Back on duty,on godhra’s platform no. 1

Godhra,that falls in the Delhi-Mumbai railway stretch,is no big station and special trains like the Rajdhanis don’t stop here. The ones that stop barely do so for a few minutes,before pulling off again. So vendors like Chauhan have to time their moves perfectly. Chauhan now knows exactly when the train will arrive—his ear is tuned to hearing the rumble on the tracks even when the train is a few kilometres away—and readies his fare. Even before the train has stopped,he jumps on board,balancing his tray of bhajiyas.

Unlike most of the other vendors,Chauhan wears his crimson red shirt and his identity card. “There are very few vendors who wear their uniforms. Do you know how risky this job is,” he asks,as he throws the leftovers from his tray on an unused portion of the railway track. “This is not one of the busiest railway stations in India,yet eight vendors have lost their limbs while jumping off running trains in the last decade,” he says.

Chauhan was nine years old when he left Sidhpura,a village about 15 kilometres from Godhra station,in 1981 to work as a vendor on the platform. Like the other boys from Sidhpura,Chauhan worked all night at the station and went back to his village in the morning to study at the local school. Around 1995,he got his vendor’s card from the Railways and took up the job full-time.

Unlike other Hindu vendors,Chauhan spent his adolescent years with Muslim boys near the Godhra station,which is situated in the Muslim neighbourhood of Signal Faliya. “On some Fridays,I offer namaz with them and I fast during Ramzan,” he says.

After the Godhra train fire of 2002,Chauhan was made an eyewitness along with many others and offered police security several times. “I did not want policemen to be around me,following me everywhere. They should have been there that day,when the coach was burnt,” he says.

Chauhan never stopped coming to the station,not even after February 27,2002. “All the people I know were questioned,especially the tea vendors. I gave my statement to the police in a sealed envelope,” says Chauhan. What I don’t understand is how people who were not even close to the railway tracks or the platform that day testified before the police officials. I can’t say if the judgment is correct or not. But standing here on this platform,you cannot identify a single person at A cabin (the cabin that’s a few yards away from the platform where the train was burnt),” he says.

These days,he is at the station at the crack of dawn—“Godhra Railway Station’s platform number one needs me every morning at five am,” he says proudly—and winds up with the Dehradun Express at 6.30 p.m. But today,a Thursday,Chauhan has decided he’ll pack up after the Firozpur Janata Express pulls out. “After the police declared our contractor,Kasim Ismail Bhamedi,an absconder in the Godhra train fire case about eight years ago,there are hardly any sales targets,” says Chauhan,who earns about Rs 250 a day.

Sales are enough,he says,to pay a monthly rent of Rs 3,000 to the Indian Railways to set up his stall on the platform. “Nights are lucrative for vendors since most of the passenger trains pass through Godhra station after eight. But after my marriage,it did not make sense to work during the nights,” he says grinning. It has only been two months since Chauhan got married. “I didn’t want to get married. But I realised I was out of the house almost all day,even when I was done with work. Till late at night,I would be meeting my friends at Rosy Hotel on Vejalpur Road,” he says.

Now,his evenings after work are dedicated to his niece and his nephews,and his wife,Kanku,as he takes them for a motorcycle ride across the town. “They feel good and so do I. Godhra is small,so one small round of the town is easy and it gets them all excited,” he says.

His “best friend”,Karim Badam,who was acquitted last week in the train burning case of 2002,calls him on his mobile phone. “We are meeting this evening. You have no idea how happy I am for his acquittal,” Chauhan says.