This Year's Trip---Part 1

A middle-aged man sat by a window of a first-class a/c cabin. A young lady in her early twenties sat diagonally opposite near the door.

He ignored her and kept on staring outside, not really seeing the people on the railway platform. Then, as if he had remembered something suddenly, he opened his backpack and took out a diary. He flipped through the pages. He smiled, smirked rather, probably wondering if he had actually written those words. He raced through the entries.

A date in 2012: 7:10 pm---Waiting for the bus to Kodaikanal. This trip is going to be about observation…a storyteller’s sabbatical… (There were observations and with each one an associated story.)

A date in 2013: 7:10 pm---In the train and waiting to leave. This trip is about visiting the past and moving on…(Walking on a beach, alone in a taxi, standing on the rampart of a fort staring at the sea beneath…with memories of a past long dead…wondering how to move on, wondering how to enjoy the sublime in solitude…)

A date in 2014: 7:10 pm---In the train and waiting to leave. This trip is about having fun. (There were two foreign ladies with him on that trip…they claimed to be just colleagues…he suspected they were lovers…he told them he was a widower first and then divorced…)

A date in 2015: 7:10 pm---In the train and waiting to leave. This trip is about connecting with people. (There was a high-ranking bureaucrat in the cabin. They talked for nearly two hours about the state of the nation. The bureaucrat talked about his family too and then inquired about his. He replied that he was divorced and then a widower too.)

He laughed. He stared outside again, probably wondering what it was actually…divorced, widower, both or neither?

A date in 2016: 7:10 pm---In the train and waiting to leave. This trip is about being open to all, without inhibition. (Once again he talked to the companions, in the train and in Goa---a naval officer with roots in Pakistan, a CPI politician, a newly-wed lady in a club, two men from Thane busting rolls of cash in a casino and a young lady who latched on to them…no one asked him about his family status.)

There was no entry in 2017.

He looked at his watch. 7:03 pm. He wrote in the diary.

A date in 2018: 7:10 pm---In the train and waiting to leave. This trip is about nothing and no one. I am not going to trouble anyone with my company.

The train left Trivandrum at 7:20 pm. The TTE came soon after. The TTE asked the lady if she wanted to shift, to a coupe perhaps, for more privacy. She politely declined the offer and said thanks. The older man had some problem in showing a suitable identity card. He gave his wallet to the TTE and pointed at the cards in it, as if he was telling the TTE to choose. He did not speak.

He had got his ticket by courier. There was a note with it (Be on the train), along with a copy of a letter with his signature and handwriting. He had placed the ticket and the note in his memory-card pouch. It was as big as a pocket diary, an improvised visiting cards folder. Instead of visiting cards, it had notes to aid memory. 7 am: Brush teeth. Go to toilet. Have breakfast. Water plants…10 pm: Check all taps. Close all doors. Check all switches. Brush teeth. Urinate. Sleep. There were entries with dates too: Telephone bill…Electricity bill… Water bill…The ticket and the note was in that section. There were no notes about what to do at the destination.

Soup was served around 8 pm. He noticed that the young lady liked the soup with lots of pepper…like him. They did not speak. She took a sip and started coughing. Instinctively he raised his hand as if to pat her head. He lowered his hand. She must have seen his action. She focused on the soup.

Dinner was served at 9 pm. Later, he wrote in his diary…9:30 pm: I wanted to talk to the girl but that must be a thing of the past. I should not trouble her…   

She read a book. He stared outside at the darkness and the images that whizzed past, houses with low-watt bulbs, shadows and silhouettes, drooping trees.

He mumbled to himself, “Pettah, Veli, Kochuveli, Kaniyapuram, Kazhakkoottam, Murukkumpuzha, Perunguzhi, Chirayinkil, Kadakkavvoor, Akathumuri…”

He stopped suddenly as if he could not understand why he said that or as if he did not know the rest of the stations.

An attendant came to prepare the lower berths for the night. The older man asked for an extra pillow. The lady too requested for the same. Sitting on the freshly-made bed, he opened his pouch. He checked the switches, went to the toilet and returned. He lay down to sleep.

At 10:30 pm, the train reached Ernakulam and two more entered the cabin, a middle-aged lady and a young man of about twenty. They spoke to the young lady in hushed tones. The older lady took the lower berth and the other two the upper berths. 

The man had looked at them when they entered the cabin. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. His diary entries told him that he rarely slept well in trains.

He must have slept well this year. He woke up with a start around half past seven when morning coffee and biscuits were served. He looked confused. He opened the pouch, read the entries, calmed down, had coffee and biscuits, and then went to the toilet. He returned and took his seat by the window. The young ones had climbed down from the top berths. The two ladies sat near the door. The young man took the place by the other window.

The older man wrote in his diary…8:30 am: In the past, we would have covered everything by now, where we lived, what we did, even if we had relatives in common. Not this year.

Breakfast was served at 9 am. No one spoke.

He returned to his diary…9:30 am: It is weird when four people sit in silence. The girl has looked at me once or twice. That lady, must be their mother…why was she staring at me? Maybe, she was staring outside, thinking about something. But, did her eyes fill? Was that anger or sadness? They do not know I can see them reflected in the window. Or, maybe, they do know. The young man has been staring outside the whole time, like me. He is definitely angry. Something about him seems so familiar. Is it the way he stares outside, with one eye partially closed, head tiled to the side? Maybe, that is not so uncommon. Even I do that.

Around 10:15, the two ladies and the young man got ready to leave. They collected their smartphones, wires and other possessions. They took out the suitcases from beneath the lower berths. The young lady took out his suitcase too. She took his diary and placed it in his backpack. He thought of protesting but did not. He sat looking confused.

