Life is a train of moods, like a string of beads, and as we pass through them, they prove to be many-coloured lenses which paint their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus. Emerson
Going through my jottings of yester-years, I feel as if I am reading the experiences of a third person, not my own. I find that this third person is passing through various moods as he sits alone on a reclining chair on the platform of a railway station in the wee hours of the night, waiting for the day to break. In his own words:
3 AM.
Crows have started crying here and there heralding the morning. But there is no escape from the wait. The head is heavy with sleep and I would have really liked to be in the bed at home for a few hours before I start the day. The tea-stall at the railway station is being opened and soon, another train may arrive here. 180 minutes have now come down to 120 minutes. I have a Sudoku puzzle to solve. So let me take leave for the time being.
3.40 AM. 80 minutes more. Just finished Samurai Sudoku (five-in-one). It has now started raining. God alone knows what is in store for me today. An old Muslim man just came and enquired with me why I am sitting here. He is also waiting to get out of the station. His bus is at 4.30 P.M., he says, and he has to go to a place 40 kilometres away. Hopefully, rains will not be there at 5 O' clock. The orderly at the railway station knocked at the closed door bearing the sign 'Booking office' just now. It is for the second time he has been alerting 'madam' probably sleeping inside. After the second knock he told her in Tamil that it is now 3.30 hours. He brought her tea/coffee and the door is now closed again. The station is getting livelier. The grinder at the canteen has started to turn. Another tea stall has been opened. It however appears to be the darkest hour. No more do I hear the cry of the crows. The atmosphere is still even more still as the human beings at the railway station shed their slumber and get ready for their next travel. The child which was earlier crying is now prattling.
It is now two hours since I have positioned myself on this chair, the extreme right one on the rear tier. The extreme left chair on the front row is occupied by a man now. A train is approaching the platform and I see the green light of the guard flashing, indicating that the train will not be stopping at the station. As I finished writing this. the train has sped past. It is Kochuveli-Dehradun Express. The continuous beep in the station master's room tells me that the train has now crossed the signal point. I believe I am still happy with the present situation. Long hours of loneliness I have converted to seconds of solitude which is bliss infinite. Perhaps, I am aware that there is no escape from the predicament which has been of my own making.
A lightning just flashed and not to be outdone, thunder grumbled and spluttered. If you are faster, I am louder, it seemed to say. Is it heralding rains. I keep my fingers crossed. Take it as it comes, my experience tells me that I could not be worse off. I have passed through more sickening phases in my life. It is not something new, I tell myself as another lightning flashed and a louder thunder roared louder. The rain has got steadier and more intense. Now the hope is that it will stop within one hour. I cannot but pray, for I have no umbrella with me.
It is now 4 AM. The lights on the platform no.2 have been turned on and the bell has been rung. Yet another train, some one from across the rails on the other platform announced that it is West Coast Express. Now, at last, the thunder has caught up with the lightning. The flash and the roar were almost simultaneous. I hear M.S.Subbulakshmi's voice invoking some God. 58 minutes more. There is one more Sudoku Samurai puzzle waiting to be solved by me. But I am not doing it for the time being. The rain has now increased, is gathering force. Oh God. The train which is going from south to north has reached the platform, has slowed down and stopped as I finished this page. The light has turned green as I finished counting the words on the first page of this note-book. It is now moving out of the platform. I estimate that I have added 2000 words to the Random Thoughts (you will get the exact figure when I type them into my laptop) in the past two hours. Something is better than nothing, I muse, as I watch the people going out of the main gate. The rain threatens to persist, but it may spend itself out within the remaining 50 minutes of my waiting time.
39 minutes. In the meantime, a lady who has her head covered with scarf and with two or three heavy bags on her shoulders and hands gestured at me as I looked at her, an indication that she has identified me. Going by the face, I believe she is a party to a proceeding before me, an action initiated by her husband, an advocate, to nullify the marriage with her. People are all streaming in, the next train will arrive by 5 A.M. I will conclude for the time being. I congratulate myself- am proud of myself. It will be no wonder if the people who come to know of my experience ask me to give a lecture ( which is an impossibility given my penchant for reticence, inexperience and the innate shyness) or write an article ( which I think I can write without doing injustice to the language and diction) on how to spend your time without cursing any one including yourself when you are left with no other option but to sit at a railway station having reached there at an odd hour and have no conveyance to take you home, who knows, I may even earn accolades and awards.
The end of Station Diary; now the sequel to it:
My laptop tells me that I have added exactly 2633 words to the Random Thoughts in less than three hours. It took me two hours to type it all into my computer. You may now be interested in the sequel. It had been an anti-climax actually, a fitting end to a journey which I now consider was undertaken at a great cost to the public exchequer ( I will be reimbursed for what I have spent) for no earthly use except to inflate the egos and fill the brains with crap. I decided to walk to the bus-station to catch the available bus to my place. It was raining and there was no doubt that I will get wet. Yet walk I did, chanting Vayustuti, calling upon Hanuman to come to my rescue. I had covered nearly half the distance to the bus-station when a “sir' call from an autorikshaw coming in the opposite direction reached my ears. I knew what was coming, for a few minutes earlier, another autorikshaw had pulled up beside me from behind and the driver had by his gestures asked me whether I wanted to get in considering the rain. I gestured him away even as an old lady inside the vehicle looked at me with suspicion writ on her face. Now the same driver who had dropped me at the railway station a few days earlier turned his vehicle in my direction and announced his identity as if I had failed to recognise him and without any protest I got into the vehicle. He asked me why I had not called him on my arrival. I did not respond to his query immediately, a little hurt that he had failed to understand my need when he knew that I will be coming by a particular train. He had told me that he will be going to his native place and I had therefore decided to take chances. The servants of the third category are becoming a rare breed and I had no locus standi to get angry with him. I therefore calmed my hurt feelings and paid him fifty rupees which he gratefully accepted- ten rupees more than what he demanded for the same distance earlier.
Well, the journey ended on such a note at exactly 5.15 A.M. Net result-zero. Deliverance did come but in such a way that I was left with a sour taste in the mouth. I had endured the misery and at the end of it, God indicated to me that it had been invited by me, that I will have to suffer it and that He will come to my rescue only after that. The Karma theory at work?
Postscript:
Ask what is human life- the sage replies,
With disappointment low’ring in his eyes,
A painful passage o’er a restless flood,
A vain pursuit of fugitive false good,
A scene of fancied bliss, and heartfelt care,
Closing at last in darkness and despair.
-Cowper
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