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.”
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