Pangs of Separation - Part 1

The sun came up, lazily rising, reluctant to resume normal duty as if after a holiday break. The streaks of sunshine spread tentative fingers across the clear blue sky, lighting up the wisps of clouds like a bulb switched on inside. As the sun slowly but surely walked across the streets of the city, it passed one other reluctant window where the day was not yet welcome. The window was not particularly different from any other, housed as it was in a structure seemingly entirely of glass just as many others that were housed in that part of the city. The window itself allowed a peek into an apartment, very similar to many others in shape and size except that this one looked as if it was in a state of flux, caught between a major turbulence, a sea of change. A set of suitcases lay, some partially opened and some still to be explored, a new set of curtains lay unopened in their covers, closets looked as if they were either being filled or being taken down entirely. It looked like an apartment where people were moving into or was it moving out? And in a corner was the bed on which the man lay. He was still asleep, his deep breathing filling the room, arms akimbo and face turned sideways into the pillow. He was dreaming …

Something about the dream made him frown in his sleep, heavy eyebrows bridging that short gap between them. And then the frown dissolved, just the way the breezy sunshine clears the clouds, and a smile stole across his face. Starting from his lips, the smile spread across his whole face like someone had just taken a spoon and spread it out across his face. His face creased up entirely and made him look years younger than he actually was. Just then a noise from somewhere around intruded into his dream and threatened to wake him up. He resisted, turning his face almost entirely into the pillow, lest his beautiful dream be lost. But the noise was as persistent, forcing its way into his thoughts and blasting out the cobwebs of sleep one by one. Finally, he reluctantly gave up. The eyelids opened once and then shut again, almost as if the reality they saw was no comparison to the dream they had come from and they wished to go back. Another thought then stole into his mind, this thief being the most daring of all, for what it made him do.

The thought stayed as he reached out to the other side of the bed. His arm flailed for the warmth that he knew would be there, seeking and searching. Not finding it, he turned his head and opened his eyes, a quizzical look on his face. The depression in the bed told him that she had been there, the pillow and the mattress shaped with her form. He lifted the pillow that she had lain on and brought it to his face. He could smell her on the pillow now, that unique smell that was only hers, like bright sun shine in the garden on a spring day.  That smell was always hers, a smell that he had first thought came from a bottle but soon grew to realize was her. He could remember her lying facing him, her hair falling across her face, dark as a crow’s wing, partly hiding her eyes, making him want to brush the strands up and away and yet holding back, somehow hesitant to even touch the image for fear that it would disappear. He remembered the way her hair felt, softly tickling his cheek, the errant strands caressing his face as he held her close, enveloped in a cloud of her. And the way it felt as he ran his fingers through it, soft and yet gently gripping, not letting go.

He felt a sudden pang at her not being there then, a murmur that was completely out of place, a blot of black on a snow covered mountain top. Where could she have gone this early? She must have woken up early to make some coffee, he thought. He half sat up in bed, thinking he would sneak up and surprise her. She didn’t like him doing that, he remembered. The last time he had done it, she had gone crazy in fright and almost started trembling. Okay, so he wouldn't creep up on her. He sat up on the bed trying to think of how he would surprise her. Suddenly, he realized that he couldn't hear any noises at all from around the apartment. He stopped and listened carefully, trying to pinpoint where she was and what she was doing, smiling slightly at the thought. After a couple of minutes, he gave up, the silence around strangely unnerving.

A weird feeling descended on him, like a cloud that had suddenly blotted out the sun. He called out her name, once, twice and then with increasing sound until he realized that he was almost screaming for her. And yet, there was no answer. No sign of that familiar face that had grown so quickly dear to him, no sound of that voice that suddenly switched things on for him when he heard it. His eyes grew wide with the realization that she might actually not be there in the apartment at all. For some strange reason, he didn't react well to the thought. Of course, she was a literate and well traveled woman who would be able to find her way around a place. So why was he reacting so strangely, an inner voice asked, in a mocking tone. His practicality seemed to have deserted him as well as all reason that he normally took pride in.

