Winter

Fog rules
you submit
wind howls
and whistles
piercing
your
woollen armor

with ease
and
jolting
you to the core
numbing
your bones

cars fog
inside
out,
honking in
sheer blind
exasperation

dogs sleep
curled
in their own
warmth

flies worms
mosquitoes
birds, cats
pests
nowhere
to be
seen

your fogged
breath
marching
ahead of you
defiantly
the fruit seller
hisses and blows
on his
raw red fingers

numbing shock
of a splash
wakes you up
with a shiver

worst of all
is a
wet
kitchen duster
defying
all attempts
to dry.

cleanliness

You lie there, and watch the cobwebs grow,
each day a  new strand
as  other life forms , quietly
swell and ebb past you

swirling around you
surrounding you, whispering
goodbyes into your ears
even as you lie,fixed

in your beliefs of a
perfect world,
progenies,
lives,

cobweb-free ceilings
wrinkle-free faces
crease -free  tuxedos (which you want
your sons to forever be
adorned in )

complaint -free existence
stain-free table-tops
termite -free cupboards
odor-free refrigerators

where all can you
swipe your broom?
even the best witches
with their magically -endowed

brooms have failed
to clean the
detritus/grime life leaves
behind.

some treasure them
rather.
choosing to call them
memories/mementoes.

Cancelled

"You have successfully cancelled your ticket ."
The railway website announced cheerfully.
Thank God for quick cancellation.
No more hurried packing , hasty , gut-wrenching good-byes, and stocking up the refrigerator with ready-to-eat meals, ( praying that they do not fungate before consumption).No more worrying about surprise class tests, and strange projects, snakes in bathrooms and sudden spikes of inexplicable fevers.
It was a new experience. Euphoria at cancellation of a journey.
I am like a dog , at home in my kennel. Loathe to venture out .
Journeys do not appeal to me much.
If at all one has to travel, one may as well carry the entire brood along .Amen.

Raghu

"Don't kill her , you lame bastard(langda harami)"
"Today. I am not. Going. To leave her.So dont. Try to. Stop me."
This  plea and its breathless answer would rouse the entire village , almost every morning.
Today's screams and shouts emerging from the velvety, dew covered, still slumbering paddy-field ,was no different from every other day. Raghu was chasing his newly wed bride across the horizon, with a lathi ,spinning wildly in his hand.
 Being lame, each of his steps were a jump and a drag.
So , there he was, jumping and dragging his one leg, behind his fleeing, terrified -but giggling wife of one month, who was , in all her nubile naiviete , treating this as a game.
 "How to out run your lame husband?" It was easy. Just use your legs!!
Every day, she would oversleep, the husband would ask for tea, the mother-in-law would grumble , and the cycle would begin all over.
 A drama in the morning would attract all the attention , in the sleepy village. People would climb on their terraces, emerge from their doorways, still brushing their teeth, or rubbing their eyes, woken up from their sleep, by this family fight , out in the public.
"Like savages that they are!!" My grandmother would mutter furiously, shooing all of us down from our vantage viewing points on rooftops and window-fronts,"What do you think you are seeing ? Some Ram-leela?" She would admonish, roundly.
That is one of the reasons I never got to see /know if Raghu ever caught up with her, or did he hit her with the lathi, he so menacingly promised to ?
One thing we knew for sure, that the wife returned back , every morning , demurely, with her long ghoonghat(veil) concealing her tears/smiles/giggles/grimaces, her red sari fluttering apologetically, as it were , while the husband would be seen trailing several metres behind her, with his jump -and-drag step,and the free wheeling lathi,triumphantly whooping. More whistles and hoots from various rooftops would resound in the cold still air of the morning ,and people would settle down, alighting from roofs and going back in , with a sense of mission fulfilled.
Amazingly, the very mother-in-law who had ignited the battle in the first place would play the peacemaker, by quietly whisking her bahu away from the public glare , and , shockingly, shutting the door in the face of the grinning , baboon that was Raghu.
During the course of the day , if an innocent query was posted regarding "how Raghu brought his runaway bride back in ?", it would be met with a stony silence and a cold glare from my granny. People who knew my grandmother, knew better than to challenge her feared glare.
 So the answer hung in mid-air and was never really answered.
 Once , we even cornered Raghu and demanded an explanation. His lips went thin and a faraway look settled in his sad eyes. After that, even the most persistent amongst us gave up.

