I am tired!!

I am feeling terribly upset at the moment. A sinking feeling has overcome me and I feel blank in my mind and devoid of any hope in my heart. There are days when the sun just doesn’t seem to shine enough through the clouds and there is a gloom hanging heavily in the air. Today is one of those days. I am waiting, no praying, for the day to get over soon. I am tired, tired of living every moment only to encounter dejection, struggle and helplessness. I want to get some rest after the day is over. I want to sleep tonight…

Cloud-Capped Star

I remember watching a movie when I was probably 7-8 years old, perhaps even younger, ‘Meghe Dhaka Taara’ (Wikipedia translates it as Cloud-Capped Star, so I will go with it). I have absolutely no clue about the plotline but I remember my mom crying throughout when she watched it, so we can safely assume that it is a very poignant story. For those who want to know more about the movie plz click on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meghe_Dhaka_Tara

The movie concludes with the main protagonist screaming ‘ Dada, ami bachte chai’ (Brother, I want to live!!). For some unknown reason, those words have been etched on my memory. I can still close my eyes and hear that heart-rending cry of anguish resonantly echoing in my ears. And for some reason, I want to scream those same words today too – Ami bachte chai!! Ami bachte chai!!!

(One of the most enigmatic things about us is that we never stop short of complaning how bad things are and how even worse things are turning out to be. However, still each one of us wants to live. We don’t give up until our last breath!! And this is my promise, however many clouds may overshadow my star I won’t stop following it. Because… I want to live!! )

A tribute from a daughter

For those who believe in the saying – ‘The past is history, the future a mystery, the present a gift’ I recommend you to move on from this article. Because I am about to take you all to a journey that I made, five years back.

Date: 6^th May, 2003

Place: National Institute of Technology, Trichy

I see a girl, like the other first year students of B.Tech, running around and getting all the no dues certificates, practical note books etc signed. The entire campus is abuzz with pre exam activities, after all the first years have their second semester exams starting after two days. This girl, after doing her fair share of rounds for the above mentioned formalities, comes back to her hostel room when she is informed by one of her yearmates that she has been summoned to the warden’s room.

I am sure the readers have understood who the girl in the above lines is. However, for those who have failed to see the connection yet, I would like to introduce myself. I had enrolled as the student of NIT Trichy for B.Tech 2002 and as mentioned in the above lines, it was me who was sitting in the hostel room on my bed on that fateful (or rather fateless) day, absolutely oblivious of what lay in store for me.

I can still remember my friend coming in to announce that I am wanted at the warden’s room. I can still hear her say ‘All the best’ as she went out (I never asked her later what made her add it as an afterthought). Anyways baffled by the fact that I have not been in any trouble and hence, any summon by the warden is highly inexplicable, I remember entering the room to see the warden gravely sitting on a chair. Alas, my memory refuses to retrieve events clearly from this point. The warden is telling me that my father is sick and I need to go back immediately. I am denying vehemently, saying that I had spoken to him only the day before and there must have been some confusion somewhere. I remember the warden hesitating, then asking me to pack my bags, not giving me any further chance to argue.

I don’t remember going back to my room. I also don’t remember how I broke this news to my friends, or perhaps I never told them in the first place. I just remember that I picked up a few denims from my cupboard and shoved them into the bag, still uncertain as to why I should be going. I try calling up my home landline no. Nobody answers. I refuse to accept this as a signal of danger. Outside my room, all my friends had already started making arrangements for my journey. I am inside my room, still dazed, not daring to go out and yet assuring myself again and again that nothing wrong has happened, that nothing wrong can happen!!!!

I still have no clue as to how my friends arranged for the tickets so soon. By that evening, I heard that I have to travel to Chennai by bus that very night and then I would be taking a flight to Raipur. No other detail was furnished, my mind was too perplexed to sort out anything anyways.

One of our teachers had come to drop us (it was arranged that another friend of mine would be accompanying me, inspite of severe protests from me) at the Trichy bus stand. I remember hazily that all my statemates had come to bid me goodbye but I hardly remember anything concrete. However, I do remember that I was secretly hoping everything to be a cruel prank, and when I go home I find everything as usual.

