The Pretense of Charity

Keerthana's heart beat faster with excitement as the train pulled into Surat station. How many times had she alighted at this station? She found herself slipping down the nostalgia lane.
The last time she had been here was when she was a 21-year-old, bidding goodbye to the city that had been her home for four very memorable years. How reluctant she had been to come to this place, which was infamously known for the plague that struck in 1994. This was all that her relatives back in Chennai would talk about when she told them that she had got admission in the regional engineering college in Surat, after passing an All India Entrance Exam. They’d advised her against joining a college so far and recommended that she try at some private college in Madras itself. But with no other good option in hand, she had gone ahead with her only choice, and the place had soon become one which she would always cherish.
Today after a gap of 25 years, she was visiting the city again, for the silver jubilee celebrations of her batch’s passing out. She had in fact decided to attend the event to once again relive her old days and experience the bitter-sweet nostalgia.
She jumped onto the platform, the backpack on her left shoulder. Her ankles and knees ached as her feet touched the ground. She had to remind herself that she was no longer a twenty-year-old but more than double that age.
It would still be fun to be a college student. She chuckled at that thought, her heart racing with excitement.
She and Prerna, her best friend from the days gone by, had decided to meet at the station and proceed to the college together. There were still ten minutes for her train to arrive.
Keerthana looked around the platform, trying to identify any familiar landmarks. But she couldn’t remember anything specific on the platform that she could look to see if it had changed. 
The only thing that she remembered about the Surat railway station was something that her civil engineering professor had remarked in a sundry morning class more than two decades ago. It is one of the only railway stations in India that was situated below the ground level. One had to climb up the stairs to reach the ground level where the ticket counters and taxi booking booths functioned. And therefore, during floods or heavy rains, the tracks were among the first to submerge. 
She smiled to herself, remembering this bit of information mentioned by a teacher whose name or face she couldn't remember now. 
But of Surat, what she remembered well was the taste of the vada pav, khandvi, and fafda that they sold on the platform and elsewhere on the roadsides. Being brought up in the southern part of India, these delicacies had been a novelty for her back then. 
To re-live some of those memories, she decided to get herself a vada paav (a snack comprising of a potato bonda sandwiched between two slices of bread called pav) as she waited for Prerna. She ended up purchasing a bagful of vada pav, samosas, and fafda. The price of these items had more than quadrupled since the time she had been here, but they tasted the same. 
As she was putting this bag of snacks into her backpack, an old wizened lady came up to her, pleading for some money, or a vada pav, or ‘anything to eat please. I'm very hungry,’ she said in Gujarati, which Keerthana could understand only because of the action that accompanied it. 
‘No, nahi’, she shook her head to indicate that she wasn't planning to give her anything. The lady continued staring at her, with her big clouded eyes that hardly could see. 
It was then that Keerthana saw a familiar face on the platform and called out Shanti. The girl turned around and grinned seeing her friend. They hugged each other, exclaiming at their altered appearances and similarities. Prerna too joined them soon after, her train’s compartment stopping just a few feet from where the friends stood.
As they made their way to the stairs, the old woman followed them at some distance, hoping for some favour. 
‘Beggars, that's what hasn't changed at the station. There's still a huge lot of them,’ Keerthana remarked, throwing a backward glance at the old lady, as they walked away, chatting all the way.
‘God knows where this country is going. It's the same poverty everywhere.’ 
The old woman lingered on for some more time and disappeared from their view only when the taxi that they had hopped into turned the corner. 

****

The alumni were lodged in the hostels within the campus, the men in the boys’ hostels and the women in the girls’ hostels. 
The three friends registered their names with the hostel warden and took the keys for the room allotted to them.
‘Remember, Komalben?’ Prerna asked, ‘I don’t think the one now can give her any competition,’ she continued, referring to the warden.
The girls were soon discussing old memories and comparing it with the changes that they saw. Other friends joined them, and the hostel was filled with loud chitter-chatter.
‘The hostels are swankier than the ones we had. Remember, how our old ‘Sarojini hostel’ used to sink every time it rained?’
‘I heard the college labs are also hi-tech now. And you must see the sports complex. It's so awesome,’ Ruchi chipped in, having arrived before most others and gone around the campus already.
And in groups, they departed to once again walk down the corridors that had given them their degrees, subsequent jobs, and careers.
In the evening there was a gala dinner arranged in the college grounds. Even with the loud music in the background, one could hear the cheerful banter, boisterous laugh, and pretty teasing as the now 40+-year-olds relived their early twenties, in the well-decorated, neatly manicured ground lawns. 
The dinner menu was not any less impressive either – three different varieties of soups, tandoori starters, butter paneer curry, mutton kurma, chicken drumsticks, bhindi do pyaza, rumali rotis, a variety of naans, pasta, American chop suey, and more. No person attending the event would likely have been able to eat every item that was served!
The alumni comprised of corporate leaders from across the country who were now directors, vice-presidents, and managers at their respective firms. The college had to ensure that the evening bonanza lived up to their standards and impressed the 'old students' well.
Keerthana was taking another helping of the ‘gulab jamun-ice cream' combination when she saw Sindhu, now a senior manager at an MNC drop something into a glass case kept at the end of the table serving desserts. 
‘What's in that, Sindhu?’ she inquired, giving her a warm friendly smile. 
‘Some charitable donation,’ she replied. ‘Professor Tomar asked me to contribute. He’s heading the CSR arm at the college now.’ 
‘Ah,’ Keerthana went closer to have a better look. In a transparent glass case, many of her batchmates had contributed varying high denominations of currency. A poster kept close by mentioned that the money was for the social welfare club, also headed by Professor Tomar, to help the families of construction labourers residing within the college premises. 
She quickly opened her purse and dropped a two thousand rupee note. 
‘Ah, thank you, Keerthana.’ It was Professor Tomar. ‘It is a very generous contribution, for a very noble cause. Should you want the 80G certificate, you can contact the admin clerk tomorrow.’ 
‘No sir, it's fine. It's my pleasure. I don't need the tax-saving certificate for it, I didn't contribute for that…this is a very noble cause.’ 
And they chatted for some more time on welfare, charity, politics, economy, and her job. 
The party went on till late into the night and the wee hours of the next day, and most of her batchmates were still sleeping at 9 o'clock in the morning.
But Keerthana was not able to sleep any longer and woke up. She went to the common area in the hostel looking for the newspaper. She had spent many long hours sitting there decades ago, reading the paper, doing assignments, or chatting with other students who passed by. 
She flipped through the paper, reading the headlines - high inflation, terrorist threats, opposition parties crying foul, etc. In the city news page, she saw a small clipping about the college's reunion function. 
And below it, in the next article, there was the photo of an old wizened lady. 
The face seemed distantly familiar. Where had she seen it, she thought. 
She glanced through the report. The old lady's body was found on the railway station platform. She hadn’t eaten for days together and had apparently died of hunger. 
Keerthana set the newspaper aside. She could feel all the food that she ate the previous evening churn inside her.