Uma Shankar Sharma’s kiosk at the Varanasi Cantonment railway station has a mention in most tourist guidebooks in the world. He is recommended as the one-point stop for all tourist queries on the holy city. He was to retire in 2015, but was given an extension owing to his exemplary service.
March 7, 2006 started as a usual busy day at work for Sharma. He was guiding a Japanese lady who wanted to board the Shiv Ganga Express when he heard a deafening sound. Barely five metres away in the general waiting area, a bomb inside a pressure cooker exploded, killing two dozen people. When Sharma regained consciousness he realised that he was hit by shrapnel. He crawled out of his seat and was aghast to see human flesh all around and dead bodies hanging on the roof.
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A decade later, Sharma, 63, is sitting at the same place in his renovated office. “I was afraid of firing and bloodshed, but after the blast I have been a changed man. Nothing scares me,” he said. Sharma was in hospital for two weeks and back at work the very next day. The platform was still damaged when he came back, said his colleague A.K. Singh.
Down-to-earth and always pleasant, Sharma still wears the HMT watch he got as a wedding gift in 1978. “The watch did not stop even in the blast,” he said. Singh said, in a way, it symbolised Sharma, who spent an average 14 hours in office and seldom took leave.
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“It makes me very happy when people in the age of the internet and IT come to me to get information,” said Sharma, who has three children. “Probably they look for the much desired human touch which we try to provide here while promoting Varanasi.’’ He plans to open a tourist facilitation centre after retirement in order to keep himself busy.