I have absolutely no memory of the events during the journey. I vaguely remember my friends boosting me in their own sweet way (however they were all driving me crazy internally, as I could not fathom what they are trying to drive at). I craved to speak to my family but for some reason they were refusing to pick up my calls. I reached Raipur after a gruelling fourteen hours. My friend’s mum had come to pick us up from the airport. As I headed towards my home, I was sick with nervousness and a shadow of gloom had overpowered me. I was so scared that I dared not ask anybody if everything is ok at my home. I sat quietly in the car as my friend started narrating about the experiences during our journey to her mom but I was too exhausted to be able to paricipate in any of the conversation. Upon reaching my home, my friend’s mother held my wrist tightly and took me inside the house. I was totally taken aback by this gesture but I had no time to retaliate. As we went upstairs, while I was trying to free myself from her hold, I saw my mom’s face looking down at me. That one gaze had told me everything I needed to know.

In that one moment, I understood everything. In that one moment, I realised that my dad is no more. In that one moment I realised that from now on nobody would call me ‘Mamma’ (a name which only my dad used). I realised that I had grown up by atleast ten years in that one moment. I had heard that sometimes one moment changes your entire life. I had encountered that pivotal moment of my life, that moment. I screamed and screamed, till my lungs gave away and felt my knees going weak beneath me as my mom took me into her arms.

I hardly had time to spend with my family after this since the college authorities had made it clear that I needed to appear in the exam as scheduled. I returned to my college after staying at home for 3 days, I am not sure what I did during those days, I have absolutely no recollection of any event in that period. By the time I returned to college, I had already missed two of my practical exams and I remember that I had to appear for one prac each day since then, so that I could finish them off before my theory exams started (I remember one of them was a holiday, I was the only student in the Physics laboratory finishing my exam).

Five years have passed by since then. And I still miss my dad. I still miss running up to him and grabbing his helmet as he got down from his scooter. I miss hearing his footfalls as he entered the house. I miss seeing him sitting on sofa reading the newspaper with a cigarette in his hand, every morning as I woke up. I miss being able to ask him any question and get an instantaneous answer. I miss him waking me up in the morning during my exams. However, now I have evolved my own way of coping without him. I don’t need anyone to wake me up anymore, I do that by myself. If I don’t know the answer to a question, I look for it until I have got it. And as for you, dad, I can feel your presence by my side always. You are my strength, my inspiration in everything that I do, you will always be…. Though I would never be able to see you again, you will always be in my heart and my memories, you are there with me in all my moments. I am proud of you Dad, and I hope that I have grown to be the person you wanted your daughter to be. I love you dad, and will continue to do so till the very last breath of my life.

As I conclude recounting the most devastating experience of my life, I would like to express my gratitude towards my friends, teachers and the staff of my college who had been very helpful during the darkest period of my life (what I owe to my family is too huge to be handled in words, so I would not even attempt it). Perhaps I had been too sensitive to speak about this issue and hence, I have never been able to express how much their being by my side, meant to me. I thank each and everybody who had stood by me then, from the bottom of my heart, and may God bless each one of you.

P. S. – For a long time, I had been avoiding this article. I was apprehensive about the emotions that I would evoke in the readers. However, the feeling that I owe this to many people finally made me write this. I had always been horrified that people would sympathize with me on hearing about this emotional trauma. (I have often been asked insolent question as to how my mom managed to raise us without our dad, questions that grossly underestimate the prowess of my mother). However, today with the support of my family and well wishers, I have grown to be a person strong enough so much so that if, on reading this article, you come and say to me – ‘Hey, I am really very sorry’ , I would smile back at you and say – ‘Don’t be. I am not!!’

One Night at the Nagpur Railway Station

Before I start, I would like to explain the reason behind christening of this article as above. I am sure many readers will feel that I have tried to cash in on the success of the famous novel by Chetan Bhagat – ‘One Night at the…’. However, I feel that the incident that happened to me had so much to do with the Nagpur Railway Station that it would have been unfair for me had I named this article anything else. In case you still have not been convinced by my brief explanation plz read on…

I have come back to blogging after a long hiatus. I don’t have any valid reason for this – I was not so busy so as not to be able to spare sometime for blogging. However, I guess I was searching for a good topic to write about. Now I would ask the readers to pardon my digressing for a while before I get on to the main topic because I feel that a preface is required to the incident that I am about to narrate here.

