laid on a celebration meal for their 50th wedding anniversary.
A businessman in an expensive pale linen suit strained to see what was going on at the ticket barrier. He was irritated with this delay. He took off his hat and fanned himself with it. Perspiration had formed pools of darker circles in the cloth under his arms. He was already late for his meeting with his employers. His job in banking was on a knife edge as he’d lost some investments made by a huge customer. Mr Massoud the area manager, had called him in to get to the bottom of this matter. His small house extension hadn’t cost that much, he thought. How did Mr Massoud find out about it? Wahid Zia dabbed his brow with the snow-white handkerchief his wife had made him take day. She said it showed he had breeding: Low classes wiped their brow with their hands and threw it on the floor. Wahid let out an overly dramatic heavy sigh so that everyone within earshot knew how irritated he was. Then he joined in berating Babar,
“Good god man, they’re only tickets for heaven’s sake! I have important business here today!”
A man further back in the queue shouted “Mr Business, Mr bloody Business, we are all in a hurry Mr Business body!”
Babar took no notice of such things. He’d heard all of that over the years. Everyone was in a hurry nowadays. Everyone could do his job quicker.
It was Wednesday, Babar mused to himself, so his wife would be making Aloo Ghobi, rice and chapatis. He had married her for her cooking, not her looks. He half smiled at that thought. She was a good woman though he’d had four children by her; all at university now. These boys at the barrier were wasters, frittering their lives away in inane stupidity.
He looked down at the two return tickets the boys had given him and clipped them on one side, precisely inside the black square box as regulations said he had to. Mister Ajit had reprimanded him when he had seen him punching two tickets together. Mister Ajit was another upstart whippersnapper who needed taking down a peg or two.
“Mr bloody, big head, clip cloppity ass Ajit.” Babar thought to himself. He half smiled at that thought.
As instructed by Mr Ajit, Babar clipped the tickets one by one, of course he could have done it by putting the tickets on top of one another, Mr Ajit would never know, but he was taking his time with these two boys. He had seen thousands of people every day this wasn’t the first time that some silly boys had been cheeky to him.
Babar had seen many changes over those 47 years and he knew his job inside out. Nowadays though he had to contend with the pompous armed Police patrolling the station in their cocky ‘Mr Know it all’ way. They checked in his tiffin box as he came into work and in his bags and his pockets and under his hat and under his coat. Where didn’t those pompous fools not check? They also took their bloody time as they did so not only to him but to every employee, day in and day out. Didn’t they know he had tickets to collect? There was a station to run, don’t you know?
He had seen and knew more than they had ever known or will know. Life was so much simpler years ago.
Babar shook his head and looked back up at the two men, silly boys in his mind, and in a mock anger he ushered them on their way through the barrier.
“What a waste.” he thought to himself, “These boys will never do anything with their lives.”
Babar hurriedly gesticulated to the next in the line and took their ticket and punched it, in the black box of course. Quite rapidly the long queue dissipated and the passengers made their way on to the concourse. Men greeted women, women greeted men, happy couples greeted other couples. Children were scooped up and eagerly, lovingly hugged by a waiting parent or relative. Voices became raised to overcome the hubbub of greetings and shouts of happiness that filled the station to its roof.
The two men stood still for a few minutes taking in the station layout. Both of them adjusted their weighty rucksacks and then both took a sip of water each from the same bottle.
“Thisati mere dosata nu kama karadi hai.” (Thirsty work my friend!) said Ibrahim to Ejaz.
“Thisati mere dosata nu kama karadi hai, indeed!” Ejaz replied, slipping into English.
Traders bellowed the sale of their wares out above the passenger’s heads.
“Chai! Cold drinks the best snacks! Get them here!!”
“Chai Sir?”
“Chai Madam?”
“Cold drink, cold drink, water!”
“The best snacks here!”
Everyone on the 12:37 had passed the men taking their sips of water. The concourse became rapidly jammed with people, luggage and trolleys. The luggage trolleys clattered across the terrazzo floor like human powered steam trains making clinking clunking noises as they noisily travelled. The self employed luggage porters touted noisily for business, as they had control of most, if not all, the so-called free trolleys on the concourse.
“Tarali Sira, Help Sir?”
“Tarali Sira, Tarali Madam?”
