I’ve been smoking for the last half an hour, sitting on a railway platform cement bench, waiting for my beloved’s arrival. I draw a long puff, holding the Gold Flake Filter between my middle and forefingers. Of course, my face assumes the air of Socrates, thanks to the smoke that I’ve inhaled. Here it goes, through my pharynx, my larynx, my trachea, my tracheoli. Aha! Aha! How it’s pampering my lungs, both my lungs. The heaven’s just around the corner.

“Baba! Please give me a cigarette. Not smoked since three days.” A beggar shatters my trance, my smoking. I hurl the smoldering cigarette onto the tracks. He tries to catch it, diving head-on like the cricketer Jonty Rhodes, but he misses. He returns to me.

“Baba!” He makes a sign with his fingers, crunching his waxen eyes.

“Go away from here, don’t you? I’ll call the police if you stand like that, making faces at me!” I holler.

“Just one cigarette, Baba. I said, I haven’t smoked for the last three days. I don’t remember exactly. Maybe it’s been four days or even five days. I have lost the count.”

“Shame on you. I’ve seen beggars begging for food. For clothes. You scoundrel! You’re begging a cigarette? Why don’t you go and beg for brandy and whiskey in front of wine shops? For soda.”

“Don’t be angry, baba. I didn’t say anything. I just asked for a cigarette. There’s no rule that one shouldn’t beg a cigarette. Moreover, I don’t drink. I can’t stand the smell of it.”

I don’t know what to do. Actually, I’m not angry, I’m pretending to be angry. Maybe the beggar gauges my false anger, comes near me. He smells like that pay-and-use latrine where people of all hues have queued up, this chilly morning. When he squats on the cement platform, I scan him with my frown.

He’s short and skinny. In striped shorts and a woolen coat, he looks like a joker. Maybe around fifty, or little more, he seems more worn out than his age. He’s tied a red towel around his head like a bandanna. He walks around without footwear.

A cool breeze blows from the direction of the pay-and-use toilet. I hold my breath for a while.

“Baba, please, Baba. Just one cigarette, Baba.” He gazes keenly at my bulging breast pocket.

“I said go away from here, you scoundrel! Can’t you hear?”

“Don’t swear like that, Baba. If you go on like that, I’ll report the matter to our union secretary. That you used swearing and impolite words against a respected beggar. ”

“Union? What union? You mean railway employees union?”

“Not that one, Baba. Our union. All India Beggars and Ex-beggars Union.”

My frown relaxes, on hearing the word union.

“To which political party you’re affiliated?” I ask him. I notice to my chagrin that my voice has softened a bit.

“I don’t know, Baba. For just one cigarette you’re asking so many questions.” He slightly raises his voice.

I take the cigarette case from my breast pocket and hand him one cigarette. Meanwhile an announcement wafts out of a loudspeaker: “Your kind attention, please. Train number 6530, Bangalore-Mumbai Udyan Express is running late by 65 minutes. Sorry for the inconvenience, passengers. Please bear with us.”

The beggar squats in front of me. I notice that one of his testicles is trying to come out of his shorts.

“You stand up. Stand up. I’m not here to watch your porn show.”

He rises slowly and stands erect, palms joined, as though he’s been praying.

“Matchbox, Baba.”

“Oh! It’s too much.”

I give him my lighter. He lights the cigarette and lets out a plume of smoke, like a steam engine. He hands my lighter back. I keep it in my breast pocket.

“Where’s your union headquarters?”

“Mumbai. We’re having branches in almost all state capital headquarters. We’re thinking of opening a branch at New York. Negotiations are on with beggars’ representatives out there. They’re looking for a suitable place in Manhattan. We’ll make it a world body, like the UNO, very soon.”

I look around. I don’t want anyone from the city seeing me confabulating with a beggar.

“What’s your name?”

“Harkishen Singh, Baba. Harkishen Singh Tinwala.”

I turn to my right. The queue in front of the pay-and-use toilet has dwindled. Some passengers go out of the station through the exit gate, on finding that the train’s running late. A refreshment cart passes by. A lame man carrying a teakettle and paper cups stares at us, raising his eyebrows. Now the platform’s not as crowded as it had been a few minutes earlier.

“Why don’t you go and find a job? Your limbs are intact. You’re jaunty.”

“Job? What’re you saying, Baba? Once upon a time I had a troupe of more than sixty employees working under me. I’ve already tried all that. To me, begging seems to be the noblest of all professions right now.”

I laugh, disturbing the smoke curls that had been floating all around me. But he’s very serious and lost. I light another cigarette myself. Harkishen sits on the cement floor, cross-legged. He makes a thoughtful face.

“You beggars are expert liars. I know that.”

“I’m not lying, Baba. If you want to hear, I’ll tell you my story. My horrible story. You write it for a paper, if you want. You’ll get at least five thousand rupees.”

“Go on,” I say, giving him another cigarette. He lights that cigarette with the smoldering butt and starts his story.

“Once, I worked in that Raj talkies. You might’ve seen it, Baba.”

“Yes. I’ve seen it several times. It’s in an abandoned state, near that fort. The slum dwellers have occupied it now.”

“Yes, the same one. I worked there. More than sixty employees obeyed my orders in that talkies. I supervised all of them, went to the distributor for bringing the prints, besides working as a projector operator.”