Another inner voice, starting out feeble but growing stronger with his acceptance said that she had only arrived here yesterday and would not know of any places or people around. He thought back to the conversation of the previous night, where they had stayed up most of the night talking about what they would do the next few days and how they would do up the house. In between all that, he could not remember talking about the apartment or surroundings or any details that she would have been able to work with to go anywhere. With that thought, he got out of bed, struggling to figure out what to do, but goaded into some sort of action.

As he stepped forward, he felt a sudden sharp sting on his foot, as if something had pricked him. He looked down and saw that it was the ear ring of hers that they had spent over an hour searching for immediately after they had reached. It had fallen out of her hand as he had grabbed her and held tight as soon as they were home, within the walls that they henceforth would call their own. After her loving hug back, the missing ear ring had resulted in a veritable hunt. It was a sentimental piece of hers gifted by her mother. They had both searched around the room but were not able to locate it even after shaking out the bedspread, stomping around on the carpet and looking on the floor. They had missed the spot on the carpet right next to the inside of the leg of the bed, where it had somehow rolled. He remembered her sadness then and then the child like attempt at smiling as she tried to make him feel better that she would anyway be able to find it with the maid the next morning.

He wanted to call out to her to tell her that he had found it. And wanted to put it on her that very moment and see the joy back in her eyes. The way they would light up when she had got a thing she wanted, and this ear ring was something that she cherished and so the lights would on in full force. He wanted to see the child like joy that surged behind the practical smile that would make her lips curve upwards, stretching till they ended in the dimples that so endearingly adorned her cheeks. On those rare occasions that she would actually succumb completely to his wit, the way her face itself brightened and brightened and the dimples on her cheeks danced in tune with the sparkle in her eyes, her laugh like the peal of bells that rung in the spring merrily.  The very same dimples that he teased her about mercilessly and she turned away in mock irritation, trying to hide the fact that her eyes were dancing still.

He wanted to hear her voice, that husky tone given to high pitched laughter, a combination so incongruous that it would have been funny if it weren't for her. It made her what she was. He could go on for hours listening to her voice, the inflections in it. She was given to not revealing herself too much but he could now read that tinge of disappointment in her voice when he had to go off the phone to a meeting and the reluctant goodbye which made him want to stay on for a few minutes more just to try and bring the joy back into it. He could read that hidden excitement when she had done something and she called him in the middle of everything just to tell him first, and then she actually wanted him to find out without her telling, leading to a series of questions and guesses. He read the joy in her voice when he called her every morning and evening, just to hear his hello. The wistfulness when they talked about the future, like last night. That note brought reality crashing back in, a realization that she was not home.

He kept the ear ring on the side table next to his clock and then changed his mind to keep it in between the pages of the book that she was reading. He wanted her to find it as a surprise, wanted to see her reaction. The book had been something that she had picked up at the airport before she had boarded the flight and when he asked her about it as he met her at the arrivals gate, she had launched into an animated explanation of how it was a wonderful combination of mythology and science and romance. She went on and on until she suddenly realized that he was barely able to contain his laughter and then sheepishly admitted that she had got carried away, the blush sweetly darkening her cheek. And he, the occasional reader of the current affairs and business section, who preferred to get his news on the television and entertainment on screen, finally burst out laughing at how she had been trying to convince him to read a thousand page book on the intricacies of the evolution of science. And then, in her unique way, she told him that she would explain it to him and he knew that she would – in her earnest way, hands moving with and describing every word, punctuating every sentence. He had teased her about her talking with her hands, about how, if he were to hold them still, she would not be able to speak.