The year 2008 has taken me to different places quite unexpectedly. With the onset of 2008, I had been on an official trip to Den Haag, Netherlands and had an experience of a lifetime. Then I had been to Trichy (the place of my alma mater by the way :) ) to attend the wedding of my friend’s brother. Also recently I have been to Chennai for a personal reason. Not that I have never been to the last two places mentioned, but the fact that the decision to travel had been quite impromptu – something I never do. Now to come back to the subject, I had gone to Bhilai (my native) in the month of July for duration of two weeks (I am not mentioning the endeavors I had to make in order to convince my boss to allow me to go for leave though!!). So I was scheduled to reach Durg junction on the 5^th night at 10.30 PM (I had planned for this one month in advance and I had meticulously prepared an excel sheet with all the dates of journey, train no., train name, arrival time, departure time etc!!).

The readers from the northern part of India would be well acquainted with the fact that most of the time we don’t get a direct train from Bangalore to our respective places. Either there is no such route or the timing would be outrageously bad. In my case, I have Wainganga Express that would take me directly from Yesvantpur to Durg (the station where I get down). However, it so happens that the railway authorities, for some esoteric reason, have decided that the train will start at around 11.40 PM in the night on Tuesdays and then take me to Durg at around the same time the next day which means that I would have to board as well as leave the train at a deserting time. Notwithstanding the fact that the train goes through a strangely horrible route and you actually yearn for a station, hours after hours, with nothing in sight but summer scorched fields, I am especially unpliant about traveling by this train due to the fact that I plan my leaves from one Monday to the next week Friday. However, with this train I run the risk of wasting 2 days while leaving and 2 days again while returning. With my current (and preferred) route, I have to halt at Nagpur Junction and then take another train for Durg (its only a journey of 4 hours from Nagpur onwards). During my journey back and forth between my college and Durg, I always had to take a halt at Nagpur and for some reason Nagpur station has now started giving me a sense of familiarity there. I don’t feel like a stranger in that part of the country though it’s nothing compared to what I feel about that station now. However, more details on that later.

With so much information for the readers to gulp down, I now come to the main point. I had planned to catch the Sampark Kranti Express (SKE) from Yesvantpur on 4^th night and reach Nagpur at 5 o’ clock in the evening next day. Then I was to board Howrah Adi Express (HAE) at around half past six and be at Durg station at around 10.30 PM. I dutifully boarded the train on the 4^th (after a scuffle with the auto driver though, I got heavily duped that day by the way!!). My only concern was that if SKE gets late by more than one and half hours I might miss my second train. However, SKE, as always, took me to Nagpur by quarter past five. So far so good!!

Next I wanted some refreshment to keep me alive till 11 since I wanted to have my dinner at home. However, just as a safety precaution I asked a nearby TT about HAE. He consulted some hastily scribbled list and informed me that it would arrive by 9.30 PM. What??!! No there must be some mistake… 3 hours late?? No way.. Let me go to the stationmaster (SM) and find out. And the same story.. HAE is running late by 3 hours..It is expected to arrive at Nagpur by 9.30 PM. I forgot about refreshments and started scheming to evade my 3 hours long wait in the station. I knew that we have Geetanjali Express (GE) at 6.55 PM. Actually, I always prefer GE from Nagpur but unfortunately it was booked to full capacity and hence my dependence on HAE this time. I went to SM and convinced him to allow me to travel by GE since I am travelling alone and he being a nice fellow, readily agreed to do so. How I found the courage to board on a train for which I had no confirmed ticket with an ocean of human beings trying to get on and off the train and how I found a distressed family of four travelling on one side berth, which compassionately allowed me to sit on their already crowded seat is a different story. I thought that for once I have eluded Nagpur station. Little did I realize how wrong I was at that time!!