“Tarali, tarali! BEST Trolley HERE!”
One day thought Shamir Ghulam, I will be a chai wallah, a bloody good chai wallah. That would only be when one of the old boys dropped off his perch. He giggled at that thought, old man Dalir was always on his case, he’d drop off his perch soon.
“Get out of the way trolley boy!” shouted Dalir.
One day Shamir thought to himself I will be a Dalir, a chai wallah. He snapped out of that daydream and continued his search for business,
“Tarali! Tarali! Let me take luggage! Best Trolley HERE!” shouted Shamir as he swerved Dalir’s swipe at him with his hand.
Not one person off the 12:37 train had taken any real notice of Ejaz and Ibrahim. They were just men, boys, with big rucksacks. It wasn’t a sight that raised any suspicion. Why would it? They were perhaps just boys coming back from university to visit their friends and family. It wasn’t an uncommon sight on this station.
Two armed policeman walked past the men and in a bored manner just looked them up and down and carried on chatting about their wives and children and football, what they were going to do after work and how boring this patrol was. They paid no real attention to the men whatsoever.
Ejaz and Ibrahim slowly made their way across the main station concourse towards the compass that was inlaid into the floor. It was a huge compass some ten metres across. It was articulated perfectly so that it showed the true direction of the compass points to the rail traveller.
However the crowded concourse proved hard to negotiate as crowded as it was. They had to gently push a few people aside to make any headway. As they did so an elderly man raised his stick and took a half-hearted swipe at the men.
“Khuni marakhi, meri patani lai dekho!” (Bloody idiots watch out for my wife.) he shouted angrily at them waving his stick and trying to land a blow on the men, but he missed them by a mile. It was the elderly man and wife from the queue; the couple who had travelled to meet their son for their 50th wedding party. Their son was nowhere to be seen so they took their cases and used them as makeshift benches and sat waiting for him to turn up. To them it made perfect sense: stay put on the station and wait for him. To other travellers they were now a nuisance. They sat waiting for Sajad their son to turn up. Mister and Mrs Adnan had worked all their lives in the shop they had owned since they got married. They worked long hard hours. Their reward in life was sending their three sons to University. Sajad was a lecturer in Electrical Engineering at Matunga University now. Hamis was a lecturer at Mumbai University, he lectured in Mathematics and he would be at the party today. Naveed their youngest son would be there, he was a lecturer at Mumbai too, he lectured in Physics. Mr Adnan always said they got their brains from his side of the family. He would not allow his three sons to take over the shop, he had employees now to do that. His life’s work was done, he had three boys he could be proud of and they were proud of him. Though Naveed would not say what his father did when he was in snobby university company. The Adnan’s had started out in life like the Chai wallahs had but they had graduated to owning their own shop. Now they had two employees as well.
“Where is your Sajad?” Mr Adnan said out aloud to no one in particular, though his wife was right next to him. Sajad was always his wife’s son when things went wrong.
Ibrahim and Ejad pushed against the flow of the crowd, they had a destination in mind. It was destination that meant a great deal to them. Ejad stumbled on a suitcase carelessly left by someone.
Ibrahim quickly grabbed at Ejad’s arm to steady him,
“Dhiana nala mere dosata,savadhani nala!” (“Careful my friend, careful.”)
Ejad righted himself and the two men steadily made their way across the concourse to the eastern side of the inset compass. They both stood facing each other on the very tip of the eastern cardinal of the compass. Then Ejad and Ibrahim put their hands on each other’s shoulders in what, to a casual observer, was just an act of greeting and friendship.
It was an act of a sinister and deeper friendship.
It was an act of friendship that in a few very brief seconds was to become an act of terrible terrorism.
Tears filled their eyes as they faced each other, they had been friends for many years. Attending the same schools with the same teachers. Their last teacher, Umar Haque had told them that they would one day be Shaheed, martyrs. That was their destiny. To them the glory of heaven would open up for an eternity. Umar had told them that Jannah, paradise, awaited them. Umar Haque for many years like a hateful honey-bee of death had plucked the pollen of the youth of Pakistan and converted them into the bitter bile black honey of Jihadi terrorists.
Ibrahim and Ejad then hugged each other, as they let their hug go their arms slowly dropped and they both simultaneously pulled on an almost imperceptible stainless-steel cable that ran into their rucksacks.