The thought made him want to hear her voice. And he turned away from the bedside table to go to the hall. As he was stepping out of the room, he saw that her suitcases had been opened and some things were missing. It seemed like someone had hurriedly opened the suitcases and taken some things out and left the rest. A couple of her dresses lay partially open on the floor next to the suitcase as if whoever had been searching the luggage had pulled out things and dropped them in their haste. He saw her favorite peach dress lying rumpled on the floor and a sudden stab of worry went through him. It was completely unlike her to simply leave things on the floor and in disarray and go away to something else. For the first time that morning, he felt a vague sense of fear creep into his thoughts.

Yesterday's Newspaper Club

Welcome all you brothers and sisters, to our clan of Yesterday’s Newspapers. It is a rare honor bestowed on us, for we carry the tradition of creating history in the name of news. It is our sacred oath to record and carry the tidings of the days gone by. Of course, there are those cousins of ours who are part of this sacred blood oath, that carry tidings of Page 3 and the advertisements for massage parlors. However, we do not discriminate. The bond between us is strong and we will not let the newspaper barons segment and subdivide us. We will stand strong and united, my friends, and we will fill the archives that the generations to come will pore through to learn about history as it was reported.

Why, it was only yesterday as I had stopped to exercise my elbow at the Typesetting Pool, when one of the tabloid cousins was talking about their circulation going down with the increasing prevalence of the internet and television. As if that monstrosity will ever replace the dignified and time honored habit of news reading. What would ever replace the joy of waking up to find the newspaper on the doorstep and opening it to read about the world? And even if there were 24 hour news channels as one of the new fangled magazine cousins was rudely pointing out, I am certain that nothing will ever replace the experience of reading the morning newspaper with one’s cup of tea or coffee.

The magazine cousin was also pointing to the dwindling addition to our numbers, now that digital newspapers and archives have started taking over. I mean, how rude and ignorant can one get? But what would you expect from a magazine or a tabloid anyway. Where is the pedigree, the breeding and the social grace? They are uncouth, that is what they are. A couple of us were so put off that our noses went up in the air and we would have cut them down with a fine choice of scathing criticism. But, better sense prevailed and we let them be, drawing into our own corner, with the high brow of publications. Who wants to really mingle with these yellow types anyway? Would be getting down and dirty now wouldn’t it?

There in our corner, we discussed the history that we had helped create. We remembered the time when newsprint was so expensive and rarely available. That was the time when it used to take more than a day to reach newspapers to various parts of the country; the time when the people could only read news of the day before, at best. That was the time when only one copy of the newspaper would reach a town and the arrival of the newspaper was such a momentous occasion that all of the men folk would gather around the town chowk to hear the most learned of them read the paper out aloud and explain it.  And then the debates that used to ensue from this, they were so splendid that those of us that belonged to that era felt proud of the views and movements that they helped propagate and fuel.

That was the day and age when yesterday’s newspaper was veritably the hero of the times. That was our heyday. The age which we heralded in, where we shaped the future, the way things happened and how people understood what was happening all around them. We raised many a toast to that particular memory and many of us got goose bumps recounting incidents that they had helped spread word off or movements that they had helped spark off. And then someone had one too many and spilt their drink, all over the first page of the August 15^th edition of the nation’s pride, can you imagine!! The top right column was washed away before we could get some blotting paper and stop further damage. What a disaster! That incident kind of sobered us up.

We hung around there for a while, remembering how archives of us were created in local libraries and we were indexed and stacked up, neat as the day we were printed. And the locals and the school teachers who came to refer to us, searching by the date of events for the exact details of what we had reported and kept alive, making copious notes and taking this back for their work. The environment wasn’t always friendly, stored as we were in dank and recessed shelves where the older publications soon succumbed to the termites sating their hunger and seeking to build new nests while the more recent ones developed terminal allergies of mould and fungus. Those were trying times indeed, where one had to really fight to survive. And those of us who actually made us out of these times were considered the survivors and we proudly recounted our tales like we were doing at the Pool.