Now I come to the main part of my monologue. I take you to 19^th of July, the day when I am supposed to start my return journey to Bangalore. Now my mom (who has a strong faith in astrology and numerology) strongly believes that the number 19 is lucky for me. I won’t accuse this belief of hers to be entirely baseless. Many life turning incidents have happened to me on the date 19^th of different months in different years. Now on 19^th I was to catch Chhattisgarh Express (CE) at 5.10 PM which takes me to Nagpur station by 9.40 PM. Next I was to catch Sampark Kranti Express (SKE) whose departure time was scheduled at 10.20 PM. It looks a bit risky for somebody who has never travelled by these trains. Now SKE starts from Delhi and in my 2 years of experience (you can also add to it my friend Suruchi’s experience who travels in the same route as well), this train has always been late to arrive at Nagpur by more than two and a half hours. So I assumed that I have a safe margin since CE never gets late by more than 10 – 20 minutes at Nagpur. And add it to the fact that it was on 19^th, I was strangely optimistic about being able to catch the train safely.

19^th of July, 2008 6.10 PM, Durg: I am standing with my mom and sister in the Durg station. After one hour of tension, CE finally arrived one hour late. I am nervous and as the train starts hicupping, I bide a tearful parting to my family. After sometime I regain my composure and get mixed with my co-passengers supposed to be returning after their piligrimage from Raipur. After the usual ‘Kahan padhte ho beta’ (where do you study, child – I guess I can easily fake as a college going girl :P ) I get pretty acquainted with the family.Next when left alone to myself, I start thinking about what lies ahead in Bangalore. In the meantime, without my realization a soldier travelling in the adjacent berth has overheard that I stay in Bangalore. He gets pretty impressed and starts asking me more about Bangalore. Not being cruel enough to break his illusion about this trafic jammed expensive city, I mumble sweet nothings that had been fed to me years before I landed up here. Slowly the conversation progresses and he inquires ‘Aapko akele travel karte hue darr nahin lagta (are you not scared of travelling alone)??’ I answer it with my usual nonchalant shrug – ‘Aadat padh gayi hain (now I have got used to it)’. Even though the train is stopping here and there every now and then, his conversation keeps me from noticing these halts portending a disaster. He gets so carried away by my conversation that he actually invites me to go to Jammu with him, ‘Bangalore jaake kya karoge Ma’am, mere saath Jammu chalo’. I smile it off and when the train finally reaches Nagpur I say a quick farewell and get down the train. It was 10.50 PM then.

I go to the platform where SKE is supposed to arrive. No sign of that train anywhere. Even the boards are showing some other train no. I go and inquire at the IRCTC endorsed nearest book stall – ‘Bhaiyya, Sampark Kranti nikal gayi kya??’ The man responds with a brief nod. And I am stunned!!Unable to accept the misfortune I again ask the next stall person. Again the same answer. Its 11 now and I am stranded in the Nagpur station where I know nobody in a radius of about 360 km after missing my train!!

I rush towards the nearest STD booth and inform my mom about the terrible mishap. The next thing I do is to keep my luggage in the booth and run towards the main platform where the stationmaster sits. There is another person who has missed SKE because of CE and is inquiring about it. We are informed that the station master is currently not at his place and he would be back soon. I talk to the person next to me and as soon as he gets to learn that I am travelling alone, he puckers his mouth – ‘What are you planning to do next?’ Having no idea about it myself, I go back to the STD booth and collect my luggage. I gulp down the food prepared by my mom (the last homemade food that I would be having in the next 6-7 months) and start pondering about my next move. Unbelievably, not even for once I had the thought of shedding tears at that moment of crisis. Crying seemed like a luxury at that time. As soon as I had gulped enough to keep me going for the rest of the night, I again sought the help of STD booth person to keep my luggage and ran to the stationmaster. This time lady luck smiled on me and I could explain my predicament to him. I still remember the incredulous look at the face of the other person sitting next to him as I explained my situation. I would be lying if I don’t admit that I was really scared at that moment. However, I guess I was too scared to show that too!! Anyways the SM helped me out by pointing out an alternate train (Gorakhpur – Bangalore Express, GKE) that can take me to Bangalore. He wrote relevant instructions in my ticket and told me that my next train is at 4.10 AM next day!!

