A Train For Two

By Anuradha S

“Passengers, for your kind attention please. Train number 12657 Chennai to Bangalore Mail will be leaving shortly from platform number six.” an impersonal voice announced from speakers set high above in the wooden rafters and beams of the British-era station. It sounded cool and insulated from the furnace-like platform below, with its sweating mass of humanity jousting for space.

I felt a fleeting pang of pity for the train. With its locked doors and darkened compartments, the train looked like a tired old man in deep sleep. In a few minutes, it would be woken up by the harsh lights, mice, and noisy passengers, probably in that order.

My legs felt heavy. A familiar tingling sensation made its way down to my toes. Before it got worse, I quickly stamped my feet. Jeans had never felt so rough or unwanted. The heat and the humidity were unbearable. Rivulets of sweat flowed down my shoulders and plastered my shirt to my back.

The fizzy drink in my hand had become warm. It was my third drink for the night. I gulped it down, knowing it would only increase my thirst. Temporary relief was preferable to a long walk in this heat to the small store selling water.

I plugged in my earphones, ignored the fast depleting battery on my mobile, and was rewarded with a blast of techno. I closed my eyes, and let the music wash over me. This was good. Actually, this was great! For all of five minutes. The battery died, and then the heat enveloped me again.

Anything was better than this oven, I thought, and decided to brave the dark. I hoisted my backpack, picked up my kit from the platform, and checked the door to my compartment. It was open!

My kit seemed to get heavier as I lugged it through the corridor. “You would travel light, you declared. That thing is as light as a hippo” said my alter ego. “A girl needs to dress” I replied, not sounding very convinced by my own argument. “With 4 pairs of shoes, 5 jeans, 15 t-shirts and blouses, and a few dozen stoles? For a short trip of four days?” smirked the imp on my shoulder. I ignored it, and groped around in the pitch-black train. The compartment was like an oasis of dark in the middle of an ocean of hyper-lit, fast-speed atoms zooming about noisily.

“Damn the Railways! They are so bloody inefficient!”, I cursed as I bumped my elbows, knees and head on the berths. I felt my way from seat to seat, struggling to make out seat number 67. After about ten bumps and a few more curses, I finally spotted what I hoped was my place. I sank down in my seat, relieved. I had never thought much about the hard leathery berth on trains, but today, it felt cool & pleasant. The waves of noise from the platform receded. I sat still, catching my breath, absorbing the peace. I would take my things out later.

Suddenly, a light came on. The compartment was still dark though, so it wasn’t the Railways surprising me with their efficiency. I squinted, trying to figure out the source.

As I focussed, I could make out a form on the opposite seat. A woman. Definitely a woman. She had taken pity on me and switched on her torch.

The woman waited patiently while I took out my sweater, pushed my unwilling kit under the berth, pummelled my backpack into a pillow look-alike, and adjusted myself on the seat.

As I turned to thank her, the train lights flickered to life.

Before me was a middle-aged woman with dirty, matted grey hair. She hugged an old rucksack, as grimy and tattered as her faded kurta. Her hands were covered with blisters, and on her feet, she wore an odd combination of black socks and old pink sandals – somebody’s cast-offs. In the metaverse, she would be an eccentric fashionista wearing an odd assortment of things she had flung on haphazardly – old cracked spectacles, a brown shawl with more holes than wool, a child’s broken watch…

She was homeless, and all her worldly possessions were contained in the battered rucksack. The woman smiled at me and switched off her cheap solar torch.

“Oi! Get out”, screamed the ticket collector, banging the seat next to her with a stick. I was startled out of my trance, but the woman showed no reaction. Was she used to being shooed out of places, pushed away to dark, unseen corners, and forgotten till she came into circulation again?

She moved to the door and squatted. A whisper floated past, too soft for me to understand. Maybe it was a plea to let her stay in the train, an assurance that she wouldn’t disturb anyone. “It doesn’t go to Bangalore. God knows why we let you people come into the station at all. Get out. Now!” shouted the ticket collector.

The woman looked at me. I couldn’t read her expression, or perhaps I wouldn’t. Was she hoping that I would ask the ticket collector to let her squat near the door? I looked away and busied myself in my handbag, looking for something that didn’t exist.

“What could I say? That I would give up my seat for her? That I would ensure she wouldn’t be in anybody’s way? Why should I be the one to help anyway? It was the government’s business”, I reasoned. They collected taxes which were supposed to provide for destitutes like her. It was all the government’s fault. And the greedy politicians.

The ticket collector continued to curse and herd the woman from the compartment. She jumped out hurriedly to avoid his stick, and steadied herself on the platform. Then she turned around and looked at me.

I braced myself for reproach. Maybe a jibe about the privileged classes, or even a curse. Instead, she smiled. ‘It’s okay, I’m used to it’, her eyes reassured me. She had had longer to get used to the darkness. Then she walked into the sweating, heaving mass of people on the platform, and out of my life.

I looked down at my bulging kit, my ears burning in regret and shame. A woman without a home, and all her world in a backpack, had given without thought. I had taken, and shared nothing, not even a few kind words.

She had moved on, but could I?

By Anuradha S