That was also the time when newspaper cuttings were a way of keeping records of things that happened. People took the pages out of the newspaper and carefully cut out the sections that they wanted using a pair of paper scissors and then stuck them onto the pages of their diaries or memoirs with gum. Oh, what joy it was for them to read and re-read these columns and relive the memories and the moments. And though it was painful for us to give up a part of ourselves, it was always a proud sacrifice that one made, in the larger interests of society’s need for keepsakes. After all, how many people have gone under the scissor willingly and smiled through the operation, living to show a gaping hole in the middle of oneself? The worst of them were those who, after cutting what they wanted, simply discarded the balance sheet. How rude of them, how uncouth? Don’t they even care for the sacrifice that the poor brother made? But these uncivilized kinds did not society make and the larger population valued our contribution surely.

Then came the really trying times when distribution of newspapers became more efficient. And the cost of newsprint went down and the people could afford a newspaper each. Then the people could read yesterday’s news that day and everyone had a newspaper at home each morning. And our place in the sun was taken over by the latest print. Though, there was still that Sunday tradition when the men folk would take out the week’s newspapers and pore through them, reading and re-reading them until they were more dog-eared than could possibly be imagined. It was a way of keeping track of the changes that were happening around the people said one of the distinguished lots. One of the back benchers unwisely chose that moment to retaliate and yelled back that there was little that passed for entertainment on weekends in those days. After all, the magazines had not yet started making a popular entrance. We chose not to respond, simply holding our peace until the raucous laughter had died down.

One of the barkeeps joined in the fun and mentioned how the only use for us yesterday’s newspapers in those days was the weight in paper that they would fetch by the kilo. The newspaperwallas that used to come by once a month and weigh the newspapers with their crooked scales and the horrid negotiations that would ensue and finally the money that would change hands and off we went into the garbage where we would be put into multiple other uses. Imagine, the newspaper that proclaimed India’s independence, being used as a wrap for a measly 100 grams of peanuts off a side street thela or even more horrid, the same paper being used to hold the hot oily bhajias served down to the eager grasping hands. The very hands that would scoop out the nuts or the bhajias and then uncaringly, unseeingly, drop the prestigious purveyor of news down on the ground where it would be trodden upon by so many feet.

Though this comment drew a snicker from the back benchers, it hushed up almost all of us. This was not the elite vs. commoner’s battle; this was an issue that affected all of our existence. Ah, the ignominy of it. Gone were the days when paper used to be considered holy, never to be touched by foot and revered. Those days, we were only worth our weight – literally. And we were considered junk that needed a place to be kept in, and when the newspaperwalla would get late, we were cursed and complained about until he finally blessedly came and took us away. And then the whole resale bit where all sorts of shop keepers and sellers would come to buy us in bulk. Again weighed and doled out like scrap, like we weren’t worth anything but the paper that we were printed on.

And then, we were kept in a dark storage room in stacks that were of no significance, rubbing shoulders with all sorts of dates and types, waiting for the next step in the journey to oblivion. Till the man came and took out bunches of us and tore us up into bits of the size that he wanted, with no care for the section margins or the news items which were torn up in the process. And then off we went to the street side shops where we would await our fate in silence – to hold the nuts or fried stuff for human consumption. And when the purpose for which we had been bought had been completed, we would just be crumpled and thrown, often wiped hands on. Lying on top of a garbage heap, soiled and oil stained, the only thing that could have been worse was to have garbage dumped on oneself. And that happened too, with unfailing regularity, adding insult to injury. Lying there, with all that much, one had to be really strong to carry forward the tradition.

But there were exceptions. Limited they were but they did exist. Like the odd boy who would try and practice reading under the street light with the pieces that he found thrown about. Opening up the crumpled balls of paper and smoothening out the creases to make it more legible, he would peer down at it and try to read past the stains and dirt. Haltingly, he would piece the letters together and get each word out, the reading a labor that he would persist in. It made us proud to think of how we helped that boy and any others who would still read us and learn from us. We swelled our chests at that thought and the barkeep proclaimed one on the house for the noble task that we had performed even as we perished. Some of us were far too gone to continue and those of us that did, willingly made up for their share of the free round. The mood was distinctly somber, Times typeface distinctly prevailing. No italics and no exclamation marks around.