Digesting this piece of information, I went back to the STD booth and made a call to my mom informing her of the latest developments (by the way, the STD person made a fortune that night!!) and then went into the dormitory with my luggage. I barely had a wink of sleep and then I went back to the platform around 3.30 AM. But as they say, Misfortune never comes alone. The train was late by more than three hours and it was expected to arrive only after 7 in the morning. Phew!! The place was desolate and the only people I could see around were the stall owners, porters or the mendicants. Not having the strength to go to the dormitory dragging all my luggages, I decided to while away my time on the platform. Luckily, I found a bench that was secluded by a pile of carton boxes. I lied down on the bench and covered myself head to foot with a wrapper and tried to sleep a little more. I don’t know how long I slept for, but when I woke up I found a dog sleeping on one of the boxes, though at a safe distance from me. Now its not that I am a dog lover, in fact the very statement is poles apart from the truth. I am terrified of dogs, so much so that if I see a dog five metres away from me, my heartbeat rises considerably. However, in this occasion as I was lying down on a platform with two heavy luggages, I decided that a dog is only welcome since if someone tries something unscrupulous, the dog would have to be disturbed too. So I close my eyes once again. After sometime I open my eyes once again to see another dog sitting there, and this time it has chosen a place from where it can jump down right on me, if it has to dislodge itself from that position (I still wonder how it got there in the first place though!!). I close my eyes and tremble in anticipation of something horrible happening for sometime. I was too scared of even getting up lest the dog awakes and decides to make a move. I get up as noiselessly as possible and have a glance at my watch. Its 5 o’ clock!!

As I sit back thinking what to do next, I found this man sitting right behind me. He is completely ignorant of hindi and had we not missed the SKE, both of us would have been heading towards Bangalore in the same train now (He had come and inquired about SKE last night when I was gulping down my dinner). He informs that he has got a ticket confirmed by the staff for some other train that will take him to Chennai and advises me to do the same. I request him to take care of my luggage and walk towards the staff room. I see a herd of uniformed people there and I smartly thrust my ticket towards one of them. As he takes a look at those, he starts making dismissive noises saying that I can’t be given permission to travel by any other train as there is no ‘connecting ticket’ (to this date, I am yet to decipher what he meant by that. Readers plz enlighten me!!). He shows my ticket to his colleague who smiles at him when he says the same thing and then asks – ‘Akele travel kar rahi hain?’ (Is she traveling alone?) This person, obviously unperturbed by any such circumstance asks me to walk with him towards the SM’s office telling me that I can be fined at this moment since I don’t have a valid ticket, but surreptitiously asks me – ‘Unhone kuch liya kya?’ (did the SM take anything from you?) I was growing dizzy by then and just replied with a meek ‘no’. As we enter the SM’s room, I steel myself for some demand but the SM rules out any objections by the ticket checker. That man lets me go but asks me to approach him once the train arrives with a menacing look. I nod my assent and walk out.

I return to my luggage and realize that I am short of cash. Fishing out the ATM card out of my suitcase and requesting my acquaintance to take care of luggage once more, I go to the ATM at the entrance of the station and withdraw cash. As I walk in the platform, I see many eyes turned towards me, all wondering what I was doing there alone at that unearthly hour. I walk smartly, pretending not to notice anything and get a parcel of sandwich for my breakfast. Then finally I return to my bench to resume waiting for my train.

My acquaintance sits next to me now and starts talking to me. He introduces himself as Mr. P and works in machinery industry. Basically from Salem, P is very impressed when he learns that I have graduated from NIT Trichy. He praises me highly for my courage and we pass on the next two hours uneventfully. His train arrives by 7.30 and bidding me goodbye, he heads towards his train. By then, it was time for my train to arrive as well. As two TTs start walking towards this platform, I show them my tickets. However, they inform me that there is no quota of seats from Nagpur for this train and so they can allot me a seat only if there is one empty!! I knew it was a big gamble but I decided to go ahead instead of waiting for any other train to come or go back to Bhilai.

As the train approached the station, I looked at my fleeting reflections in its numerous glass windows. I was shocked to see myself – as if my helplessness has manifested itself as a hundred lines on my forehead. Taking control of myself, I proceed towards the last battle of this journey – to grab a seat in GKE.