 Raghu was born with  a perfectly  normal body. In his infancy, he had an episode of very high fever, wherein, it was thought, or believed ( and in some heartless, but practical quarters, hoped ) that he would die; but nature had different designs in store for him.He survived ,  with a gross deformity.One of his legs was found twisted at the knee, and the rest of the limb wasted.
But ,the grit and courage in face of adversity allowed him to discover ways and means of getting around his disability. He would walk with a jump and a drag, as his better leg would pull the wasted one , and he could work up quite a fair pace at this rate. Only , he would soil his dhoti like no one else  did. When it was not the clothing, it was his twisted leg, muddied below the knee; and frequently raw and calloused from being dragged  in dust and dirt.
He could graze cattle , herd them and could do all the chores that a farmhand had to do, some of them with alarming cleverness. Like he could shout at the top of his lungs, emitting a high pitched war-cry sort of a sound, scarily loud enough to scatter stray cattle and goats from the paddy -fields within five kilometres radius.
This ability of his earned him a town-crier kind of a status, and whenever stubborn grass nibblers were noticed grazing amidst crop fields meant for human consumption, Raghu was called. His blood curdling scream would raise hair at the nape of everyone's necks, but served its purpose well.

Amongst all the characters that populated our childhood world, Raghu would stand out like a benign monster. Benign , because of his abilities to craft the perfect wick of a lamp, with almost artistic finesse, and monster because of his disability and his lung-power. Once, a cousin saw the flickering shadow on a mud wall of a limping Raghu, and he was tormented with a profusion of nightmares.

At the brahmin-bhoj after my grandfather's cremation, some few years earlier, I came to know that Raghu's wife had passed away , due to one of the many illnesses , that afflicts the poor.Leaving him a legacy of three boisterous boys and one bad-tempered mother. Refusing the elder's demands outrightly, Raghu never remarried.
 I cornered a grayed and wrinkled Raghu at the well, pulling up water (and splashing lots of it), and asked him the quintessential question-"Did you hit your wife everyday Raghu?"

He wiped his hands on his still-murky dhoti, looked down,and replied in now husky whisper( voice  having been ruined due to years of khaini , and the town-crier routine), -"Kenaka bolecho ho?"(How can you say that even ?)I could never hit her. I was honoured that a pretty girl like her agreed to marry me despite my obvious deformity.That was just a show put on to appease my monstrous mother . Every morning. I would chase her till 'jharkatta'(the dome shaped vast arid plain-legend has it that there used to be a dense forest there, hence the name.),when we would disappear from the view of the villagers. Then , I would ask her to stop running. She would comply, and I would follow her back."

I was speechless. "Everyday?"

"Everyday."

"You never hit her, even once?"

"Never.Are you mad ? Okra kenaka dungayetiye? (How could I hit her?)" She was my princess"

Raghu bent and wiped a streak of spittle drooling from the corner of his mouth with his dhoti and straightened up, tears brimming in his eyes with the familiar faraway sad look,
"She still is."

I give to you

I give to you my time, so you may grow,
I give to you my energies, so you may draw inspiration
I give to you my faith, so you may believe in yourself
I give to you my resources, so you may build an empire of success
I give to you my wisdom, so you may rely on your judgement

I give to my eyes, so you may see the world as I do
I give to you my ears, so you may distinguish music from cacophony
I give to you my gifts , so you may revel in them
I give to you my industry,so you may be proud of yourself
I give to you my love , so you may be able to tell grain from the chaff.

Birthdays of your offsprings

To know and to acknowledge
that
more the things change
more they remain the same

Time passes by
In the blinking
of an eye
you , my baby

Have grown
I am yet
to reconcile
with such

impudence
that fate and time has
revealed,in
charting their own course

not heeding
to my whip-cracking
or cussing
warning

Why do I feel
like an impotent
driver of a horse cart
run amok

Making
ineffectual
clucking
noises

the world
having
sped away
out of my

control.
Was I ever
in the driver
seat? Or
is it a joke
fate has
played
on me.