That comment somehow seemed to set off a distinct downturn in the conversation at the watering hole. Some of the oldies left the bar and wandered down to their respective slot shelves. Some of the more recent editions left along with their groupies, those plagiarizing tabloids that hung onto their every word and mimicked their actions perfectly, fawning over them and almost falling over themselves in the haste to keep up. The attendance really thinned down by then. Only some of us old timers, dated sheets, yellow with age and type fading, were left around. Even though we were still going strong, we found the mood completely downhill after that episode. And the drink continued to fuel it all, the liquor fumes swirling around the bold headlines, almost making them bleary and fuzzy in the smoky bar lights.

Talk revolved around the modern times and the move towards news and information on the tap. How it had gone to a point where there was breaking news every minute. Whatever happened to the headlines and the privilege of waiting for the news? How could anyone want news on the tap and even if they did, how did they have the time to even read it as soon as it was broadcast? Besides, how could you even bear to listen to someone else reading the news? For the moment, let us ignore the wisecrack from the back about the old practice of the learned man reading at the village chowk. Just imagine tuning into the television any time of the day and finding out what happened! What would people do while they drank their morning cup of coffee then? Watch TV? Impossible!!!! The current day and age sure gave people a lot of time besides their work and personal lives. While the wise men among us shook our heads knowingly at this, even the back benchers were in agreement on this change in trends that was affecting our very livelihood.

One of the financial publications remarked that space being such a premium in this day and age, everything had become digitized. Even newspapers had become digitized, the “e-paper” taking over those people who actually wanted the pleasure of reading a newspaper but without the paper edition. How could anyone actually open their tablet or laptop and flip through to the sports section along with their morning coffee? Or read the editorial, with its mocking wit and keenly discerning perception at the breakfast table, hanging on just that little bit longer after the coffee? Or split the sections among the family and trade the sections over the long drawn out breakfast, arguments erupting in which member would get which section next. Those were the traditions that made newspapers what they were. All of them simply thrown away with the e-paper? How tradition itself could have such little relevance now-a-days, one wondered.

Added to this, the digital archives and e-papers took away the need for the newspaper cuttings and stacking of old. Anyone who wanted a particular section only needed to use a few key words to “search” and then could copy the article or section that they wanted. Why was the world in such a hurry, we wondered. How could you ever replace the joy of looking at the yellowed, faded newspaper cutting in your diary with the experience of looking it up on your tablet or PC? Would the digital copy be yellow and as authentic? Though one of the smart alecks did mention that with modern day science, even this was possible. But then, would they be able to give the same smell as old newsprint, I ask you. Or even the same crispy crackly feel as old newsprint?

One of the back benchers quipped that the value of the newspaper itself was almost the same that it was at twenty years ago and even dropping below. He said that the newspapers were getting advertising revenues that had helped bring down the costs. But then the newspapers of today had become almost full blown novels, with two or maybe three supplements each day and pages after pages of advertisements that most of the people barely saw. One cynic who had been down in his pegs, remarked that if the people did not pay a price for the newspaper, they would not value it at all and that the only way to make them value old newspapers also was by charging more for the paper in the first place. A host of encouraging “Hear Hear” shouts egged the speaker on and he continued denouncing the degradation of quality of the newspapers. The content had gone to bits he said, with the air of an expert. Most people today did not read the full newspaper, he said. They only read the bits that they wanted to. One would actually need a full day to read the newspaper from end to end.

With all this happening, how would anyone place value on the newspaper itself, leave alone on yesterday’s newspaper, asked the barkeep. It was true enough; most houses did not get newspapers and even those that did, barely read them fully. In the brief fifteen minutes that they had, they barely glanced through the paper while gobbling up what passed for breakfast these days. And they barely had time for the important headlines before they realized that it was time else they would get caught in the traffic and get late. Some of them bravely took the newspaper along and tried to read this in between hours of waiting or breaks at work.

