The picture is of CST: a railway station in Mumbai.

The plan failed.

Well not fully. The old man had without a doubt confirmed Ram's suspicion. The man went by his surname Naik; Had a six year old kid and a wife he doted on. He as it turned out was petrified of the fact that his family could be in danger. The timings were perfectly planned. Naik had called his wife who had casually told him that their child was in the playground. Panic had struck him. He had cut the phone almost immediately as he gathered his fellow guards around him.

"Raj got first rank in school! Lunch is on me. Let's go," said Naik. The well built man gave nothing away as he plastered a smile on his face. That however did not mean that his he could keep his little finger from twitching. His emotions were restrained to that action.

Just as the men were about to order their food, Naik's phone rang once again. Seeing his wife's auburn hair flash across the screen, he swiftly placed it on his ear.

"Honey, I just called up a friend of mine. Raj is on the playground and she is keeping an eye on him. Is everything alright?"

"Yes, there is no problem. I will call you back later," said Naik as his eyes flared. One could perhaps see the fumes coming out of him as he said, "That was an informant. Three teens are on the run, they have been spotted near the station. We have to catch them, the lunch can wait." His ego has been hurt, they had played with his emotions. There was no way he could just let them go.

The men were already on their feet. Their broad shoulders were mercilessly pushing through the crowd. It was next to impossible to find the scrawny teenager in that crowd but there was no way that Naik could just loosen up and take the damage that had been done to his ego. So, he scanned the crowd, pushed through, as he cleared his line of sight. When his eyes finally feel on the trio, he screamed. His brethren huddled towards him. The teens were however by then well aware of their presence. They spotted a train just about to leave the platform and dashed towards it. Once all three of them were on the train, they collapsed on the train floor.

The men cursed as their chests moved up and down in exhaustion. The trio had escaped. There was no way they could know where they would get off, they would soon be out of their area, out of their reach. Stomping his feet, Naik melted into the crowd once again. What he did not know was that even though he was not able to stop the trio, he had greatly changed the course of their plan. He had pushed them to the point were they were forced to take the only train in front of them. One the men couldn't reach in time. Their destination was altered, they were on their way to Mumbai instead of Dhwaraka.

Piyush had by then taken out a piece of yellow paper out of his pocket. Staring at the messily scribbled number, he took the phone from Ram. As he tapped away on the small device, Ram observed his surroundings. The colourful bogies had been observed well over a thousand times from the outside. The people that stared out the windows, the ones that hung onto the poles near the exit. Ram had seen people that swung their heads to the beats ensuing from their earphones as half of their bodies found a spot on the jam packed trains.

Ram always thought that the carefree people on these train had lives that starkly contrasted his. As he sat on that dirty floor with people's calves in his line of vision, this difference seemed more prominent than ever. Those people were mere inches away from him but at that moment they were worlds apart. Ram bit into his lips till a metallic taste reached his tongue. At that moment as he heard a woman talking on her phone, rolling her eyes as she complained about her workload, Ram was angry. That woman dared to complain about having to work, work for which she was paid, where she didn't have to things that went against everything she stood for. Life he realised was not fair, it was perhaps at that moment in that crowd that the boy realised that in a world with so many people, there was nothing he could give. Nothing that deemed him worthy of venting his emotions. That day he decided that he would master a rare art, somehow become more than just a speck.

Piyush's hand fell on Ram's shoulder. The sudden movement made the younger jerk his shoulders up and twist his neck to look into his partner's eyes.

"What?"

"Not the time to be zoning out. I called Atul. He will be there at Mumbai station. Told me he would help us out. And don't even try to convince me that we should just catch a train from Mumbai to Dhwaraka. We are going to the city of dreams. Maybe this was all panned out. Maybe our lives will take a turn for the better," said Piyush.

Ram searched his friend's eyes. They were stone cold, all emotions were sucked out of them long ago. He wasn't optimistic, his words were. Words that were meant to convince his own mind rather than that of Ram's. Ram nodded as he struggled to bring his now slightly bloodied lips up.

As soon as the train stopped at CST, an unruly amount of people boarded the train. The trio was squeezed amongst the crowd. Their tiny bodies helped them slip through the crowd and finally get out. They were heaving as they made it to the platform. As soon as they lifted their heads, they felt their jaws drop. This was no ordinary railway station. The ceiling was extremely high. Light flooded every inch of the magnificent structure. One could see people in fitted suits pacing as they held phones to their ears. One could see tired workers slouching as they dragged their feet to their respective platforms. The vendors were almost everywhere, beggars could be seen around every corner. Some sat on their luggage as they waited for their trains. College students wearing jeans and fitted skirts talked as their hands gave way to their emotions. But what Ram would consider the hardest to in was the sheer size of the place. It was as if they were left behind the moment they stepped foot in this fast paced city.