Can you hear
raucous
hilarity?
Or is it just me?

dirty word

What determines if a particular word is dirty or not? Our prudence? Our overwhelming sense of uptight righteousness?Our belief in the religious heads ?
History has proved to us time and again , that whatever was in vogue yesterday,is passe’ today. Nothing remains for ever. Neither do heroes, civilizations. monoliths, beliefs, faiths, ideals. Everything in this world has a shelf life. Even life as we know it , comes with an expiry date.
How can we be sure that the so called “dirty word” is actually dirty , and to be shunned by all and sundry. I personally think, “dirty words ” or expletives actually help you emphasize a certain point, and drive home certain opinions, in certain circumstances.
They too have their uses. Basically, they are like exclamatory noises, and should be treated as such, without the moral hand -wringing that accompanies every cuss-word heard or uttered.

Bereavement

He would sit there, next to the window, his back bent, hunched against the oppressive load of time, of having shouldered generations,his hands warming beneath his thighs, clad in a transparent dhoti,his bald pate shining in the morning sun.
At  every sound of the wrought iron gates clanging open, he would half -turn, squinting  at the new arrival.

Two years had passed. He had lost  his spouse, to cancer and old age , and all those ailments that catch up with you when you have neglected them long enough . Now , his memory dimming, he could no longer differentiate between what was and what is. The past and the present. Living in the past most of the time, the line blurred between the two.

Now , he was a strapping lad of twenty, applying for his first gun- licence , to the bad-tempered and foul-mouthed, british resident.

Again, he would recount how his brave bride saved their only son from being crushed underneath boulders of plaster falling from the roof , in a devastating earthquake. He could recount the scene blow by blow, as if it was happening right in front of his eyes.

At other times, he would be stuck in the coal town of Jharia, when the earth cracked open and swallowed an entire sleeping town, so many years ago. How an undergarment manufacturer refused to abandon his factory cum home building, and went down with his home, a legend in his own. How the old man, then a young thirtiesh man, clung to the edge of a cracked road, and had a cliffhanger's view of death and destruction from close quarters.

Naturally, it completely escaped him , that his spouse , his companion, partner, alter-ego , was no more. He would pretend, nay, believe, that she has gone to the village , to oversee some field-work, and that she will be back by the evening. When dusk would fall, and no one returned, he would be heartbroken, and resolve to go bring her back, personally, the first thing , tomorrow morning.

Next day, he would be up and about at dawn, and brushing aside , all entreaties and explanation, would hail a rickshaw, and go about hunting a person long departed. It  moving and comical , plus dangerous at the same time. Luckily, the rickshaw-wallah  was a neighbour too. A dependable guy called Gafoor.( Once, when stuck during communal riots curfew, with no access to green vegetables or fresh milk, Gafoor would smuggle in bags of gourd from his kitchen garden, and jarfuls of fresh, frothy, goats'milk of his own goat. We can never thank Gafoor enough. Goes to prove that goodness of heart is not dictated by religion / size of your pocket)

The wild goose-chase would end at noon , when driven by thirst, hunger and frustration, the duo would reappear; the old man in a state of resigned silence, and Gafoor grinning like the cheshire cat.A hot cup of tea, and very minimal wages later (he insisted on not being paid -never heard of any other rickshaw-wallah do that) Gafoor would depart and Dadu would be taken to be bathed, where hot water would be waiting for him.

Woman

She was burnt on a stake
and made a
saint martyr

She was burnt
forcibly
on her dead one's pyre
and a temple was built
on her still warm ashes

It matters not
if her
screams
still echo
against
those walls
of
deification

Alas
i am living
still
let me
live
and
breathe
my quota
of
breaths
before
you try to
worship
me.

Berated, and deified
in the same breath
it is
infinitely easier
to garland
a stone bust.