If this was the treatment that was meted out to that day’s edition, what could you expect to happen to the previous day’s paper? And then they were in a hurry to get rid of the old newspapers. There was no space to keep the old newspapers. Where before, there had been a shelf dedicated for this storage, today, there was hardly some space on one shelf where the newspapers could be placed and which soon overflowed if not cleared. Which is why, people considered old newspapers a nuisance, being of little value in the first place and then occupying precious space next. So, they couldn’t wait to get rid of them, giving them off at the first chance, not even bothering with the money that came from this disposal, most of which was done and pocketed by the maid anyway.

And in the meantime, look at what yesterday’s newspapers were used for in the house. Lining the shelves was an age old tradition, choosing the glossiest paper to put on the shelf and regularly replacing it. Today, the shelves were not lined at all and things were kept as it is on them. Most of the times, the newspapers were used for odds and ends. Why, the disgust of it! The latest was that used baby nappies were being wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper to throw. How demeaning it would have been for that cousin to be treated this way? These and other horror stories were traded around the bar. One heard episodes of the newspaper being used as blotting paper to mop up a spill (shudder!), to mop up the waste from the floor, to prevent the floor from being stained when the walls were being painted or when nuts needed to be mashed up. What value for the newsprint within, what respect for the service to society that we perform? A collective nod of disapproval went around the bar at the treatment meted out to our society at large.

One of the latest trends was recycling, something that held promise for all of us. A noble end, giving birth to the next generation of newsprint, this was something that all of us felt was the way to go. No more peanuts or baby diapers. No more cursing for occupying space. No more callous disregard or ill treatment. We all resolved to die for the cause of the next generation, as martyrs that would proudly go to the crushers, giving up our identities to become a collective defaced mass, our typeface obliterated and our total selves mashed to pulp. And this would then go to the making of the next generation. Let us forget for the moment, the glorified paper bags and even tissues that are now being made out of the regenerated paper. Why dwell on exceptions when the cause is so noble and pursuit worthy? It was closing time then and we all shuffled out, careful not to get our page bottoms wet in the puddles of rain on the road. Some of us teetered and tottered on our heels down the road to our shelf spots, the bar keep reminding some of the regulars to pay up before the week was over, who knew what would happen to them the next week?

However, this is not all, my brothers and sisters. The society of Yesterday’s Newspapers rules large. We are still a dominant force in the society and our numbers swell in ranks in spite of all the threats. We come in many shapes and sizes, but one single thread binds us all - the honor and the pride of being the carriers of information and ready to serve up so many alternative purposes to the human population. We have our annual convention coming up the next month on the eve of the New Year, at the place where it all began. Come one and come all of you, let us make this an occasion to be remembered for all of us Yesterday’s Newspapers.

The Train Journey

His eyes grabbed your attention first. Wide and framed with a degree of fear that you know comes out of the multiple stones that life has thrown at him. And a fixed stare, like a deer caught in the headlights, crazed into inaction, until the next sound or sight jerked him around like a puppet on a string. Any sound around would produce a jerk of the head in the direction and a temporary suspension of breathing, like he was expecting the next big rock to be hurtling down at him. A vision of a scared, timid little mouse he should have been. Only he was very far from it.

Crow feet deeply creased the corners of his eyes until they seem to be webbed at the ends. Along with the furrows between his eyebrows that came from constant frowning and squinting, they gave you an impression of a man who had to concentrate intensely on his work. His dark brown face from which his wide open white eyes stared made you believe that he worked in the sun. And then you looked at his hands. The skin was tough and cracked like old leather which someone had neglected to wax and polish. Calluses formed and reformed until the ridges on his palm were a dirty blackish brown. The veins lining the back of his hand stood out like taut wires. He worked with his hands alright, hard physical work that came nowhere near a pen or paper or a keyboard. These were the hands of a man used to hard labor and endless hours under the sun. Usually, with this profession, there comes a sense of equanimity and patience, the hours they keep and the kind of back breaking work they do make these men stoic in their outlook. And this was all at odds with the deer in the headlights that one first saw.

