Coming Back to Life
The cabin was comfy and I had the window seat. It was slightly foggy outside, but the pale winter sun was beginning to break out. I was going back home: to my grandparent’s in Dibrugarh.
The platform was quite busy, considering that it still wasn’t half past 6. Porters and coolies were readying their red turbans to hoist an almost exaggerated amount of luggage on their heads. The hawkers were just about readying their tea stalls and book shops, and a few shutters began to open up slowly.
The inside of the train was even busier and noisier. People were getting in, luggage was being pushed back & forth in the cabins. They were slanting their heads to make out the seat numbers, whilst others were trying to lift up their gnarly & nasty looking suitcases into the overhead storage.
Someone dropped a bottle, all the water began to squirt out, and then a rushing coolie crushed the bottle in his hurry to get outside. The dullness of the morning was somewhat uplifted by the sudden chaos that occurred due to the spilt water. It made some passengers quite upset, from the look on their faces as they murmured disapprovingly amongst themselves. God knows what would have happened had it been milk.
Outside, the platform floor was filled with increasing footfalls. But surprisingly, the ones who were waiting for their insanely delayed trains were still sleeping through the din! They had these plastic sheets strewn about, and entire families slept in an intricate fashion along with their luggage. This sight reminded me quite a lot of the video game Tetris.
Slowly the carriage began to fill up. Everyone started taking their seats, some bartered for the window ones without much luck. I was the lucky one for once. The seats to my left were still empty. I was subtly praying for it to stay that way. A few snack and water bottle pedlars began to do their rounds of the train. I got myself a bottle, it was on the colder side, but not iced. The Rail Neer plastic wrapper was moving about the neck of the bottle irritatingly, so I tore it off immediately and put it in my jacket pocket.
It was just about a quarter to 7 when the train jerked slightly. I let out a contented sigh. Finally! My journey had begun…
I savoured such solo journeys a lot. Travelling alone made me feel more grown-up even though I was in college. People used to regard me as a teenager still, so that kinda bummed me out more often than not. When you travel alone, you have the time to yourself. You sleep, you eat, you read, you stare out and daydream; it’s all on you. There’s no one trying to barge into your train of thoughts, pardon the pun, and no over-zealous relative trying to push a seasonal delicacy into your mouth at 7 in the morning.
Thinking about this made me involuntarily grab my bag and look inside. Yep, I had my books and my earphone handy. The Inheritance Of Loss was always there, plus I had recently bought the Casual Vacancy by J.K.Rowling. I had to make a choice, and on that particular day, at that precise moment, I just couldn’t let Kiran Desai down. Rowling’s book would have to wait until I got home.
I forgot when the first chapter ended or when the 2nd chapter began, but suddenly someone heaved onto the seat beside me, and I dropped the book. I was a bit shocked. I had lost track of time, the train had gathered speed by then, and the sun was smiling down quite brightly when I glimpsed outside.
He was a hefty fellow, not over-weight as such, but chubby nonetheless. He had put his luggage on the aisle seat & a folded newspaper in the tray in front. He was chewing something when he looked at me and smirked in a funny way. I half-nodded at that and got back to the book. That was a bit weird but I had more pressing matters right then. Firstly, I forgot which page I was on, and secondly, I had to go to the washroom.
So now I was stuck, midway in a book, and halfway between the lavatory and my seat because of this guy. I could have just asked him to shift, but all of a sudden, I had become quite conscious of myself and my actions.
Not wanting to blurt something inappropriate, I stuck to my seat and pulled out the earphones. Music would have to do for now. Rigidly, I shifted in my seat to make myself comfier, made the seat lean back a tad more and pulled down the shutters halfway to sleep. I tried not to focus on the urgency of going to the bathroom by humming the lyrics of the songs. But somewhere between the gentle rhythms of rock, the almost inaudible murmurs of passengers, the progressive rustling of foil-covered tiffins & the squeaky sliding cabin doors, I eventually fell asleep.
The ticking wrist-watch, the gentle swaying of the train berth, the increasing loudness of platform announcements & footfalls, and the gradual chill of the AC gently awoke me. As I failed to quote someone worthy, I glanced out through the steamy carriage window at the station. There was a busy hawker, selling his wares of miniature chapatis, potato gravy with a dollop of chilli pickle. There were brats running up & down with stacks of newspapers. There were guards walking about too, and thrashing any troublemaker if he came in their way.