“ALLAH AKHBAR! ALLAH AKHBAR!” they both cried out aloud in unison, both as one, both together as loud as their voices would go. They had been told that they had one purpose in this life. That purpose was about to be fulfilled. They both rapidly turned their bodies towards the west point of the compass on the floor and faced Mecca as they pulled harder on the triggers for the bombs they both carried.
The rallying cry stopped all the noise in the station. People just froze and stood quietly in part horror and part shock of that sudden exclamation. Many knew what was about to happen and began to run.
The two patrolling armed policemen spun round and raised their machine guns aiming at an unknown target in readiness for an attack. Their hearts pounded in their chests and their mouths went desert dry. They had been trained for this but when it happened it was so different. Their radios suddenly crackled to life with white noise, then a cacophony of screamed commands and raised voices.
The elderly couple, Mr and Mrs Latif Rizwan, sitting on their suitcases turned their hands over in supplication and raised their eyes towards the station ceiling. They knew what was about to happen. They’d had 152 years on the earth, 100 years of that was in marriage. 152 years of life and wisdom was about to end in a millisecond. They didn’t have time to face Mecca as they had done every day for all their lives.
A man raised his hand to his wife’s face in a futile act to shield her from the explosion and as a last act of farewell and tenderness. He just about managed to tenderly touch her face.
A woman pulled a nearby playing child into her bosom and hugged it to her. Then pulling her scarf over the child’s head she bent forward away from the men in a vain attempt to shield the child. Her husband spun round and threw himself at the pair his arms outstretched in an open hug. He tried to hug the two of them; that hug never made contact.
Babar dropped his well worn beloved ticket punch to the floor and half turned to the platform he had seen for so many years. He would never see his grandsons graduate or taste his wife’s Aloo Ghobi, chapatis and rice again. Neither would he be able to playfully chide her for not sweeping the floor before he came home from work.
A trolley porter pushing empty trolley dropped to his knees, then to the ground curling into a foetal ball in a vain attempt to make himself smaller and hopefully safer.
Another porter loudly shouted “God! NO!” as he heard the cry and fell to the ground pulling his trolley on top of his body. Other luggage porters quickly crouched behind their heavily laden trolleys and prayed for their lives. They could not abandon their charges even if the owner had run away, they had a responsibility for the luggage, they could not run away.
Shopkeepers suddenly threw themselves over their counters startling their customers and pushing goods to the floor; then hastily and futilely they grabbed at the front roller shutters on their shops trying to block out the blast that was inevitably to come.
Some people just stopped still frozen in fear and awe and then they turned and ran like so many frightened sheep scattered by a wolf.
A few people just stopped still not knowing where to turn or what to do, their feet glued to the ground in sheer terror.
The explosion thundered like a large pride of angry roaring lions through the crowded station. It was like a fire wrought from Hell, scalding, burning and maiming as it passed through bodies, over heads and under legs. It cut down people like a hurricane blindly blowing ballistically across a field of human wheat.
An eerie eclipse of silence descended on the station broken only momentarily by the ghostly crackle of a police radio chattering out commands.
The coughs, cries and sobs of the injured and dying slowly rose and turned into the screams and howls of people in agony. The screams and howls rapidly lifted in volume and became searingly louder and louder like the tortured souls in Hades. The howls and moans of the injured and dying faded and slowly then died as the people did too.
Ibrahim and Ejad had fulfilled their purpose in this life as Umar Haque had promised them.
It didn’t take long for Colonel Pervez’s team to identify the two bombers. They were on a register of suspected terrorists. He would now have to face why they weren’t arrested before this happened.
There was a river of abandoned luggage trolleys filling the station concourse, like an awkward log jam of mangled metal. They sat there holding hands like so many small scrap trains being marshalled into a breaker’s yard. Policemen were hurriedly, feverishly, moving trolleys out of the way of the Colonel so he could get closer to the scene.
He made his way partially onto the main station concourse and stood still, shocked to the core by the sight before him.
Colonel Abbas Farrokh Pervez slowly looked round the human carnage scattered across the train station floor. Not one dead body had been moved in case there was evidence that they had taken part in this attack.