The monkey cap that he wore did little to keep back the confused mess of hair that crowded his head and peeked out from underneath the cap. Drops of sweat kept running down his face but he seemed oblivious to the sweat or the cap that was causing it, so much that the discomfort causing cap was completely forgotten. And the cap was even more out of place considering that he wore only a faded khaki that had certainly seen much better days. Frayed at the ends from too much washing with the brush, it now bore sweat imprints all over as the Chennai heat took over. Buttons mismatched spoke of many a darning and sewing to keep the shirt going and a closer look revealed a darned patch near the shoulder as well. This must have been a proud possession or probably the only possession of the man that he wore it so often and so well. The dhoti that he wore added to the darned faded look while it revealed its age with the yellow brown color acquired over time.

Eyes went to the bag that he held with a death’s hand grip – almost afraid to even set it on the floor. The bag itself seemed to have been stitched out of assorted bits of cloth that had been gathered over time with no thought to patterns being matched or any other aesthetic sensibilities that one often sees around. A functional handle made of the same cloth and a button down top gave away its home made nature. The possessiveness that was being exhibited towards this tattered, worn out specimen of a bag gave away the fact that the man held some prized possession – probably his life’s cash - in it. As the crowd built up in the train, he seemed to shrink into himself until the bag was almost inside him, secure from the prying eyes of his co-passengers and protected from wandering hands.

Every once in a while, he would turn around and look at something behind him and to his right. With the growing crowd, whatever he was looking for was quite hidden from view and this made him agitated, as if he had lost his touch with a reality that he was tied to. At one instant, his agitation grew to a point that he dared to take one hand off his bag and tried to push aside some of the bodies that pressed up against him to create a passageway for his eyes but to no avail. As time passed, his agitation grew and he started fidgeting with the bag, looking for an escape back to his tether or whatever it was that bound him to the spot on the floor. His breath rasped from an open mouth as he mouthed words of protest and discomfort and yet no sound was heard. There was a mighty struggle going on within this shell of a man, one that the crowd around him either saw and ignored or completely missed. Either ways, his struggle grew more intense and pitiful as time passed.

At one point in the journey, the train halted at a major local station and the press of bodies evacuated the compartment in seconds. The man nearly jumped up in his attempt to check whether whatever he had been searching for was still there. As one followed his desperate eyes, one caught sight of a woman and a child and the whole story then fell into place. The woman smiled at him and the man smiled back, almost instantly calmed into a peaceful state, and gone was the frenzy, the panic and the anxiety. The man visibly relaxed in his seat and sank back into it, almost as if he had been holding himself up in his anxiety attack. The furrows in his brow smoothed like someone had smoothed over an uneven surface of sand with a flat palm. The eyes creased up and the crow feet gathered up as if the bird were ready to fly, the lips which had gone parched in the heat drew upwards in what seemed to be the start of a smile. The hollowed out cheeks creased and a deep line formed as the smile widened, starting from his lips and his eyes and then spreading to his face and then his whole body.

The woman was a picture of calm, a perfect foil to the nervy man. A gamin face framed by her saree drawn across her head in a traditional fashion, wide forehead that was accentuated by her hair drawn back tight with a large red bindi, large eyes outlined by kohl and a pixie nose that pulled up while she smiled. A long neck and a slender frame completed the picture but with a toughness that comes from having worked her way through life daily and without asking why. Her saree too had seen better days but was obviously a special one that she had saved for the times she went out with her husband. One hand held another bag which must have carried most of their clothes and other belongings, a tattered specimen that fought for antiquity with the bag that the man held. And her other hand cradled her child that was busy drawing imaginary castles in the air with saliva from a finger that returned unfailingly for a refill into his mouth every few seconds. The child was dressed in his Sunday best, new clothes that the parents had spent on while skimping on themselves. The woman’s hands were full of glass bangles of varying hues, green, red, yellow and violet, from wrist to elbow. The bangles clinked and clanked every time she moved her hands. She was squatting on the floor of the compartment with her back to the wall, obviously used to sitting that way for hours and seemed perfectly at ease. Her feet peeped out from beneath her, bare and dusty with a silver toe ring on the second toe that was surprisingly clean and sparkling.