Earliest memories

Earliest memories are that of a village.
Not any village, my village,the village.
 Some where in the forgotten corner of Bihar, tucked away beyond the snoopiness of world at large, far, far away, beyond the sea of green rice fields, lies my village ( or what it used to be ). You don't have to sit in H.G.Wells' contraption to time-travel.All you have to do is to reach there, and you will have left centuries behind you.
People here dress and behave the same way they had, probably , in the Mauryan period. Men wear dhotis, dirtied from working in the fields, women saris, with a mandatory' ghoonghat'(veil), children run amok, naked, lawless, till their genitals grow large enough to attract undue attention, when they begin to be clothed.
Child marriages are rampant, womenfolk take care of the home and hearth, men work in the fields. Some of them are adventurous enough to try something out of the mundane,and catch a train to faraway provinces to earn money.
The landowner gets to live off the fields, cattle, poultry, a measly sum of which is doled to the rest of the populace. Women have difficult childbirths, and numerous too. The nearest doctor lives twenty or more kilometres ( and fifty rupees in bus-fares) away, hence , is unaffordable. Whatever treatment is meted out by' dais'(midwives)and quacks is meagre and dangerous.
There are no Pucca roads leading to or from the village. A dirt packed road (long-route, a precariously thin and muddy path between the fields was a shorter version; but one has to hitch up one's trouser/salwar legs, and spread one's arms; Titanic fashion , to keep from toppling over, one way or the other,into sloshy froggy/fishy damp -boggy fields. Forget about carrying your bags!!) leads to the river -bank ( in spate for six months in a year) ,cross the river (at the peril of your life-the river bed being, rocky and shallow, dangerous rapids overtake you from nowhere),trek for another five odd kilometres , till you come to a dangerous uphill climb( here the bullock-cart will have to be abandoned-as the cart will slide back, precariously), a small temple and a bus stop. You wait there for ages, swatting flies, and being an unwilling listener to the village gossip, recounted by a garrulous dwarfish priest , till a perilously tilting and overloaded bus stops for you, and whisks you away to civilization,groaning under all that human weight.

But this miserable little place was my home for the first one and a half decade of my life .
It was love, warmth,cosy togetherness, and caring kindness all put together.

 It was also an eye-opener in ways more than one. Far away from the modern world, if one stumbled across a Span or Life magazine , or an Illustrated Weekly of India, Dharmayug, however old or yellowed it might be, it would spark an immediate war for possession, amongst all the siblings, one which my brother always won, as , he was , you know. the son. And the son was always backed by everyone( all adults). Another lesson in the unfairness of life, an unforgettable one.

Sun-washed , cow dung coated courtyard , crisp mornings. (The cow dung dries , like plaster, and leaves a pleasant grassy smell if it is fresh, if it is stale,God forbid the odor!!)

Cool concrete floors, sumptuous meals, electric fans , caring elders and a serious attempt at good education.We had lot of things, which was denied to many other people in our vicinity.We were born, so to speak, with the proverbial brass spoon in the mouth(if not the silver). Yes, I have eaten out of brass and bronze plates. Part of my grandmother's and mother's dowry, one discovered quickly that if you do not polish off curd, or any food item containing tamarind/lemon juice,fast enough; the food mass starts turning green at the edges ( formation of copper salts from the copper in the plate; we learnt later),which, trust me, tastes real funny.

Primarily agrarian occupation and bucolic kind of an existence; it was as far away from the madding crowd as you please, a tad bit too far , I guess.

During the first year of my life , I am told, there was a cholera epidemic in the village. People died like flies. Health officials came in 'motors', masked and armed with DDT sprayers. They sprayed some, talked some , and counted the dead and dying, and left hastily; as they are wont to.

Some of our cattle died too. Whether due to cholera or and unrelated disease , is debatable.

My elder sister is a trifle over zealous , in so far as religion is concerned She once poked an infant me in the eye with the stick end of a burning agarbatti , in the process of propitiating the gods for my well-being .She has this story to tell of me having fallen sick too, during the epidemic. Coincidentally,  a favourite cow (black) too fell sick around the same time , with similar symptoms(fever, stomach-upset). And my sister prayed to the Gods , that I may be spared, and that "Kaali"(the cow) may be taken , in exchange, if death God(Yama) so desired. Her wish was fulfilled. The cow died and I lived (with tremendous bovine guilt).

The word

The helicopter went past, its motor purring away, into the distant skies.
A loud wail issued from my arms- “papaaaa!!!!”
Puzzled, my neighbour stopped midway, putting out the clothes on the line,hands frozen.
“Why is she calling papa?”
I sniffed, and mumbled from behind invisible lumps -in-my-throat.
“But why papa?”
The baby in my arms howled louder.
“For heaven’s sake, Rajni,stop saying the p-word.”
I blurted out.
“She thinks it was he who flew away in the copter.”
“Oh, I see”. Rajni immediately comprehended, and resumed her wringing and hanging of clothes, albeit with an air of remorse.”Deepu has got a new set of building blocks, want to take a look at it baby?” She added helpfully. The wailing stopped abruptly, and my daughter regarded Rajni with interest, wet eyes squinting ,in the morning sun,across the balcony.
“I will send her over later, thanksda.” I sighed and turned in.