The houses beyond the station were adorned with banners and strings of intricately woven flowers. And the sun was momentarily hidden from view behind them. The cabin had a few people, some getting off, some boarding for home, just like me.
We were again on our way, and because I was now quite awake, the nagging bathroom feeling had come back, so I simply got up, tapped on this guy’s shoulders and indicated him to shift. And that was that. If only I had mustered up the “courage” to do that beforehand. But letting bygones be bygones, I was back in my seat, feeling quite refreshingly empty.
Gulping down a few mouthfuls of water I, for the first time today, stared out intently; the rolling hills, the undulating the landscape of terraced tea-gardens and the distant national highway was quite a view to behold. This aspect of travelling alone, admiring the sights, the uncensored beauty of nature, getting glimpses of the occasional barasingha deer or one-horned rhino was priceless.
Almost feeling poetic, I leafed back to page 1 of Kiran Desai’s book. In my sleep, I had managed to crease one of the edges, which I now began promptly re-creasing. I hated dog ears in any book — do not test me or my resolve on that matter. So I was focused on page 1. And the way she talked about the mountains, the winds, the unknown, the beckoning and the aura of unblemished nature, made me shiver with nostalgia.
There grew a very happy, joyous and an exciting feeling in me at that moment. I was going back home, to Dibrugarh. I’d give anything for the wonderful weather it had there.
When it rained in Guwahati, we would have flooded streets and utter chaos. When it did so in Dibrugarh, we have gentle puddles all around. We have the freshest smells of rain-water on blooming flowers & the pitter-patter of the cascading drops from the rooftop. We have tube-wells that would suddenly be gushing out buckets of the most chilled water ever. There’d be fallen twigs, raw mangoes, & the greenest of amlas & guavas all over the front & back porch.
Some lad on his cycle would ride by the front gate, ringing his bell in a cheerful manner. Some sparrows & bulbuls would come out and flutter about to get the rain of their backs. They’d then proceed to scout for any insects that had been flushed out because of the welcoming showers.
The air all around had this beautiful melody to it. New sounds, new sights, new smells. The marble floors would become surprisingly too cold for the feet to walk upon. And we’d sit outside, leaning against the verandah pillars and spreading one hand out into the receding rain. And I was going home to that…
I had actually fallen asleep again. So much for me enjoying & spending this time well. The chubby guy was snoring profoundly, that was probably what woke me up in the first place.
I was a bit hungry, so I opened a tiffin dad had packed. A careful unwrapping of aluminium foil revealed two gorgeously boiled eggs, a clean banana (I hated the ones that had blackened exteriors or bumps) and a slice of bread with its edges cut precisely. I was famished and in little to no time I was wiping my hands on the solitary napkin and tucked the tiffin away. He did know how to pack a tiffin, and he still knew I hated the bread-crusts.
And the train kept going, my music kept playing, the pages kept flipping & my mind wandered to and fro between home and home. I was going to miss my parents for the few weeks I’d be in Dibrugarh, but then, I was gonna be with my grandparents.
They had the most amazing World War tales to narrate, and every time, the details and the stories were brilliant. The narratives never changed. But it still didn’t stop me from asking them about the days of bomb shelters & Quit India Movements and the Post-British Independence regime. How they had school back then, how they both met and got married and how they did all that with almost minimal electricity and technology, such questions boggled my mind, and I had to reassure myself about the wonders of technology by touching my smartphone once & checking the notifications. It was empty, luckily.
Those days were brilliant. Foreigners co-existing with locals. Tea gardens in full bloom, upcoming events & parades were the talk of the town. Schools were fun. Teachers weren’t many, the subjects were few, but the enjoyment, from what I could understand, was plenty.
Looking at that days from my experiences, I grow a bit sad. Schools have become result-oriented, exams have become monstrous, and memorise-and-vomit is now a preferred trait in school children. Even we didn’t have a perfect school-life when you compare it to the bygone days of black & white TV and even before that. But we did enjoy our days, our events, our functions, and our education in a way.
And here I am, still wishing we could go back to those days where we were merry kids, mischievous but young at heart. We did things because we felt like doing so, not because we intended malice. We weren’t hypocrites, kids never will be. And that’s the beauty of childhood. But then I’d miss these journeys alone and ask myself if I’d prefer a school recess break from 2005 or a winter break from a far-off college in a different part of the country.
And I think, as millennials, you’d know what I’d go for every time.
Originally published at http://anchovytrex.wordpress.com on July 13, 2019.
