The Uplift

The Uplift (Life in the dark-2)

Hal railway station, lower Himalayas, early morning 5:30am

It is dark all around the Hal railway station. Cool air is flowing in all directions. The sky is cloudy. There were hardly 10 members in this small open railway station. Rain smell started coming from the ground. The platforms are dimly lit by the lights. There the dark occupied the entire station and the surrounding hills around this open railway station. The cool, cloudy, rain smelled early morning looked so pleasant to experience in the dark.

We already know the reason for the absence of the sun in the sky. People are spending their lives in the dark. It is now 2^ndmorning since the sun lost in the sky. People now have no hopes to see the sun again and so they habituated to live in this dark.

The track men are watering the track, and the sweepers are cleaning the platforms. Silence occupied the entire station.In this dimly lit station, Anjali is sitting at a corner, on a bench on platform no. 3. She recently completed her teacher training and now she is about to leave to Kolkata, where she was posted. Now, in this pleasant, cloudy, dark morning, she is thinking about her meeting with Nandan. She also remembered his words which are still echoing in her ears. She waited for that bright sunny day for 4 years, but now she was disappointed that she may be going to meet him in this dark or may not meet him.

Time is running it is getting cooler; slowly it started to rain silently in this dark morning. Anjali pulled her coat closer in order to keep herself warm. Slowly she felt drowsy and closed her eyes and slipped into sleep. The rain smell chilled weather, and dim lights and rain falling over the rails and drops of rain falling down the station shed made her to sleep.

            After some time Anjali is slowly coming out of her nap, now she can hear announcements of the Kolkata express and she can also hear the sounds of rain drops falling drop by drop over the wet rails. She almost opened her eyes, but now she started to trouble in opening her eyes. Some light is falling on her face; she slowly opened her eyes and surprised to see sun rays falling on her face, which are reflecting from the stagnant water beside the track. Now she stood up and saw the sun rising in the sky after 2 days. Slowly the sun rays lit the small station and now the surrounding hills of the Hal station can be seen clearly.

            Anjali felt warm and comfortable in the sunlight and later she packed her luggage and excited for the train to arrive. Slowly the station filled with passengers and they are in excited state for seeing the sun and it is like seeing the entire world colourful from black and white world. Birds started to fly in sky and now it happened a beautiful sunrise ever experienced since years.

            The Kolkata express slowly steamed into the station. Now the engine driver of Kolkata express got down from his night duty. Rehmangot into the Kolkata express engine; he is now checking the current working condition of the train. Rehman is 70 years old, but for his over age, he must get retired but he is still working because he is the only option for the Hal railways. Now straight ahead i.e. after a journey of 10km from Hal railway station, the train must ascend a hill. The track on the hill is a single line, i.e. only one train can ascend or descend the hill at a time. There are sharp curves on the hill and the track is laid like a snake surrounding a hill, there are three sharp rail coils round the hill and the train after ascending the hill of 600m height, then it reaches Shodpur. So, the track is so complicated on the hill, only an experienced driver can handle it. Rehman is driving trains since the past 45 years from Hal railway station to Shodpur railway station. Rehman is a good and a helpful person. Now, the Kolkata express slowly steamed out of the Hal station.

                        Anjali sat in her seat beside the window in the Kolkata express. The sun rays are reflecting and falling on her. The trees & telegraph poles are receding away quickly as the train running forward at the speed of 70kmps. Every person in the train is talking about the sun rise. Anjali is in a dilemma that what may be the reason for the sun’s arrival again.

            She found the previous day news paper beside her seat.  She read the headlines "Huge planet moving away and sun is on the way", she read the full article by taking the paper. It read "Nandan -a research worker of ISRO finally published happy news that the huge planet between the sun and the earth is slowly moving away and we are able to see the sun again from tomorrow morning. And the huge planet may completely pass the earth after half an hour from the sun rise. “Anjali saw the Nandan photo on the newspaper and her face started to light like a lamp. She continued to read, "But the time between the sunrise and the huge planets passing away i.e. that half an hour, everyone must be alert, as the huge planets gravitational pull on earth is more at that time. So, earth quakes or tsunamis or any other disasters may happen. so, be careful &alert". She now left the news paper aside and plugged in her headset and started to listen music. The Kolkata express now stopped on the Randwal Bridge for the signal. Still there is 5kms to travel to enter the complicated hill track. 

                 
           Rehman felt that may be there is a train descending the hill so, the signal is red for his train for more than 10minutes now. He meanwhile started to check the engine again. 

Disaster prediction/control centre, Mumbai:-     

           

            The entire employees of the disaster control centre are alert as they were ready to check for any grantational pull disaster like earthquakes or tsunamis detection. It have been 10minutes since the sun rise took place and still 20minutes more for the huge planet to pass the earth. They are suspecting something to happen at any place on the earth. 

            One of the employees found disturbances in the Bay of Bengal. Down the ocean, the plates started to collide and the water is being pulled up by the huge planet gravity. The rector scale started to show reading and there this disturbance is going to bring tsunami over the east India. It also has chances to reach till lower Himalayas and it will also submerge the Hal railway station. 

          Alerts are sent to the east India parts, lower Himalayas to vacant the places as early as possible, but of course it's not possible, lakhs of people can’t vacant the cities at a time. The tsunami wave can be up to 400m high. 

   Kolkota express, Lower Himalayas:-

     

            There finally the Shodpur express crossed the Kolkata express which is now moving towards the Hal station. Rehman stated the train and he maintained an average speed of 50kmph.he is still 4km away from the hill track. He slowly increased the speed to 70kmph and sat in his seat. Suddenly, he got a message from his neighbour to his mobile; he opened it and read that "A tsunami of 400m high tide is going to submerge Hal and the lower Himalayas in a few minutes better try to save yourself". Rehman started to get nervous reading this. 

