The Interloper: Book 3 In Manoranjan Byapari's Chandal Jibon Trilogy

After escaping a deadly bomb blast in the city’s red-light area, Jibon returns to the Jadavpur railway station having lost his memory. He is instantly recognised by those who live in and around the station—squatters, rickshaw-drivers, beggars. liquor vendors, ragpickers. pickpockets—as the daring young man who rescued them many a time. However, Jibon has become a stranger to himself.

Like a wheel, he is simply caught up in a cycle of relentless destitution, oppression and hatred. And yet an inexplicable will to move forward remains in his blood.

Here's an excerpt from Manoranjan Byapari's The Interloper  

The weary and hungry vagabond who had been lying like a corpse since last night under the stairs of the overbridge on Platform No. 2 of the Jadavpur railway station, amidst all the dust, dirt, paan spittle, banana and orange peels, bread wrappers and other garbage there, woke up with a start to a crashing sound, and fully awake now, he looked wide-eyed in astonishment in all directions. He had no doubt now that he was the most fortunate person in the world. He pressed his hand on the left side of his chest and realised that his heart was thumping rapidly. That clearly meant he was still alive.

This world was most beautiful. There was nothing more pleasurable and blissful than being alive here. There couldn't be. Which was why people kept their blind or lame or bedsore-ridden and even paralysed, bedridden and comatose loved ones alive through a million means.

During the night that had just passed, so many hundreds of people had had to leave this earth and go away, whether out of natural or unnatural causes, and for known or unknown reasons. But he had been saved from being devoured by a macabre death. Like a dearly beloved one, the breezy, pure, clean air of dawn smeared a pleasant sensation all over him. The universe's message of life resounded in his ears, it lit hope in his breast, and in a little while, the lordly sun turned the eastern sky red and rose like a golden orb. That sunrise could be glimpsed to one's heart's content. This was most joyous, most blissful.

His eyes now fell on the hard floor of the platform and he realised that the object that fell with a monstrous metallic sound was not a heavy stone thrown by that murder addict. It was an innocent and innocuous fish-trough. A fish seller had thrown it. He would get on the first Down-train of the day and go to some fish market in the riverine country of south Bengal to bring sh.

With the arrival of the train, there could be no more delay. That seemed to be the message that emanated from the flow of life in the railway station as he woke up suddenly. By now some passengers of various ages had arrived at the railway station. The solitary tea-stall that was exactly in the middle of the platform was open now to quench their thirst. Cups of hot tea from the shop reached eager hands. Slurp, slurp, they sipped noisily.

If there had been food in his belly, his eyes would have been submerged in the deep slumber of dawn. And it wasn't inconceivable that any other person would have reason to be angry with the fish seller for his offence of throwing the trough and ruining his sleep. But the young man sleeping in the dark niche below the stairs, on being woken up so rudely, couldn't express his anger against him. To the contrary, he felt rather pleased inwardly. Being liberated from the terrifying nightmare that had seized him, like an octopus with its eight tentacles, and paralysed him with fear, he actually felt gratitude towards the unknown fish seller. It was as if, amidst this darkness, he was revealed as a person dispatched by God to grant a new life to someone imperilled and facing death.

Excerpted with permission from The Interloper (Chandal Jibon Trilogy - Book 3) by Manoranjan Byapari (Author), V. Ramaswamy (Translator), published by Eka, an imprint of Westland.