“What a waste, to gain so little. What a bloody waste of so much good life.” he said to no-one in particular; just openly to the entourage of soldiers and police that had accompanied him.
His gaze alighted on the battered, bloodied torso of a small child, their shrapnel torn tiny arms were grotesquely, tortuously twisted outwards as if fending off an attacker. In that moment he noticed that the child had the same tee shirt on he had bought for his grandson for his birthday last week.
As he looked around amongst the bright colours of the scattered sari’s he saw the torn and shattered, blood stained body of a man dressed in a pale linen suit. Small pieces of torn, bloodied, linen were now strewn across the brightly coloured sari’s of dead women. Nails were sticking out of the flesh of some corpses like some bizarre religious rite had taken place.
He saw that a few yards in front of him a battered and bloodied police issue automatic machine gun still had its bright red safety catch firmly on. That gun had been issued to one of his men that very morning. Now it lay abandoned and orphaned by the dreadful spectacle that was laid bare before him.
The very faint crackle of a police radio could be heard stuttering out unacted commands among the debris of death and destruction, certainly not by the owners of those radios.
The Colonel stepped forward, halted and then furrowed his brow and stutteringly drew breath in that faltering half cry of emotion that such sights often evoke. He cast his gaze around the scene before him; taking in the shattered, bloodied body parts and the twisted remnants of suitcases, luggage trolleys and shop fronts. His gaze settled on and then into the crater left by the massive explosion. Parts of the splintered station looked like a bizarre washing line hung by the Grim Reaper, with ragged clothes and body parts hanging from the twisted and shattered cast iron and steel of the concourse building fronts. There was a strange piercing silence that almost hurt his ears, broken only by the intermittent crackle of the police radio on the floor. His nostrils rapidly became filled with the acidic, acrid smell of spent explosives and the rank, sickening, clinging odour of rapidly congealing blood and strewn viscera. Abbas slapped his thigh with his silver topped swagger stick to snap himself out of the self-hypnotic stare that had overcome him.
“Let’s get on with this damn job.” He angrily snapped at his lieutenant colonel. His anger was not with the junior soldier but with what he, what they all were now confronted with.
“What a bloody stupid waste.” he thought to himself as he turned away from the scene and made his way back to his staff car.
Colonel Abbas Farrokh Pervez was the head of the terrorist unit in the city. Colonel Abbas Pervez had been in the position for only six months and had seen three attacks of a similar gravity in that short time; his predecessor had been killed in one of those brutal attacks. He did not take on this job lightly. This was a deadly game of terrorist cat and mouse that he was involved in.
His father would have been so proud of him in such a high position. He had armed guards and a staff car, he was a Colonel. He smiled inside at that thought. His father worked hard but had only made being a Sergeant before he died in a road accident. By then the Colonel had only then just joined the Police cadets, he wanted to be like his father, a policeman. Abbas had risen rapidly through the ranks, taking his sergeant’s exam at 27, seven full years before his father had. He had stepped on heads to do so though. Now he was feared and respected by most and also hated by some.
Now he had a job to do.
As Colonel Pervez left the station a multitude of camera flashes made him blink into the false sunlight they created. As the flashes subsided, journalists shouted some unintelligible questions, TV crews tried to jostle his guards away from the Colonel so that they could get a close up of his markedly, upset furrowed face.
Earlier that day no-one took much notice of the two happy young men joshing with each other as they got off the overly crowded 12:37 local train and made their way up the platform towards the station concourse. They were laughing and pushing each other in that way young men do when they are stupidly, overly happy.
As they got to the ticket barrier they patted their pockets in that ‘where are my tickets?’ kind of way. Then dramatically finding the tickets like a rabbit out of a hat they gave their tickets to the platform guard. They pushed each other and patted the guard on the shoulder.
“Come on old man, we’ve got things to do!” one jokingly said.
These boys were giving the ticket collector some cheek and it irritated and yet amused him.
Babar Bilal Goshtasp, ‘Ali’, had been a station employee for 47 years and had seen everything known under the sun happen here: births, deaths, divorces, accidents, bridal processions and happiness. 47 years he mused to himself, that was way before these two cheeky idiots had been born.