Piyush's eyes scanned the crowd for a minute before his feet started moving. Meghna and Ram took long strides to catch upto him. He shook hands with a young man who wrapped his arms around Piyush. The guy was about twenty five years old. His brown eyes shined in the light as he talked with the siblings. His feet had a slight limp and his jet black hair was perfectly complemented by his moustache. His white shirt and slacks made him seem like an average employee at some digital firm. Ram just looked at the ground as his feet drew circles on the marble floor.

"So Piyush, Who is he?"

"He is Ram. Ram this is Atul. Bhaiya, I will just get straight to the point. We escaped that place and we have no place to go. I hope we can be a part of your business."

"Piyush, I cannot do that. What I do is very risky. I have always thought of you as family and I cannot let you risk your lives on a daily basis. In fact, I will show you what I mean."

Atul swiftly moved towards the men's washroom. Not a minute had passed when a green eyed bearded gentleman walked out. The man wore a blue kurta. His pale skin gave him an exotic look. The trio stared as he walked out but continued to wait. The man took a turn and approached them.

"See what I mean? I walked out right in front of you, all three of you and you couldn't even recognise me."

Foreheads creased as the trio continued to listen to the man's deep voice.

"It's me Atul. Believe me, I don't do this for fun. This is the only way I can survive, doing what I do. I have to and l really mean I have to change my appearance often. I have more than 50 identities."

Ram tapped his feet rhythmically. The pace was increasing second by second as he thought about what they would have to go through. Before they took off, they at least had a roof over their heads. They had seen a lot of things by then but one thing they hadn't experienced. Their lives were lived out on the streets in daylight but at night they were not out in the open. Ram did not want to know what that life would be like firsthand, with Meghna by their side, the streets were too risky of a bet. Ram's mind went back to his stash of books, the treasure he had to leave behind for freedom. The words imprinted in those books would however never leave his mind. Vivid descriptions about life out on the streets crossed his mind. He spoke up, uttered words that just crossed his mind at that moment. A hook that would make Atul take them in, a hook he didn't really mean.

"We need your help. To accomplish our goal we need your expertise. The task is dangerous, so we are prepared to live a life surrounded by danger too."

"Ram, right? What exactly is this dangerous task of yours?"

Ram did not fail to notice the scoff bleeding through his words. He said, " Murder. We plan to murder the old woman living in Dhwaraka. I have it all planned out. We will bring down the whole system."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Ram felt the urge to wrap his hand around his mouth. The words were a quick fix that he just blurted out. There was no plan, in fact there was never an intend to kill.

Meghna's eyes widened as the words registered. She would now see her mother and brother. They were waving at her as their bodies burned in the pyre. The rituals had been muted out but the faces were clear. There was a reason her life had whirled out of control. That wretched old woman.

"We need your help bhaiya. She doesn't deserve to live," said Meghna.

Piyush's eyes bore into the marble floor unable to believe the words coming out his sister's mouth. This had certainly not been the plan. He despised the woman too. To be honest he often dreamt of life that would have ensued had that woman never entered his village. As her clenched his trembling palm, he knew that at that very moment he did not have it in him to kill.

A chuckle broke Piyush's chain of thoughts. He slowly lifted his face to meet Atul's now green eyes.

"The three of you will kill? You don't have it in you to kill a mouse. Robbery and murder are worlds apart. But I have always wanted to see that woman dead. She is the reason I have turned into this," said Atul as his hands animatedly moved around his body.

"I will teach you. Honestly, murder is a scale up for me. Identity theft is my forte but I guess we can do this. You will be amongst the few the police cannot touch; a tiger in sheep's skin." He laughed.

**My dear reader, I love writing stories because they have the power to bring out emotions from people I miles and miles away from me. These words are my happiness and to know that it brought out the slightest emotion out of you would mean the world to me. Maybe it just lifted you lip a tiny bit or made lines appear on your forehead, please let me know for that is the sole purpose of these words. Leave a comment, your thoughts, anything. A vote would mean that you enjoyed reading it. It takes seconds and yet means the world to me, the teenager behind the keyboard