I get up on the train with all my things huddled up near the door. As people pass by me, I try not to look in their direction. I hear many people commenting – ‘Itni raat se baithi hui hain station mein’ (Since so long she has been waiting in the station). I don’t know whether that comment was from sympathy or mockery but at that time, I couldn’t care less. I pray that the train starts as soon as possible so that I can find out the TT and request him for a seat. And finally the train starts. I request people standing there to keep an eye on my luggage and start off in the search of the TT. Finally I found them and quite surprisingly, they allot me a seat right then without any hassles. I carry my luggage from one end of the train to another end in two rounds and finally settle at my seat. However, in spite of the terrible pain in my shoulders I was not complaining. I realized that I have truly made the journey this time!!

Traveling with me is a girl from NIT Allahabad who is also going to Bangalore. As I start chatting with her, everything starts looking so normal. The struggle I had made till that point had absolutely faded away, except perhaps its memoirs etched in my mind. I chat away happily as the train moves on, celebrating all the good things in life.I stepped into bangalore on 21st at 11 AM, and believe me, I was all smiles!!

As I end my anecdote here, I would like to thank all those people who were with me at various stages of this journey – the sympathetic family, the simple hearted soldier, nice Mr. P and my friendly co passenger, who in one way or the other gave me the courage to move on with this tough journey. However, my special thanks to the SM at Nagpur, who helped out a young girl late night, without even once any sign of trepidation. Well by the way I strongly believe now - When there is a will, there is a way!!

A new beginning..

Well this is the first time that I have tried my hand at posting something on the web or ‘blogging’ as it is more commonly known nowadays.

I had read somewhere that everytime a person opens his mouth to express his opinion, he invites his audience to sneak into his mind. In short, the saying actually stresses on the importance of every small view/opinion that we have nourished and cherished in our minds with relevance to the values that we live for and will die for. Simply putting, in a group of people discussing about anything under the sun you can form a rough image of each and every person by analysing his point of view. This saying had set in so deeply in my mind that I had eschewed from writing anything in public for a long time (not that I had been harbouring any nasty ideas, mind you!!) in spite of so many of my friends urging me to write again and again. However, of late I have realised that in this world where all the transactions are carried out by pressing a few keys, nobody can remain isolated from the world. And hence, I am ready with my first blog. So the blog world, here I come!!

I have always believed that everybody should maintain a chronicle. Now what exactly do I mean by that chronicle? Do I mean a diary which says, 23^rd October – Mom’s Birthday (Not to be missed at any cost, call up at 12 am sharp)?? Or is it the one where you find – 1^st January – Woke up late with a hangover, skipped breakfast, fought with girlfriend…God, plz give me a break and blah blah blah?? Not exactly. Though of course any record will be incomplete without either mentioned above.

I am referring to those emotions that we feel when we undergo an emotional turmoil – my inhibitions, my misgivings, my joy, my tears all mine and nobody else’s. Unfortunately, so many of these moments are lost because of human nature and the urgency of the situation. After all, nobody will pick up a diary and start writing how he is feeling on hearing of a personal tragedy nor can anybody precisely recount it even later. But what we rarely realise is that our strength of character is seldom showcased more than ever in such thunderstruck situtations.

After such a long overture, I am sure all the readers will be confused as to where exactly am I driving to? I am not going to try your patience any more. I have always made it a point to pen down any event of my life, which I believe has changed me or my life in anyway. I have always fantasized that my teenaged great grand daughter may one day, sneak into a small cupboard and find this ragged looking notebook and after an inquisitive perusal find it to be the diary of her great grandmother whom she has never seen, not even heard of. Her only presence is limited to a few digital snaps that have been taken with her either parent sleeping in her lap. That will be something like a literary reincarnation of mine. She can see through my darkest fears, my quietest tears, my happiest laughter and my strength falter that I would have made a note of. She would be transported to another world, where she is no more herself but living her ancestor’s life, breathing her and feeling her. But of late I have realised that such a dream is highly improbable – even if a diary endures years of neglect it is amost impossible that it will be accessible to an adolescent a few centuries from now on, given the hegemony of PCs, PDAs and many more gadgets which are yet to arrive.

So instead I made up my mind to finally make my mark in the blog world. I may be uncertain about my great great grand daughter able to read through my thoughts and my life but I am sure that my blog will reach unlimited readers all over the world. So till my next blog gets ready, goodbye, alvida, shabba khair :)