1
Can you wake me up at 5:30? I asked at the reception of World
University Centre at Chennai. The guys at the reception promptly promised that
it will be done.
I spent one more night in a room full of mosquitoes.
I was woken up by them once to find that it is 6:00 am!
Shi-… I am late. Washed
my face, grabbed my bag and ran down two flights of stairs. The young man, who
was quite vocal in his promise to wake me up at 5:30, smiled at me.
“OK, I am off. I am late.”
“Sir, your receipt”
“You keep it”.
I ran out. Caught the first auto, got to the railway
station, ran up and down the over-bridge and got into the train in a bogy
reserved for people who did not have a reservation. It was already full. No
seats. Many were already standing, leaning against whatever is nearby.
Never trust others to wake you up in time…
2.
I stood near the door. A man was giving some money to another
and there was some whisper about a seat. My ears perked up. They disappeared
into a compartment and the man who had received the money came back with a
towel which he did not have when he went off. I blocked his way and said:
“seat?”
Once money was exchanged, he led me to the next compartment
and removed another towel from the seat and asked me to sit. I was comfortable
with the reservation system in the unreserved compartments of Indian railways.
When I looked up after pushing the bag under the seat, I
caught the anxious eyes of a burkha clad woman opposite me. I smiled and did an
adab arz. Her body relaxed. My attire
was designed for rough travel, but then I could be mistaken for a Hindu
fanatic. My days in Jamia and acculturation to Islamic traditions came in
handy.
There were policemen outside, trying to get the porters to
carry something. The reluctance of the porters was understandable: it was a
dead body, covered by a sari cloth. The power of the police prevailed. The last
journey from a railway station on a stretcher.
Suicide, somebody said, as our train started moving.
A mobile rang. The burkha clad woman snatched her mobile
from her bag and stared at it. She allowed it to ring till it stopped. She
smiled and declared that she had saved two rupees. If she answers the phone
while roaming, she would be charged extra. There was triumph in her voice.
She asked me how much I paid for the seat. I held up two
fingers. She turned to her husband who was sitting next to me and scolded him
for giving 60 rupees for two seats. And then went on to eat his ears. Their
daughter sitting next to him leaned on him to show support.
When the train started picking up speed, the Burkha asked her
husband to get the kids. The husband went
off with the person sitting next to him and came back with two more children, a
boy and another girl, from another compartment. A case of exchanging reserved
seats in unreserved compartments. There was some pushing and squashing before
things settled down.
When she interacted with the kids, she was dripping honey.
When she talked to other passengers, she was smiling and happy. As soon as she
turned to her husband, her face clouded over.
Then at a station, the husband got up and stepped out. After
some time the train started moving and the husband had not come back. Burkha’s
face went through concern, anxiety, fear… She tore at her oldest daughter’s
chappal, wore it and stood up to search for her husband.
Just then he came back. The relief on her face was mingled
with her love for him.
But then, soon Burkha went on to eat her husband’s brain. About how he did not earn enough, how she
saved money while he squandered it… The boy sitting next to her was beaming.
The girl next to the husband was almost cuddling him to comfort him. Soon the
woman started eating his balls. The boy started squirming.
A lady standing near the burkha was intently listening to
the monologue of Burkha. I could see that she empathized with Burkha and sympathized
with the husband. She met my eyes and there was a smile that showed that she
was also enjoying the drama. TV serials can never be this realistic.
I looked around at the people sitting on the seats, lying on
the upper berth, sitting on the floor. I was comfortable. I was at home.
Vasudhaiva kudumbakam.
3
I closed my eyes.
Albert Camus was not helpful. His Sisyphus was resigned to
fate whereas Naranath Bhranthan was actively involved in the folly of life,
symbolized by pushing a big stone up a hill and then pushing it down.
Culturally, I was closer to Naranath Bhranthan. I would rather jump up and down
with glee when the stone went tumbling down, unlike Sisyphus who was resigned
to his curse.
And Camus’ understanding of suicide was not satisfactory
either. Even Durkheim was not satisfactory. The unwilled vision of one’s own
violent end, coming repeatedly uninvited into the mind, is a mental health
problem that is not completely explained by Freud’s notion of death wish
either. The obsession with one’s death on the one hand, and denial of death on
the other, living as if death is not something that happens to the self,
squandering time waiting for Godot or the Imperial Messenger. Humans are most
funny creatures.
People who saw the body some time ago does not relate it to
the newspaper report of the farmer who committed suicide in public at AAP rally.
Clustering of such events during certain times – is it natural? Are humans like
the proverbial Lemmings? Or is it an artifact of skewed media reporting?
4
Aurobindo also had explored in his Savithri, the realm in
which life seems not worth living. In his Life Divine, he describes the deeper
meanings of human life. I used to use the book as a soporific, reading it in
bed. It was so tedius that I would easily I fall asleep. During the day, I
would read Castaneda where fear and humour mingled. Aurobindo and Castaneda
mingled in my mind.
Death is one’s greatest advisor, standing behind you at your
left shoulder. What should I do with my life?
I opened my eyes, took my notepad and wrote down my bucket
list of things to do before I die.
5
In Guntur, a lady who spoke Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi
joined the crowd at my feet. I noticed that her Tamil was peppered with Hindi
and Marathi terms. I had a similar problem: when I open my mouth to speak
Tamil, Hindi comes out.
Burkha, her husband and kids got down after Kadappa. The
polyglot thanked Siva loudly for the seat and glanced at me, as if for
approval. I smiled. Here is another sister who won’t bite me – just because
of the colour of the two pieces of cloth
around me.
It was getting hot outside. The fans in the unreserved bogy
suddenly stopped.
I was happy. Contented. So I couldn’t complain.
I shall be fit enough to execute my last dance when I face
my death.
