[An except from the book. From Chapter 10 – The Chronicles of Venky ]

I put my luggage on the rack, my coat on top of it and settled down comfortably at the window seat of the Inter City Express (ICE) high-speed train from Frankfurt to Hanover. This three-hour train ride had become a regular occurrence for me because of all the trade fairs that the company kept sending me on. I enjoyed the fast train ride, staring out and observing the German countryside flashing by at over 250 km/h. But on this trip, I had an unexpected company.

The train had just pulled out of the station when two men lowered themselves onto the opposite seat. One was thin and tall and the other short and fat. Both had a scruffy look about them, unshaven and with loose fitting fleece jackets. They looked to be in their mid forties. I was to spend the next couple of hours in their company, so I acknowledged their presence with a nod and a smile and then went back to gazing out of the window.

Five minutes into the journey, the thin man cleared his throat and leaned across.

“Excuse me. You India?”

I gaped at him for a few seconds, thinking rapidly. Many unpleasant thoughts were flashing through. “Why does he want to know? Am I finally encountering an unfriendly Pakistani? Thank God, I am in a public place and the train is reasonably crowded.”

“Yes,” I said cautiously.

“We also,” he said beaming at his friend. “We from Punjab.”

The short friend grinned and reached across, yanked my hand out of my lap and shook it fiercely.

“Nice meet you,” he said.

For some unknown reason, I hadn’t considered the possibility of them being from India. I had placed them somewhere in the Middle East – couldn’t decide between Iran and Iraq.

The men seemed to be very interested in me.

“Where India?” the tall one asked.

I was getting used to their bursts of short sentences without prepositions.

“I Mumbai,” I said. “Sorry, … I meant, I am from Mumbai.”

“We Jalandhar,” the short guy looked a bit sad. “But no go long time.”

“I have a friend in Jalandhar,” I said. “His name is Gurvinder.”

“Don’t know him,” the tall guy said shaking his head. “I Manjit, he Daljit.”

“I Venky,” I said offering my hand to Manjit. I was getting very interested in them.

“What do you do in Germany?” I asked them.

“We make boxes,” said Manjit

“Boxes? You mean suitcases?” I asked.

“No. wood boxes.”

“Oh! You make coffins.”

“What’s coffin?”

“Wooden boxes … for the dead body.”

“Oh! No, No,” Daljit protested vehemently. “We make boxes for luggage.”

They spend the next ten minutes taking me through a day in their life. They made boxes for the NATO troops. When a soldier stationed in Germany returned to his home country (USA in most cases), he would have lots of stuff to carry back, including his arms and other equipment. These items needed big wooden boxes to pack them into and that’s what my new acquaintances built for them.

“Very interesting,” I said.

Five minutes later, Manjit leaned forward and beckoned me to come closer to him. He looked around, made sure nobody was listening, and whispered.

“You legal?”

“What do you mean?”

“You come Germany with visa?”

“Yes, of course,” I said, surprised at the question. “Is there another way?”

It was Daljit’s turn to lean forward.

“Yes, our way,” he winked.

“What’s your way?” This conversation wasn’t making any sense to me.

“By boat,” said Manjit. “We illegal.”

This was getting even more interesting. I listened attentively as they told me about their adventure, how they managed to travel all the way from India to Germany by boat, evading or bribing the authorities on both sides and along the way. And finally, making it into Germany as refugees. For the last twenty years, they had been making boxes for a living. Now I understood the sadness in Daljit’s eyes when he spoke about Jalandhar. He had no hope of going back to his homeland … ever.

This affected me deeply. I reached into my bag and pulled out the box of Besan Laddoos.

“Here, please have these,” I said, offering them the Laddoos. “These are from India.”

They looked at the Laddoos with deep reverence, took one each and touched it respectfully to their forehead.

“Bhagwan ka Prasad,” Daljit said solemnly … God’s offering. It was a poignant moment.

I needed to change the subject.

“Look here,” I said as I took out my passport from my pocket. “This is the German Visa.”

They looked at it with great interest, noting the hologram on the Schengen visa.

“Duplicate not easy,” Manjit said dejectedly. Daljit agreed.

“And what this?” Daljit had flipped the page on the passport.

“Oh, that?” I said. “That’s a UK visa. I had it stamped on my passport but I haven’t been there yet. The one opportunity we had in the UK went away.”

Daljit closed the passport and looked at me in amazement.

“You can enter England?” Manjit asked me.

“Yes I can,” I said. “For short term business reasons.”

“Then what you doing here? You crazy?”

“Sorry, I don’t understand.”

“We trying enter UK for five years. And you get chanced and don’t go.” Daljit returned the passport, shaking his head in disbelief.

They simply wouldn’t believe that there were people who could enter a country and chose not to go … especially when they had been trying unsuccessfully, and illegally for five years.

The train arrived in Hanover and we lingered briefly on the platform, finishing our conversation.

All of a sudden Daljit sprang up, pushed me to a side and rushed forward, closely followed by Manjit. A man was running down the platform. He was no match for the speed of Daljit and was brought down with a rugby tackle. When Daljit got up, he had my laptop bag in his hands. Manjit, in the meantime, gave the guy a couple of kicks and let him go. I stood transfixed, unable to move.

“Have hand on bag all time,” Daljit advised as he handed the bag to me.

I thanked them profusely. My new friends had more than repaid me for the Laddoos.

“Why did you let him go?” I asked. “Why didn’t you hand him over to the police?”

“We illegal, no want trouble,” they said together, waved goodbye, turned around and walked out of the railway station.