A kilometer-long reddish-brown goods train passes by, making terrible noise for over five minutes. As if the whole life in the railway station comes to a standstill. Harkishen pauses, letting out silvery clouds of smoke around him.

Harkishen resumes his story.

###

From behind the projector, through those dusty smoky beams, Harkishen sees that scene once again.

“Give me avomine, Seetharam. I’m feeling like vomiting,” he tells his assistant.

“How long do you go on taking that pill, sir? You’ve been taking it for the last six months. One day you’ll not be able to vomit even if you want to.”

“This bloody film has been going on for the past six months. And is still running houseful. I’m bored of this scene.”

He pops avomine into his mouth and gulps a glass of water. He’s really bored of this scene from the blockbuster, Sholay, running houseful in Raj talkies for the past six months:

Basanti, its heroine, who ekes out her living by taking people back and forth between the railway station and Ramgarh on her tonga, is being chased by Gabbar Singh’s gun-wielding men riding their horses. It’s a long drawn chase scene. She commands her mare, ‘Be fast, Dhannu. Your Basanti’s honor is at stake.’ They succeed in capturing her and taking her as a hostage to Gabbar Singh’s hideout. Veeru, her lover, follows her on his own horse and falls in Gabbar Singh’s trap. There, Gabbar points a gun at Veeru’s head and makes Basanti dance. He breaks a bottle and spreads the glass pieces on the floor and forces her to dance on those glass pieces. In order to hurt Veeru. She continues to dance, and her tender feet bleed. Gabbar threatens to shoot Veeru if she stops dancing.

Next day Harkishen goes to his friend Prakash at the distributor’s office. Prakash’s drinking Fanta orange drink and offers Harkishen one.

“I’m fed up with this Sholay, yaar,” Harkishen says. “If I sit behind that projector for one more week, either I will go mad or I kill myself by jumping out of my projector cabin window.”

“Why? What happened, Harkishen? Sit here. Take this. First, cool yourself.”

“I’m really fed up with that Basanti’s dance on glass pieces. This bloody film has been running for over six months.”

“Don’t worry, man,” Harkishen says, sipping his orange drink, “I’ll give you another film can. You load that onto that film instead of that piece which’s boring you.”

He hands Harkishen a can from a tin box.

For the matinee show, Harkishen changes that part of the film with the new one.

In that changed scene, thugs riding horses still chase Basanti’s tonga. But the camera’s focused, time and again, on the horses in such a way that viewers know that they’re all male. Dhannu, the mare, says, ‘My honor too is at stake, malkin.’ It certainly runs faster, not just for Basanti’s sake, but also to escape herself from those chasing horses. So Basanti escapes from the thugs, and from Gabbar Singh. She need not dance in front of Gabbar Singh, on those glass pieces, any more. Her rose-like feet no longer bleed.

Harkishen lets out a sigh of relief.

But, next day, the people, on finding the dance number missing, raise slogans. They’re not getting their money’s worth. They meet the cinema house owner Ramesh Kumar and tell him to reintroduce the dance number.

Ramesh Kumar comes to the projector cabin himself and chides Harkishen. So, on being admonished by the owner, he goes to Prakash once again. Prakash gives him yet another film can. “You try this. This’ll surely work,” he says in a comforting voice.

Harkishen replaces the offending section of the film, yet again. In that new scene, thugs riding horses still chase Basanti’s tonga but Dhannu suddenly develops wings, and Dhannu, Basanti and the tonga, all are airborne. They enter the heaven and Basanti enacts the dance number, in front of Indra, the lord of the heaven, accompanied by semi-naked Malli, Bipi, Yani, Celi and Katri: heaven’s nymphs. Actually, Lord Indra has decided to deport all of them to earth, for atonement, for their carnal excesses. Veeru defeats the chasing thugs in a gun battle and he too comes to the heaven, following Basanti.

The spectators turn ecstatic. People flock to Raj talkies in thousands. People from far and wide: from Bombay, Madras, New Delhi and Calcutta. From villages, from towns. The trains and buses get crowded by the cine-going people and the railway department introduces special trains. Cars arrive from all parts of India and the rich in helicopters and chartered planes. People queue up from Raj talkies up to the railway station and bus stand. The Gulbarga city’s people have never come across such a heavy rush in their entire lives.

Within months, Raj talkies owner becomes a multi-millionaire and thinks of producing films himself. Harkishen Singh becomes his assistant manager. Now he’s got a big villa, a ten-seater car, a Great Dane to guard his house besides a security man. He moves around the city with his car’s tinted glasses raised, to escape being mobbed.

But somebody reports the matter to the police.

The police arrive and seize the clandestine film can. They order the talkies to shut down. Both Harkishen and his master are put behind the bars. And their womenfolk run to their parents.

###

“I spent ten years in various jails on various charges,” Harkishen continues. “Tell me, Baba, who’ll give a job to someone like me?”

“You’re right,” I say, “do you want one more cigarette?”

“Sure,” says Harkishen.

The loudspeaker announces the train’s arrival. People start climbing the bridge to get to the platform situated at the other end. Some of them get down the platform to cross the railway tracks. I too, get up to cross over to the other platform. Harkishen rises from the cement floor and heads toward the exit.