It was obvious that she was the man’s sheet anchor, the calm placid lake soothed and comforted the nervy jumpy fish that leapt out of the water every now and then but returned to its comforting depths soon after. For every tough hand that life had dealt him, she had been there, resolute and enduring in her calmness. Her smile was sufficient to bring the sun out from behind the clouds. The day began and ended with her smile and in her ever giving warmth, he slaked his thirst. The hard day out in the sun was forgotten and so was the measly money that the contractor never paid on time, all because of her smile. It made him run back home every day, only to see her smile. It was his one special treat that life had bestowed, as if to make up for all the other things that it had thrown at him.

She smiled that same reassuring smile at the man and went back to feeding the child a soggy biscuit. The child only interrupted his masterpiece to take a small bite of the biscuit and then returned to his art. After a few minutes, the child tired of his castle and decided he wanted to take a walk. The woman tried to restrain him but to no avail. The child tried to march on his wobbly, stubby feet, both hands now firmly stuck into his mouth, not in the least fazed by the motion of the train as it sped along. Two steps later, he had found himself close to the open door of the compartment which would normally have been choked with people but now was completely empty. He took one look at the road side rushing past and swerved and made straight for the door. The woman screamed his name and reached out but the child was just outside her reach. He ignored her calls like he usually did and wobbled his unsteady way to the door. The man heard his wife scream and took all that happened in one look. He dumped the bag that he had been holding for dear life onto the floor, uncaring of what happened to it and jumped to reach the child who was barely a couple of steps away from the door now. Flailing hands managed to catch the child’s legs and the man hauled the child in unceremoniously by the hand and leg.

Relief at the disaster being averted was soon overcome by anger and the man set the child down and raised his hand to strike the child. The child, blissfully unaware of the drama that had been enacted, took one wet dripping hand out of his mouth and pulled on his father’s unruly hair. The action broke the tension and the man shook with laughter, the release triggered by his son’s one act, and gathered him in a hug. The woman who had moved close and was standing by ready to stop the man’s hand if he were to strike, took in the scene and simply gathered her two men close. They stood that way for moments, completely isolated from the world around them. And then reality closed in. The man looked for his bag which he had dumped onto the floor in his haste. It was no longer there. He broke away from his wife and child and went to the place he had been sitting and searched around there. Not finding the bag, he then tried to ask the people sitting nearby in his own language. No one understood him and even if they did, they did not bother to reply. Unnoticed by the man, his neighbor had picked up the bag and had moved to the forward door of the compartment. As the man frantically tried to communicate his question to people around, the train pulled into the next station and the thief stepped out with his prize and escaped into the crowd unnoticed.

Completely unnerved at losing what must have been his life’s savings, the man finally gave up in defeat and tears ran down his eyes. Sobs choked his breath and shook his thin frame with their intensity. Life seemed to have dealt its most cruel blow yet and that too at the most opportune time. The last straw seemed to have been reached and the man sank down onto the floor in abject despair. The woman, his wife, who had been silently staring at the goings on, now moved close to him, gathered him close and held him to her chest, rocking him and murmuring soothing words of relief while tears found their way down her cheeks. The child continued its play with a string from the bag that had caught his attention and at the sounds his parents made, he raised his face up and pulled on his mother’s saree. The woman, torn between her sorrow and her need to comfort the man, mustered up her smile, a beaming beauty that satisfied the child. And he went back to his thread while his parents struggled to find the next step in this morass of life that they had stepped into.

 The train blew its horn and sped through to the next station while time and maybe life itself had stopped for a couple of its passengers ….