Years back the colonial Government India... While installing railway lines to connect each corner of the country this is
a story of that time... That much years ago.The Government decided to install one important railway line from Calcutta to Mumbai, via Nagpur and Surat, where the only obstacle is the dense forest in Madhya Pradesh, the habitation of the hunter tribe Kurkis, however, the contractors managed to bribe the chieftain of the hunter tribe and employ them for installation of the railway lines through the dense forest and the entire
community of the aboriginal obliged.During the installation the contractors benefited in twofold, they managed to get hold of the labour of the hardworking tribe and the resources from the forest. They demolished the entire forest for frames of the railway line, and enjoyed the labour of the Kurkis. In three years the entire installation was over and the train starts running on the track with its usual whistling sound. As a good gesture to the chieftain and the entire community of aboriginal the Government gifted the entire land for their own use following the recommendation of the chief contractor. However, being a hunter community for the Kurki''s land has no use as they were completely unaware of cultivating lands. At the same time as the forest disappeared so the wildlife, on which the Kurkis survived.Now, with no knowledge of harvesting, and no animal to hunt down, the entire tribe start suffering from hunger and malnutrition they start turning shorter to shorter, pale to paler, thin to thinner and at the end the death prevailed the entire valley.After hundreds of years there were only survivor from the entire community, Maharu*, an eleven inch tall man with all his bones demonastrative... And he was the sole survivor in the entire community.*(Maharu is the name of the god Mahadeva, in the tribal language, Mahadeva is a god who hold all the poison of the earth into himself to relieve others from pain... As the myth goes, also Mahadeva can be located in the varied range of folklore in this land of diverse culture... He is somewhat common)After a while a doctor reached to the village, who was experimenting on a
medicine that helps humsn to gain height, and he foud Maharu as the perfect object to experiment. As he himself was not sure about the medicine as he had hardly got any chance to experiment the effect on human as this is prohibited by law. So he injected the medicine on Maharu... And within weeks he witnessed a significant development in Maharu that the 11 inches Maharu grew up to 2 feet, and during next month to 3, and the doctor took the next flight to Geneva to present his paper on his observation and patent the medicine without Witnessing the fact that what else happened to Maharu and whether an antidote required.While the doctor spending a happy life surrounded with celebrities in Geneva, by the time Maharu keep growing taller and taller... Now he is 11 feet long and easily grab the fruits from the tall trees for his bare survival.One day Maharu, ventured through the forest to witness how the trains are look like, as he only listen the folklores from his ancestors about the installation of railway tracks. Beside the trcks he has seen a huge object was moving through the tracks with noise and smoke in its front. Needless to say he was spellbound with the new object he ever witnessed in his life... Whie the train passing through him with the advantage of his height he jumped onto the train and reach Mumbai as the train terminated in Mumbai.After reaching Mumbai the first thing he discovered that there were a plenty of things to eat... At first he ate the Victoria Railway terminus, then the railway administrative buildins surrounding the terminus. With ample food and the effect of the medicine, Maharu now start growing more faster. Then he start eating the Mumbai sky scrappers, the dock, the Noriman point business centres... And start growing taller and taller with the food om which his community deprived for hundreds of years and finally extinguished. However ultimately he reached the height of sky and now Maharu can touch the sky, the moon and the stars... With his ability to touch the stars he begun rearranging them an dstart writing the story and song of the railway lines of his community on the sky in his own symbolic language.With the height he gained now Maharu neither touch nor bother to touch the earth... He only keep arranging and re-arranging the stas on the sky with the stories of the community of which he is the lone survivor.This story is received with email from my friend Abhi, from CalcuttaStory in Bengalee by Mahasweta DeviAbridged and translated