Ever since Paul left for his Afghanistan Deputation, it has been like this. Every morning , she insists on seeing her elder sister board the school bus, then she will wail at every passing motorised vehicle, presuming her father left in one of those.And I have two years of this ahead of me. I slumped on the sofa, feeling totally dejected.

Manjuladi

"Neighbor's envy , owner's pride!" so went an old ad for a second rate TV.
But Manjuladi was not a thing to be owned.
 She was free spirited, like the billowing parrot-green dupatta she wore on her shoulders.
 She wore many hats.If you got stuck in algebra, trigonometry, or shakespeare, you could ask her. She would gleefully set aside everything that she had been doing, and solve your sums. You could ask her about class tests, cat-fights, broken hearts,acne,face-packs, cracked tea-pot sets, faded kurtis, embroidery snags, impossible projects or incorrigible friends/siblings, she would always give you sane advice and keep your secrets to herself.
She was an angel in disguise. Or as my parents put it, a lotus born in the' mud'. Mud here alluding to her illiterate mother, and her shop owner father, who steadfastly refused to see the glittering gem that was born in their home. To them, she was just a burden, a" wild weed" bagandi ( a local green with white waxy leaves and showy , purple flowers, which grows to impossible heights within matter of weeks) .In fact, her popularity actually dwarfed her parents , into some kind of wormhood.
Several times in a day, we would hear her mother bellowing her lungs out -" Monju,monju, MONJUULLLAA" If the last scream was unanswered, it would be followed by the loud lament -"May God take me away,I can't take this anymore"(Bhogowaan tule nen, aar paarchchi na.")
The arthritic joints of the mother would creak audibly( incredibly loud enough , for us neighbors to hear ) as she made her way to wherever she thought her daughter was, in the large house; sighing and muttering all the way.
As a matter of fact, that would be the cue for manjuladi to apparate ( thanks JK Rowling , for supplying this word, for there is no other way of describing this) silently. Wet-haired (she had glorious waist length raven hair, that turned all the girls green with envy)from the bathroom, bespectacled from her bedroom, or disheveled and flustered from the rooftop(where she would be reading forbidden books(non study books), she would silently stand in the path of her bent-double mother, waiting for the mandatory tongue-lashing.
Not only would she hear out the insults being heaped on her own poor self, she would grab the elbow of her aged parent,and helped her into a chair while being berated.
It was a poignant scene , but one which burned rage into my adolescent heart.
I hated her mother, her father , her home ( which imprisoned her, or so would I believe).

Her home resembled a giant prison.There were tall ten foot walls , all around, topped with broken glass, to dissuade monkeys and possible suitors from trying.
The monkeys, giant , black-faced langurs would , most cheekily, find a way out. The massive courtyard would be routinely invaded by marauding bands, who would help themselves to anything, laid out to sun, pickles, preserves, badis, grains ; and then , nonchalantly park their butts on the glass topped surface while they ate, littered the area, scattered the leftovers, groomed themselves, occasionally snarling at manjuladi's mothers' hysterical screams and loped away only when they tired of the place.In the end, the entire courtyard would resemble a war zone. Littered with stones, shoe brushes, chappals, and other sundry items, thrown at the monkeys , in futile desperation.
Occasionally,some  of these missiles , would land in our courtyard. Once, a pretty sandal , with a gold braid for strap landed inside. It was placed on the top shelf of our clothes cupboard ( out of the reach of brattish cousins , but visible enough for a worshipful peek, once in a while), and kept sitting there, till aunty sent a servant inquiring.
Monkeys were not the only ones to thumb their nose at the forbidding exclusivity bred so carefully within those walls.
Occasionally, a clear voice would emanate from the bathroom, singing the latest lata mangeshkar hit, in so heavenly a voice, that a hush would descend over our household, just to hear the rest of it. The bathroom walls were flush with our own boundary wall, so the voice carried across, spontaneous, joyful. It was manjuladi .

