Unskilled migrants - The second young man

This is the continuation of my previous post. 

I was in my new place. It was evening and I was keeping an eye on our children playing with their cycles. A group of 3 men came to the compound where I lived and asked for my friend who was away. I asked them the reason for searching my friend. 

They introduced themselves and told that they hailed from a nearby village. Couple of days back, one of the young men from the village had left to the south of the country for earning a living. He had gone along with two of his friends who hailed from elsewhere. 

They have received news from police in Chennai that this young man was dead. The trio came to my friend to help in communicating with the policemen who called from Chennai. It seems that the policemen were speaking in Tamil and they just caught the 2 English words that this young man was dead. 

Unfortunately, we could not contact the given number till around late evening. The story was that the young man's dead body was found lying on the tracks of Chennai Central Railway Station early morning. He had an identity card with a contact number in his pocket and a general railway ticket from Hatia to Ernakulam. The policeman gave us the address of a police station where his relatives were supposed to go. 

The amazing aspect was that none of the villagers knew about the two other people who had gone along with this young man. Therefore, we did not have anybody to contact. 

We conveyed the news to the villagers. 

What happened to the young man will always remain a mystery. The timing of the discovery of the body well matches with the early dawn arrival of the Dhanbad-Alappuzha express at Chennai. He may have got out to go to the toilet. It's not uncommon for passengers in the general compartment to disembark on the wrong side of the train to use the water filling outlets for their ablutions. Or maybe, he got looted by his fellow passengers and was pushed out. 

The fact remains that this young man who has two little children will never return home. Things would have been better if it had rained well this year. He would not have died if he earned well in his village. Maybe, things may have been better if he was a skilled worker. 

Another sad story of migration ending up in a disaster . . .