The Rail Revelation

 Of late all her travels had been by air - including that one time she flew off the cliff; oh right, that had been a dream. As she walked into the railway station holding her son’s wrist – a tad more tightly that she usually would, she was unmindfully scanning the station for the baggage check-in counter. “Samosaeee, samosaeee” the hoarse cries of the turbaned hawker snapped her back to reality. She looked up at the huge LED display and skimmed through it to find her train number. Argh! Telugu script! By the time she had struggled to read through the first 3 letters on row 1, the display thankfully changed to English informing her train would depart from platform 5 in half hour.

She walked ahead trudging her luggage along. And climbed the almost-vertical staircase yanking her son by his arms. He was still counting the wagons on a freight train exiting the station lazily. She smiled sadly remembering that her little daughter was only a few months old when they last took a train. She tried to imagine what it would’ve been like if her daughter had been with her now. She sighed audibly and kept walking/dragging on till she reached platform 5. Her train was already there and she wouldn’t have to wait on the platform next to the deafening drilling going on in the tracks – what a relief! She located her coach, helped her son up and climbed the coach pulling up with her, her mysteriously weighty trolley – she had only packed in 3 days’ worth of clothes and a couple of towels. She could have sworn the bag gained a few thousand grams with every step she took.

Her son had been grinning bright-eyed, ever since he whiffed the heavenly aroma of ‘bajjis’ as they’d walked past the pantry car. As soon as they plomped down on their seats he darted up to the upper berth (upstairs, he called it). A sweet-looking woman, about her mother’s age, all pink in her face, walked into her compartment, urgently ushering her porter to drop her 3 huge trolleys, get paid and get off the train – he had just under fifteen minutes before the train started! The weak-looking porter kindly offered to arrange her humongous bags below the seats, reassuring her that he will indeed manage to get off the train on time. The Plump Aunty (let's call her PA to ease up on the pronouns) smiled up at her son who was tying the string of his shorts to the safety rails of his berth. “What are you doing beta?” she asked him fondly. He answered her that he is making himself a safety harness in case he falls off. PA chuckled and turned to her “Is he yours?”. She nodded, smiling. “How old is he?” “6, aunty”, she said. 

By the time the train departed, her son had already made over 6 trips between the ground floor (as he called it) and upstairs. And had devoured 2 bajjis, washed it down with one frooti and finished over half of all the snacks he’d carefully chosen for himself at the supermarket last evening. And his every move seemed to amuse PA. It must be the ‘Grandma-gene’, she thought to herself, as she recalled how his own two grandmothers adored him and pampered him to legitimate ‘brat-hood’. But he had always been a well-behaved, soft spoken and sweet little boy – both her kids had been so. And she had always been a proud mother – like every other mother in the universe. 

She heard a child chattering nonstop from a few compartments away. She remembered her own daughter asking her a zillion questions on their walk back home from her school. She missed her like she missed a limb. Her baby girl had gone too soon. Three was the age to play on the swing, sniff at wild flowers, explore nasty looking insects, secretly chew on crayons and cry bitterly on your mother’s shoulder hoping to avoid playschool. 3 was not the age to die of pneumonia. The cold reasoning voice in her head reminded her “Almost a third of all pneumonia victims are children younger than 5”. She had read it up. She knew a lot more about pneumonia than she liked. The comforting voice in her head gently reminded her that whilst the grief will always be with her, life will inevitably grow up around it. She only had to put one foot in front of the other for now, take it one day at a time. 

She blinked away her tears hoping her son hadn’t caught sight of it. She didn’t want to keep reminding her son that he had lost a sibling who had adored him. She looked up and saw that PA had now joined her son upstairs and they were both uttering random gibberish and giggling. It was very sweet. Upon inquiry, she learnt that they were inventing their own language. After a few games of ludo, rock-paper-scissors and uno, and with the snacks bag considerably lighter, her son announced that he was sleepy and was going back upstairs. Soon enough he fell asleep to the rhythmic rocking and swaying of the train. 