Like the occasional creeper of gourd, or lajwanti that would poke its head on the glass -topped wall, and wind its way down , on our side , in an act of clear rebelllion, the lyrical notes would weave magic in our hearts, and compel my teenaged cousins (some of whom had serious boyhood crush on manjuladi) into forbidden  realm of daydreams."Neighbor's envy , owner's pride!" so went an old ad for a second rate TV.
But Manjuladi was not a thing to be owned.
 She was free spirited, like the billowing parrot-green dupatta she wore on her shoulders.
 She wore many hats.If you got stuck in algebra, trigonometry, or shakespeare, you could ask her. She would gleefully set aside everything that she had been doing, and solve your sums. You could ask her about class tests, cat-fights, broken hearts,acne,face-packs, cracked tea-pot sets, faded kurtis, embroidery snags, impossible projects or incorrigible friends/siblings, she would always give you sane advice and keep your secrets to herself.
She was an angel in disguise. Or as my parents put it, a lotus born in the' mud'. Mud here alluding to her illiterate mother, and her shop owner father, who steadfastly refused to see the glittering gem that was born in their home. To them, she was just a burden, a" wild weed" bagandi ( a local green with white waxy leaves and showy , purple flowers, which grows to impossible heights within matter of weeks) .In fact, her popularity actually dwarfed her parents , into some kind of wormhood.
Several times in a day, we would hear her mother bellowing her lungs out -" Monju,monju, MONJUULLLAA" If the last scream was unanswered, it would be followed by the loud lament -"May God take me away,I can't take this anymore"(Bhogowaan tule nen, aar paarchchi na.")
The arthritic joints of the mother would creak audibly( incredibly loud enough , for us neighbors to hear ) as she made her way to wherever she thought her daughter was, in the large house; sighing and muttering all the way.
As a matter of fact, that would be the cue for manjuladi to apparate ( thanks JK Rowling , for supplying this word, for there is no other way of describing this) silently. Wet-haired (she had glorious waist length raven hair, that turned all the girls green with envy)from the bathroom, bespectacled from her bedroom, or disheveled and flustered from the rooftop(where she would be reading forbidden books(non study books), she would silently stand in the path of her bent-double mother, waiting for the mandatory tongue-lashing.
Not only would she hear out the insults being heaped on her own poor self, she would grab the elbow of her aged parent,and helped her into a chair while being berated.
It was a poignant scene , but one which burned rage into my adolescent heart.
I hated her mother, her father , her home ( which imprisoned her, or so would I believe).

Her home resembled a giant prison.There were tall ten foot walls , all around, topped with broken glass, to dissuade monkeys and possible suitors from trying.
The monkeys, giant , black-faced langurs would , most cheekily, find a way out. The massive courtyard would be routinely invaded by marauding bands, who would help themselves to anything, laid out to sun, pickles, preserves, badis, grains ; and then , nonchalantly park their butts on the glass topped surface while they ate, littered the area, scattered the leftovers, groomed themselves, occasionally snarling at manjuladi's mothers' hysterical screams and loped away only when they tired of the place.In the end, the entire courtyard would resemble a war zone. Littered with stones, shoe brushes, chappals, and other sundry items, thrown at the monkeys , in futile desperation.
Occasionally,some  of these missiles , would land in our courtyard. Once, a pretty sandal , with a gold braid for strap landed inside. It was placed on the top shelf of our clothes cupboard ( out of the reach of brattish cousins , but visible enough for a worshipful peek, once in a while), and kept sitting there, till aunty sent a servant inquiring.
Monkeys were not the only ones to thumb their nose at the forbidding exclusivity bred so carefully within those walls.
Occasionally, a clear voice would emanate from the bathroom, singing the latest lata mangeshkar hit, in so heavenly a voice, that a hush would descend over our household, just to hear the rest of it. The bathroom walls were flush with our own boundary wall, so the voice carried across, spontaneous, joyful. It was manjuladi .

Like the occasional creeper of gourd, or lajwanti that would poke its head on the glass -topped wall, and wind its way down , on our side , in an act of clear rebelllion, the lyrical notes would weave magic in our hearts, and compel my teenaged cousins (some of whom had serious boyhood crush on manjuladi) into forbidden  realm of daydreams.

All aboard

My grandmother’s dentures would begin grinding, her breaths would come in short gasps, as the steam engine chugged, puffed and shrieked its way onto the station platform. Having lived all her life, in the placid village, where even throwing a stone in the holy pond would create news,the bustle and excitement of the train journey would be too much of a stressor for her. I remember tightly holding her hand, even as the crowd swelled, churned and hustled around us.
His shirt billowing, my father would rush ahead of us to secure us berths/seats, despite there being a pass ( railway employee’s dependents’) for all of us. The madness lasted for precisely five minutes, the stoppage time for the train on the remote station.
Once, we were all aboard, we could breathe a sigh of relief, as the train pulled out of the station, blasting its horns into rice fields with lush crop that swayed, and regained their composure, unimpressed and unruffled.