At 10:30, the train reached Madgaon.

The young lady told him, “This is our station, Appa.”

(To be continued…)

click here to read Part 2

This Year's Trip---Part 2

click here to read Part 1

There was a car waiting to take them to a resort in South Goa. The older man got in front, the other three behind. They did not speak.

That remained more or less the same throughout their four-night stay at the resort. The man got a cottage for himself and the others shared one. They did not talk much, that is, to the man. In their cottage, the mother and the two kids shared their anger, frustration, sadness and, even if they were not keen to admit it, joy too.

They took the man with them for all meals. Apart from the unnatural silence at their table, they looked like a normal well-settled family. At other times, the man preferred to be by himself in his cottage. He followed the routine dictated by the memory cards. Morning and evening, one of the kids took him for a long walk on the beach. On the third day, they hired a car and went on a day-trip further south. The kids wanted to explore some beaches. The odd couple got off near a hiking trail. They hiked up to a hill-top, taking it slowly, silently.

The view from there was sublime. They sat on the ground, shared a bottle of water, had sandwich.

“Do you remember our first time here?” she asked.

He looked irritated and seemed to hold back some angry retort. He did not reply for a long while.

“All I know is that I wouldn’t want to be here and see this without…” he said, staring ahead. Again, he seemed to be holding back some thought or words or maybe he was uncomfortable completing that statement with a formal “company” or the informal “you”.

He half-turned towards her. She turned towards him. He looked at her hand. He raised his hand but lowered it immediately.

“I am sorry,” he said. There were tears in his eyes.

“Me too,” she said. She turned to stare at the abyss in front.

…

Six months before that trip, the daughter had received a letter from him, after a gap of twenty years. Twenty years back, it had been an apologetic scrawl telling her to be strong and to remember that he would always be there for her and her brother. For twenty years that promise remained just words. He was not there for them. This new letter was more formal, quite matter-of-fact and unsentimental.

My dear daughter, I have been to a doctor. It seems I am losing my memory. I would like to meet you. Could you please come to this address? Your loving Appa. His residential address was given below.

She did not tell her mother or even her brother. She was not sure about their response. She expected anger or obstinate denial. She did not want remorse or sorrow either. She was not even sure what she herself felt. For a month, she did nothing.

Then, one Sunday, she went to his one-bedroom apartment. He opened the door reluctantly and stared at her blankly. She handed him his note. He read it. He let her in. He prepared a fresh pot of tea and opened a packet of Marie biscuits and placed it on a plate. They sat in front of the TV. An old British crime video was playing, one of P.D. James’ Dalgliesh mysteries.

She tried talking to him. But that seemed to irritate him. They remained silent.

He opened his pouch of memory cards and flipped through them.

“I am sorry,” he said softly a little while later. She turned to him to say something. But he stopped her by raising a finger to his lips. “I can’t understand what you say. Worse, I won’t remember what you say.” He paused. “I do not remember writing that letter. But I seem to have placed a memory card in this pouch to remind me what I should do if you turned up.”

He stood up, went and picked up an envelope placed on top of the TV and handed it over to her. It was dated two weeks earlier.

My dear daughter, I am running out of time. Can I ask you for one last favour? I would like to go with my family on a last trip. Let it be like the trip we enjoyed last. Your loving Appa.

She did not protest or agree. She was with him for an hour.

She made three such, silent, visits before she picked up the courage to tell her mother and brother. Her brother was furious. Her mother was strangely calm, in front of them.

She continued with her silent visits. It was always more or less the same, the tea, the biscuits, the same PD James show or another like it, and the weird companionable silence. Somehow, through that silence, they came to an understanding. She would not visit him too frequently and never give or take more than that hour. That seemed to suit him.

It took her mother and brother two months to agree on the trip. She made the arrangements for the trip, sent the ticket to him with the note for his memory cards pouch. They met on the train and the other two joined them at Ernakulam.

…

He was a careful man. For a year, he had planned and made arrangements. His last will and testament was ready. He read up on the subject of finance for those in their final years. There was very little material on the section of society who suffered from dementia or memory-loss. He talked to bankers and set up a trust to manage his considerable savings and investments. Everything would go after his demise to the family he had last met twenty years back. He planned for his final days. He tried to put in a clause about packing him off to the Netherlands or some merciful place where a clinic would give him a quick assisted release. He learned that it was still a grey legal area.

He then made arrangements for a life without memory. He sold his big house and settled with minimal stuff in a more manageable apartment. He prepared his pouch of memory cards. He placed pictures and reminders around the apartment to help him with his daily routine. He found an agency, their services did not come cheap, to take care of cleaning the apartment, delivering provisions and the occasional takeaway. They even took him on long drives once a week. He did not want any company. He did not want anyone to talk to him. He kept a diary. He knew others would pry and read it. He wrote for them.

 He also left a brief note, apart from the will, to be delivered to his family after his death.

My beloved wife, daughter and son, It is possible you have already figured out what I write here and you despise me even more. I had to feign the loss of memory. Yes, I was selfish. But, I could not think of another way to be with you all before I go. Any other way would have had us bogged down in history. I could have left without telling you. But I have to tell you that I was always with you. Loving you always...

click here to read Part 1

nod n stare

I said something to my friend.

She nodded but did not reply.

I said something else.

She did not even nod.

I said goodbye to the Internet.

And tried to find a friend.

But it is the same story everywhere.

So I nod at times.

I stare blankly most of the time.