           He slowed down the train and he got down and he started to run away from the train. 

   

Bay of Bengal:- 

            A high tide rose in the middle of the ocean, the water at the Bengal beach started to move away from the shore, the water is pulled into the sea. The beach become dry and sandy with no water, the water is pulled into the sea, and there from a distance we can see a very High tsunami wave coming towards the beach.

                        That Deadly tsunami wave coming towards the shore, everyone in the beach started to run seeing this terrifying high wave running towards the shore very fast.

Lower Himalayas, 4 km from Hill track

            Rehman stopped after running some distance, he turned back and took a look at his train, he remembered all his 45years memories with that engine, he slowly took a look at the passengers in the train, he thought that those innocent faces who are happy are going to die in a tsunami only because of a foolish old engine driver leaving them helpless because of his running away with fear. He understood that he is doing a mistake.

                Rehman now turned back and started to run towards the train and decided not to die foolishly, he wanted to save the innocent people in the train. He may die in the way while he is rescuing them but he gets a meaningful death that he at least tried to save them.

             Rehman went into the engine, started the train and increased the speed to 90kmph, he remembered that the height of the hill track is 600mts and height of the tsunami wave is 400mts, he can save the passengers if he takes the train unto the top of the hill. Now he increased the speed from 90 to 110 kmph.

        Inside the Kolkata express, a small girl is sitting in front of Anjali. That small girl is looking outside the window and watching the hills and fields receding away. The passengers felt that this train is going to reach the Shodpur station before the scheduled time.

            That small girl is sitting beside her father and she suddenly shouted out to his father

      -"Dad... Sea is coming to us, stop the train, andlet’s swim out there".

             His father is busy in using mobile, he didn't play attention to her words thinking, and how a sea can be in a hilly area, so he ignored her words and continue to use his mobile.

             The small girl came towards Anjali and said "At least you come with me, let’s play in that wave coming to us." Anjali saw out of the window and saw the roaring tsunami coming from distance submerging all the trees, tracks and houses. Everyone in the train started to freak out.

                Rehman after hearing the passengers hurl he came to know that the big buddy wave has neared, he increased the speed from 120 to 130 kmph, and it is the utmost speed of his engine. Rail stones started to move away as the Kolkata express passing over the track with that speed. He is still half kilometre away from the hill track. Rehman must go slow on the hill track as there are possibilities for the train to fall off the hill.

                The tsunami almost reached the train, now the train started to ascend the hill. He decreased the speed from 130 to 90 kmph when he reached the snake coiled track. As the train is moving up the hill, the lower track is getting wasted away by the deathly tsunami water.

            Suddenly he observed the signal posts on the hill showing red, he then understood that a train is descending the hill and coming from opposite to his Kolkata express.

                        Rehman can now hear the loud horn of the coming goods carrying engine from the top of the hill, now he didn’t understand what to do, but he didn’t lose his hope. He kept his hand on the speed control. Now he is in danger from both directions.

            The Kolkata express is moving with 90kmph and climbing a hill track. It is now in the middle of the hill, but from top there descending a goods train and back down the hill coming a deadly tsunami washing away the track. Rehman closed his eyes for a while and opened and started to increase the speed from 90 to 100kmph.

            Now the goods train can be clearly visible to Rehman. He saw the driver of the goods train jump out of the train and there the goods train went out of control and when it is near to the Kolkata express, it slipped away from the track and fell off the hill and fell down the hill and the tsunami swallowed it. A big blast happened in water when that goods train with petroleum tanks fell into the tsunami water.

             Now the way to Kolkata Express is clear and Rehman now increased the speed from 100 to 110kmph. He is now just 200m to reach the top. The tsunami almost swallowed the last compartment of the Kolkata express train.

             There is a sharp curve at the top of the hill. He must cross the curve with a low speed i.e. at 50 to 60kmph only, but he is now running with a speed of 110kmph.

            He now came out of his engine seat and went to the back of the engine and he broke the link between the engine and the compartments and stood at the link point of the first compartment.

             The Engine alone went at 120kmph and left the compartments and slipped the track at the sharp curve, steamed in air and fell off the hill to the bottom of the hill into the water, now the compartments speed slowly decreased and when it reached the curve, the first three compartments one side wheels rose in air just about to slip the track, but the rest ten compartments balanced the compartments and bought the first three compartments one side wheels back onto the track. The compartments finally reached the top of the hill slowly with Rehman standing at the link point of the first compartment.

            The Tsunami wave now fell back, down the lower Himalayas hitting the 600m height hill, washing away the entire hill track and lakhs of lives. Rehman broke the link between the engine and the compartments because it is impossible to decrease the train speed from 140 to 50kmph at once.

            Finally the engine less train stopped and all the passengers are safe and Anjali also got down the train, all of them thanked Rehman for saving their lives keeping his life in risk. The passengers are now safe from the deadliest tsunami. There were some minor injuries happened to Rehman. Anjali and some other took him to the hospital at Shodpur.

            There they saw in the T.V. in the hospital that 3 tsunamis hit America and Australia and India and now the dead were about 5% of the entire world population and estimated to be even more. Nandan can be seen speaking in the T.V. in a news channel, he said“now the earth is not revolving around the sun ,it is now rotating around that huge planet, that huge planet pulled our earth into its gravitational field ,now our earth become a satellite for that huge and absurd planet. This is the main cause for today’s “THE UPLIFT”

                                                (To be continued ………)

Written by : Sarath kumar

Edited by :Yuva kishor

Typed by : Manoj, Meghnadh, Tarun, Keerthana