Babar looked down at the tickets, then back up at the boys and then back down to the tickets. He was going to take his time with this pair of jokers. He looked down at the queue of waiting passengers, they could wait for a while whilst he dealt with these two fools. He was going to play a joke on these two jokers. He palmed the tickets so that they vanished and appeared in his other hand. He often did this for small children when he knew that they had travelled alone. Both men laughed and patted the back of his hands.
An elderly well dressed couple began to tut and shake their heads, they wanted to get off the platform quickly.
“Come on! Get a bloody move on man!” the old man said out loud “My son is coming to meet me! He’s an important man you know!”
Their eldest son, Sajad, was meeting them to take them to his house where he had laid on a celebration meal for their 50th wedding anniversary.
A businessman in an expensive pale linen suit strained to see what was going on at the ticket barrier. He was irritated with this delay. He took off his hat and fanned himself with it. Perspiration had formed pools of darker circles in the cloth under his arms. He was already late for his meeting with his employers. His job in banking was on a knife edge as he’d lost some investments made by a huge customer. Mr Massoud the area manager, had called him in to get to the bottom of this matter. His small house extension hadn’t cost that much, he thought. How did Mr Massoud find out about it? Wahid Zia dabbed his brow with the snow-white handkerchief his wife had made him take day. She said it showed he had breeding: Low classes wiped their brow with their hands and threw it on the floor. Wahid let out an overly dramatic heavy sigh so that everyone within earshot knew how irritated he was. Then he joined in berating Babar,
“Good god man, they’re only tickets for heaven’s sake! I have important business here today!”
A man further back in the queue shouted “Mr Business, Mr bloody Business, we are all in a hurry Mr Business body!”
Babar took no notice of such things. He’d heard all of that over the years. Everyone was in a hurry nowadays. Everyone could do his job quicker.
It was Wednesday, Babar mused to himself, so his wife would be making Aloo Ghobi, rice and chapatis. He had married her for her cooking, not her looks. He half smiled at that thought. She was a good woman though he’d had four children by her; all at university now. These boys at the barrier were wasters, frittering their lives away in inane stupidity.
He looked down at the two return tickets the boys had given him and clipped them on one side, precisely inside the black square box as regulations said he had to. Mister Ajit had reprimanded him when he had seen him punching two tickets together. Mister Ajit was another upstart whippersnapper who needed taking down a peg or two.
“Mr bloody, big head, clip cloppity ass Ajit.” Babar thought to himself. He half smiled at that thought.
As instructed by Mr Ajit, Babar clipped the tickets one by one, of course he could have done it by putting the tickets on top of one another, Mr Ajit would never know, but he was taking his time with these two boys. He had seen thousands of people every day this wasn’t the first time that some silly boys had been cheeky to him.
Babar had seen many changes over those 47 years and he knew his job inside out. Nowadays though he had to contend with the pompous armed Police patrolling the station in their cocky ‘Mr Know it all’ way. They checked in his tiffin box as he came into work and in his bags and his pockets and under his hat and under his coat. Where didn’t those pompous fools not check? They also took their bloody time as they did so not only to him but to every employee, day in and day out. Didn’t they know he had tickets to collect? There was a station to run, don’t you know?
He had seen and knew more than they had ever known or will know. Life was so much simpler years ago.
Babar shook his head and looked back up at the two men, silly boys in his mind, and in a mock anger he ushered them on their way through the barrier.
“What a waste.” he thought to himself, “These boys will never do anything with their lives.”
Babar hurriedly gesticulated to the next in the line and took their ticket and punched it, in the black box of course. Quite rapidly the long queue dissipated and the passengers made their way on to the concourse. Men greeted women, women greeted men, happy couples greeted other couples. Children were scooped up and eagerly, lovingly hugged by a waiting parent or relative. Voices became raised to overcome the hubbub of greetings and shouts of happiness that filled the station to its roof.
The two men stood still for a few minutes taking in the station layout. Both of them adjusted their weighty rucksacks and then both took a sip of water each from the same bottle.
“Thisati mere dosata nu kama karadi hai.” (Thirsty work my friend!) said Ibrahim to Ejaz.
“Thisati mere dosata nu kama karadi hai, indeed!” Ejaz replied, slipping into English.
Traders bellowed the sale of their wares out above the passenger’s heads.
“Chai! Cold drinks the best snacks! Get them here!!”