She was touched by how much PA genuinely doted him. “What do your children do, aunty? '', she asked. PA smiled at her, “I don’t have any, beta. My son and husband passed away in a car crash when my son was only 7 – about his age” she said beckoning at her son who was now slightly drooling. “And that was over 22 years ago'' It felt like a blow to her gut. And she couldn’t stop her sobs. 

“I’m so sorry, aunty. I truly am. I lost my 3-year-old daughter only a couple of months ago. Life has become a complete wreck.”, she said, struggling to hold back the tears. Before she could stop herself, she had narrated everything from her daughter falling sick to getting admitted to the hospital, to her brain death. PA reached out and held her hands softly in her own wrinkled warm hands. “It’s ok beta. Death is a part of life.” 

“When I lost Sriram and his father, my life was nothing but darkness and turmoil. I was crippled with grief. One day my friend who had lost two of her babies in late pregnancy showed me the two quilts she’d made in memory of her children. She asked if I’d be interested in learning something new. I was willing to give it a go.”

“Gradually the creative process gave me a purpose, an opportunity to chat through thoughts and feelings as my friend and I worked together. As I worked on the quilt, I remember finding the sensation of the quilt on my knee physically comforting. It took me 3 years to finish my first quilt – it was not a quick process! It still hangs on the wall of our house. I hope it remains in the family, perhaps through the generations. I find reassurance in the thought that their memory will live on that way.” PA appeared pensive, eyes glistening with a hint of tears. 

“Birrriyani chapathi, Birrrriyani chapathiiiiii” the spiritless cries of the pantry car vendor reminded her that it was almost dinner time. And just like that, in a beat, PA had bounced back to her former cheery self and was now chatting away on the phone to another beta. 

After making sure that the ‘Biryani’ cries had drowned in the rhythmic rumbling of the train, she woke her son up. She didn’t want her homemade parathas to go waste in all the Biryani frenzy her son would be driven into. He rubbed his eyes and groggily informed her he was starving. She rolled her eyes. He had gone to sleep only thirty-five minutes back and had had a big cream bun just before. She helped him down and unpacked his favourite Paratha-jam combo. In under 4 minutes, he had gobbled down his dinner and was licking his fingertips. 

PA now took out a crumply plastic package from her bag and unpacked it carefully. It caught her son’s attention who was now eagerly expecting the aunty to offer him some of her own dinner. Much to his dismay, the stainless steel dabba consisted of 'boring curd rice' and a soggy Mor-Milagai and the humble dinner was not offered his way. She secretly suspected her son would’ve still liked to have a bite or two of it. When she looked around, she found that he had a scowl of disapproval plastered on his face, as he continued to glare at the aunty’s dinner distastefully, subtle as a gun. She smiled to herself. How was it possible that she loved her son more than she did just half hour ago? She also knew she would love him a little more tomorrow than she did today. 

PA finished up her dinner, and put away the dabba carefully back inside the crumpled plastic cover and into the bag. Eager to entertain him a little more, PA started telling her son the story of how lord Ganesha got his elephant-head. And he was asking why lord Shiva had not magicked a child’s head, what with Him being God and all, instead of beheading a poor elephant calf. PA laughed out heartily and caught her eyes, smiled reassuringly and wordlessly conveying that life would eventually get better. Pain was inevitable in everyone’s life – just like in both of theirs.

Losing a loved one can evoke intense emotions and pain one would’ve never fathomed possible hitherto - having to choose the dress they would be buried in, having to tell a last bye - one last kiss, having to deal with their possessions after they pass, trying to hold on to the memories of their last days, trying to remember every little detail of their lives fearing it would be forgotten forever, desperately trying to remember what they sounded and smelled like, the fear of being stuck in the past and the dread of moving on without them and grappling with the heart-wrenching grief. 

But everything in this universe comes with an expiry date – one likes it or not. And until then, life is all about making calculated choices to become better than we were yesterday. To transform our pain into something meaningful – to be kind and empathetic, to grow through the grief and realise that today is never coming back.