A humid afternoon slowly comes to a close. Strands of light
start creeping into the coach. Raghu is too lazy to get down. He had the
side-upper all to himself. There is some space to sit upright, read a book, stretch your hands
a little, but mostly to sit upright and still retain the berth to sleep if
bored. He smirked at no one in particular. The tongue was parched dry. He had
just woken up. The noise in the coach had increased and he had also been
sleeping for the past four hours. he stares at the dancing reflections of the watch dials for sometime, his mind not particularly awake as yet...
“Where am I ?”. He punches in some keys, swipes a few swipes
and stares at his mobile; the map shows him he is at Anna nagar. After a few
seconds though, the view leaps across and shows him a random hazy location. Yes
I’m in the plateau somewhere. Good map, awesome precision. He closes it, turns
over on his stomach.
“Soup soup soup soup”
“water?”
He signals that a guy is coming behind him carrying water.
Raghu nods.
“Oh! Nice, my son is preparing for JEE, the elder one is already settled in
the US. He is in California.”
These people are new, they must have got in while I was
sleeping.
“Hmmm, is it? nice, everybody is doing engineering these
days. The elder one is IIT pass out?”
“NO, NO he tried, didn't crack it, then he ended up studying
in Nagpur.”
“Oh, where?”
“ABCtech , it is a very good college.”
“Oh. Good good.”
“Are you going to delhi?”
“Yes… family function”.
a kid leans on her mother, gazing through the window, the
mother reads a book, sitting cross legged leaving whatever is left of the berth
to her husband.
He is pensive for some time before continuing.
“Are you from delhi?”
“Yes yes, I’m from there, my wife is from there. We have
been there for over fourty years now.”
“Hey shanthi, where is that addressbook?”
The female briefly lifts her eyes off her book, nudges her
daughter aside, who is perceptibly annoyed at this and hands him over a thin
black book. She gets back to her book and the kid’s broken from the trance of
watching the posts fly by.
She fidgets and peeks into her mother’s book. They are all
text. She knows English, all the words are in tamil. Tamil is boring.
“Amma don’t read tamil books, boring.”
“What can I do about that?” She snaps. “They teach tamil
in school right? Try reading this…”
“The teacher doesn’t know Tamil, she sleeps in class.”
“Don’t say that. You should respect your teachers”.
“She’s one loosu ma…” she laughs, but stops, noticing her
mom glare at her. After having made her point, she goes back to reading.
“Ha! Here It is.. Sir, where is this place?”
“Oh this?.... you have to go to …. Near SBI…. Milk booth…
chowk… “
“Arrey there is a metro that goes directly to this place na?”
his wife interrupts.
Till now, She had been hounding the other female for signs of companionship, but, to her chagrin those eyes hardly left the book. ‘How
could people read for so long?’ she wondered. After losing her patience fencing
for attention, she had turned her focus on the boring conversation between the
males. Her husband was gregarious, which was sometimes a great help in her
getting rid of her boredom, but on most occasions, he was the cause of boredom.
Like today.
The train is already running late, hope it catches up on
lost time in the night. The traffic in the morning is horrible and this weather, I should have booked the damned AC ticket. The coach is so stuffy. Some breeze,
oh god give me some breeze. What have I done to deserve this?. Chi… what is this…
where is this water from? Useless barbarians. I hate this coach. Not even a
charger….
“hello? Ya .. ya… I’m coming… I’ll call as soon as I reach
tomorrow...” buggers...
This upper berth is so dirty. Indian railways in getting
away with everything…. Aaaaaggghhhhhh . *exales.* I will sleep and wait for the
pathetic dinner… *switches on walk man* so stuffy… need to take bath, this is
so sticky what is this nonsense indian railawwwwzzzzz….
Where is this sound coming from? Is it the fan? No…. but
sounds like a fan. Hmmm… that boy is looking at me from side-upper… hehe his
hands are dangling down… he looks bored…
Raghu finds the kid looking at her, he smiles. She measures
him up in a second; returns his smile… she is distracted again… her eyes are restless,
but they keep returning to the fan every now and then. “Hahaha... Now now, I will help
you with that”, Raghu waits till he catches her eye again. He then gestures to the upper
berth opposite to her, and imitates a person snoring. She laughs, unable to
control herself.
She looks up at the sound of familiar laughter, She smiles; affectionately pulls
the hair out of the kid’s face. My love. She plants a gentle kiss on her head; follows her gaze. She nods her acknowledgement at the young man who pulls himself to a sitting
position. She closes the book. Wonders where the two of them who were seated in
the side-lower are.
“Oh yes, the yellow line takes you directly to this place…
you can catch it from the station”.
"yes"
“Thank you very much… it makes my job a lot easier…”
Water water water…..
1 bottle water please, 1bottle for us.. 1 for us too…
SNOORRREE…. Heheh :D