“Chai Sir?”
“Chai Madam?”
“Cold drink, cold drink, water!”
“The best snacks here!”
Everyone on the 12:37 had passed the men taking their sips of water. The concourse became rapidly jammed with people, luggage and trolleys. The luggage trolleys clattered across the terrazzo floor like human powered steam trains making clinking clunking noises as they noisily travelled. The self employed luggage porters touted noisily for business, as they had control of most, if not all, the so-called free trolleys on the concourse.
“Tarali Sira, Help Sir?”
“Tarali Sira, Tarali Madam?”
“Tarali, tarali! BEST Trolley HERE!”
One day thought Shamir Ghulam, I will be a chai wallah, a bloody good chai wallah. That would only be when one of the old boys dropped off his perch. He giggled at that thought, old man Dalir was always on his case, he’d drop off his perch soon.
“Get out of the way trolley boy!” shouted Dalir.
One day Shamir thought to himself I will be a Dalir, a chai wallah. He snapped out of that daydream and continued his search for business,
“Tarali! Tarali! Let me take luggage! Best Trolley HERE!” shouted Shamir as he swerved Dalir’s swipe at him with his hand.
Not one person off the 12:37 train had taken any real notice of Ejaz and Ibrahim. They were just men, boys, with big rucksacks. It wasn’t a sight that raised any suspicion. Why would it? They were perhaps just boys coming back from university to visit their friends and family. It wasn’t an uncommon sight on this station.
Two armed policeman walked past the men and in a bored manner just looked them up and down and carried on chatting about their wives and children and football, what they were going to do after work and how boring this patrol was. They paid no real attention to the men whatsoever.
Ejaz and Ibrahim slowly made their way across the main station concourse towards the compass that was inlaid into the floor. It was a huge compass some ten metres across. It was articulated perfectly so that it showed the true direction of the compass points to the rail traveller.
However the crowded concourse proved hard to negotiate as crowded as it was. They had to gently push a few people aside to make any headway. As they did so an elderly man raised his stick and took a half-hearted swipe at the men.
“Khuni marakhi, meri patani lai dekho!” (Bloody idiots watch out for my wife.) he shouted angrily at them waving his stick and trying to land a blow on the men, but he missed them by a mile. It was the elderly man and wife from the queue; the couple who had travelled to meet their son for their 50th wedding party. Their son was nowhere to be seen so they took their cases and used them as makeshift benches and sat waiting for him to turn up. To them it made perfect sense: stay put on the station and wait for him. To other travellers they were now a nuisance. They sat waiting for Sajad their son to turn up. Mister and Mrs Adnan had worked all their lives in the shop they had owned since they got married. They worked long hard hours. Their reward in life was sending their three sons to University. Sajad was a lecturer in Electrical Engineering at Matunga University now. Hamis was a lecturer at Mumbai University, he lectured in Mathematics and he would be at the party today. Naveed their youngest son would be there, he was a lecturer at Mumbai too, he lectured in Physics. Mr Adnan always said they got their brains from his side of the family. He would not allow his three sons to take over the shop, he had employees now to do that. His life’s work was done, he had three boys he could be proud of and they were proud of him. Though Naveed would not say what his father did when he was in snobby university company. The Adnan’s had started out in life like the Chai wallahs had but they had graduated to owning their own shop. Now they had two employees as well.
“Where is your Sajad?” Mr Adnan said out aloud to no one in particular, though his wife was right next to him. Sajad was always his wife’s son when things went wrong.
Ibrahim and Ejad pushed against the flow of the crowd, they had a destination in mind. It was destination that meant a great deal to them. Ejad stumbled on a suitcase carelessly left by someone.
Ibrahim quickly grabbed at Ejad’s arm to steady him,
“Dhiana nala mere dosata,savadhani nala!” (“Careful my friend, careful.”)
Ejad righted himself and the two men steadily made their way across the concourse to the eastern side of the inset compass. They both stood facing each other on the very tip of the eastern cardinal of the compass. Then Ejad and Ibrahim put their hands on each other’s shoulders in what, to a casual observer, was just an act of greeting and friendship.
It was an act of a sinister and deeper friendship.
It was an act of friendship that in a few very brief seconds was to become an act of terrible terrorism.
