Sparkling sweat beads dripping
Down his shining head and wetting
His shirt that's sticking to his fast ticking heart.
The stranger was a strange encounter
For the tea vendor at the counter  near 
 the Indian railway station.
He looked out if there were any rain
There wasn't any and couldn't restrain
"What makes thou to perspire so much?'
The man stood slowly gasping and ordered a tea
And bumped on the banana bunch
While turning to sit on a bench.

The vendor at the counter
repeated same question:
what made thou perspire so?

" O the mad rush
from station.
To retrieve the cash
bag"
He paused and said,
"my wife left at ***
End of filling the car
With rag tags
and bob tails".

She and her mother
Had  to catch the train
in time
And to be seated in fine
The only  scheduled train
half past seventeen.
I dropped them though
very relaxed.
As it were conceived
Twenty minutes ahead.
Was it not ideal with an aged
One to move unbothered?
"Then tell me why art thou sweating?"
Take the tea and be seated.
The curious vendor
came out of counter
Placed the tea on the bench
near him and sat beside
To listen to the stranger.

I waved good bye to my wife
then she asked for the cash bag
and sensed she left it at home.
No time to think
I jumped into car and shot off
Zooming in terrific zigzag
Through a flood of swelling traffic
Ten minutes remaining
My  car stopped with a crushing break
At home. I jumped and  grabbed the bag
from the side of the garage
Where she left it.
Put my hands to the shoulder tags
Perched on my two wheeler thanks
To God. I gushed out like a wind
dealing and wheeling
steering like youngsters
Rushed to the station yard
Dashed the scooter forward
Caught an auto rickshaw
The Surprised driver pull started
I  commanded to drop me
At the station entrance
Just three hundred feet distance
And threw a hundred rupee pittance
The train was hooting to commence
I did not see the couch number
Running  I asked a runner by
For B2, "to B or not to B you C"
First board the tail
and move forward inside the isle.
Without waiting for detail
I ran gasping like a runner
And in the other corner
Aghast my wife speechless
At my ghostly shape and beastly pants
Caught the costly bag from my  hands
And saw me dart the moving exit
Some one voiced me to sit
A while and rest.
The train left in disgust.
"Alas! You relax. At last
You are a winner! Right? Take tea"
The man curious though patted
And told to encourage him.

"No! Not. I am a loser!
A snake bite
Following a lightning strike!
I was gasping and sitting
On a chair on the platform
A man in black suite stood
before me, a snake with open hood
over me who ran like lightning Bolt.
"Show your entry pass",
his voice bold and told
"Or pay a fine hundred fold
The cost of a platform ticket"
I paid the bitter fine.
Is it not a snake bite behind  
A lightning strike?
Wiping out the sweat beads
with a piece of cloth he stretched his hand
For a cigarette!
The vendor helped the man to light it too
and watched his face glow up
Behind a whirling puff
Of smoke and a hot sip from tea cup.