“Holy Smoke!” she exclaimed, putting her cup of morning filter coffee down. Holding her phone with both her hands now, she read it aloud for her husband, who was busy with his office email: “16 migrant workers run over by goods train near Aurangabad in Maharashtra – did you see this? What the hell is going on?” It was another minute before numbness took over and the coffee was cool enough to be taken in small gulps with the rest of the story. “Gosh! How many of these people – and where all they come from?” The surprise in her voice this time was more subdued than before.
“Part of this lot they say was from Umaria. Did we not go to this place last December, Manu?” The mention of that vacation made him look up briefly and humour her before going back to the wretched emails. “Yes,” he said. “Bandharvgarh National Park. In one of the most backward districts in the state of Madhya Pradesh. No wonder those guys came all the way to Jalna looking for work. But to sleep on the tracks? How ridiculous could they get?”
“Oh, it was so beautiful,” she seemed to be back on another planet, “remember Shesh Shaiya? That magnificent statue of Vishnu and the quiet spring surrounded by lush green sal forests... we must go there again once this lockdown ends...”