Tears filled their eyes as they faced each other, they had been friends for many years. Attending the same schools with the same teachers. Their last teacher, Umar Haque had told them that they would one day be Shaheed, martyrs. That was their destiny. To them the glory of heaven would open up for an eternity. Umar had told them that Jannah, paradise, awaited them. Umar Haque for many years like a hateful honey-bee of death had plucked the pollen of the youth of Pakistan and converted them into the bitter bile black honey of Jihadi terrorists.
Ibrahim and Ejad then hugged each other, as they let their hug go their arms slowly dropped and they both simultaneously pulled on an almost imperceptible stainless-steel cable that ran into their rucksacks.
“ALLAH AKHBAR! ALLAH AKHBAR!” they both cried out aloud in unison, both as one, both together as loud as their voices would go. They had been told that they had one purpose in this life. That purpose was about to be fulfilled. They both rapidly turned their bodies towards the west point of the compass on the floor and faced Mecca as they pulled harder on the triggers for the bombs they both carried.
The rallying cry stopped all the noise in the station. People just froze and stood quietly in part horror and part shock of that sudden exclamation. Many knew what was about to happen and began to run.
The two patrolling armed policemen spun round and raised their machine guns aiming at an unknown target in readiness for an attack. Their hearts pounded in their chests and their mouths went desert dry. They had been trained for this but when it happened it was so different. Their radios suddenly crackled to life with white noise, then a cacophony of screamed commands and raised voices.
The elderly couple, Mr and Mrs Latif Rizwan, sitting on their suitcases turned their hands over in supplication and raised their eyes towards the station ceiling. They knew what was about to happen. They’d had 152 years on the earth, 100 years of that was in marriage. 152 years of life and wisdom was about to end in a millisecond. They didn’t have time to face Mecca as they had done every day for all their lives.
A man raised his hand to his wife’s face in a futile act to shield her from the explosion and as a last act of farewell and tenderness. He just about managed to tenderly touch her face.
A woman pulled a nearby playing child into her bosom and hugged it to her. Then pulling her scarf over the child’s head she bent forward away from the men in a vain attempt to shield the child. Her husband spun round and threw himself at the pair his arms outstretched in an open hug. He tried to hug the two of them; that hug never made contact.
Babar dropped his well worn beloved ticket punch to the floor and half turned to the platform he had seen for so many years. He would never see his grandsons graduate or taste his wife’s Aloo Ghobi, chapatis and rice again. Neither would he be able to playfully chide her for not sweeping the floor before he came home from work.
A trolley porter pushing empty trolley dropped to his knees, then to the ground curling into a foetal ball in a vain attempt to make himself smaller and hopefully safer.
Another porter loudly shouted “God! NO!” as he heard the cry and fell to the ground pulling his trolley on top of his body. Other luggage porters quickly crouched behind their heavily laden trolleys and prayed for their lives. They could not abandon their charges even if the owner had run away, they had a responsibility for the luggage, they could not run away.
Shopkeepers suddenly threw themselves over their counters startling their customers and pushing goods to the floor; then hastily and futilely they grabbed at the front roller shutters on their shops trying to block out the blast that was inevitably to come.
Some people just stopped still frozen in fear and awe and then they turned and ran like so many frightened sheep scattered by a wolf.
A few people just stopped still not knowing where to turn or what to do, their feet glued to the ground in sheer terror.
The explosion thundered like a large pride of angry roaring lions through the crowded station. It was like a fire wrought from Hell, scalding, burning and maiming as it passed through bodies, over heads and under legs. It cut down people like a hurricane blindly blowing ballistically across a field of human wheat.
An eerie eclipse of silence descended on the station broken only momentarily by the ghostly crackle of a police radio chattering out commands.
The coughs, cries and sobs of the injured and dying slowly rose and turned into the screams and howls of people in agony. The screams and howls rapidly lifted in volume and became searingly louder and louder like the tortured souls in Hades. The howls and moans of the injured and dying faded and slowly then died as the people did too.
Ibrahim and Ejad had fulfilled their purpose in this life as Umar Haque had promised them.
It didn’t take long for Colonel Pervez’s team to identify the two bombers. They were on a register of suspected terrorists. He would now have to face why they weren’t arrested before this happened.
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