The small platform of Chakradharpur was thronged
with stranded passengers from two Howrah bound trains while the track was
being cleared off of a derailed goods train. This region was notorious
for its accidents. I had seen two relief trains pass by in the last 6 hours
there.
I was informed that the Gitanjali Express should
reach Howrah before the Bombay Mail. So I changed the train, carrying my
only piece of luggage- a rucksack on my shoulders. There was little space
and yet lesser space to be spared. but I managed a ledge and settled down.
"Going to Calcutta ?" The questioner was a middle
aged lady sitting across me who had been keenly observing me till now."Yes",
I smiled. "What is your name ?" "What do you do ?" "Travelling alone ?"
She was asking. I was replying to her questions wondering why this lady
took so much interest in me.
An elderly person was listening to us from the background
all this while. Now, she introduced me to her husband who was a scientist
at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. His subjects were Theoretical
Physics and Mathematics. I was left spellbound as if I had struck gold.
With great reverence I uttered "Sir". In all the breathtaking discoveries,
physicists were humble to a relentless nature and were content to talk
of its whims, likelihood, relativity and uncertainty. There is no perceptible
music in the celestial spheres. To a romantic mind, trained to trust common
sense and experience for good, this radical new physics was most disagreeable.
But growing familiar with their abstract ways I started holding in high
esteem these neurotic men who were running the show. This was to be the
new avant-garde.
The lights came on suddenly. The train had started
long back and was now speeding towards the darker east. But I was oblivious
of all this as the old man with graying hair, dark and wrinkled skin went
on expounding the Theory of Relativity, of the whims of Einstein and Electromagnetic
waves with colorful reference to the history of the world in perspective.
And I always looked up to him quite mesmerized by his speech, always thinking
about the dedication and work that has gone into the making of this man.
"Scientists are a queer people" I knew. Richard
Feynman, a Nobel prize winning physicist, went about breaking the most
secure lockers at Los Alamos. They are always crazy to the outsiders. This
man shunned all things of popular science as trivial. And spoke inanities
about the social system. For most of the time he was just contemplative.
But behind all this, I could feel, was the zeal and enthusiasm of a crafty
child at play.
In the course of the conversation that followed
I learnt that the couple had no children and realized their extraordinary
empathy towards a youngster. I gave them my address and invited them to
my home. The train was slowly entering the yard of Howrah. It was 10 P.M.
now. "Where would you be staying at Calcutta ?" I asked. And I was delighted
to know that they stayed quite close to my home. That meant further meetings,
further discussions. The train had halted and I could see the rush of the
coolies.
"Why don't you come along with us in the taxi ?"
they invited. I was too glad to join. But there was going to be a long
queue at the taxi stand for three trains were just pulling in. He suggested
that I rush to the taxi stand while they would join me at the point of
dispersal with the luggage. I reacted fast.
The queue was already a long one but bystanders reassured me that we
would be there in about 45 minutes. I was feeling easy in my own city.
My dear city of joy. The Howrah bridge was there, imposing, in the dark
and below it was the Ganges, cold and trembling in city lights. Across
the river was the sleeping city. How often this city is made the target
of criticism.
"Its so stinking".
"They are swindlers. Dont trust them."
" My God! I wont visit again"......and the gods kept them at bay. But
I loved my people. They were playful, thoughtful, romantic, sensuous, spontaneous
and of others who visited the city to be left stunned by its vibrancy,
variety and enthusiasm. They came here to make films, write books, serve
people and to touch and be touched by their feelings and expressions.
Inspite of the poverty, disease and filth, the Calcuttans
pride for their own city is enigmatic. But it is only justified. Some call
it the city of options and others call it the city of acceptance. Slowly,
I had reached the end of the queue. But where are the couple ?" I don't
see them anywhere." I got off the queue and searched all over the place.
"Nowhere". But he had asked me to be at the stand.
It suddenly stuck me. "My rucksack". He was having
my rucksack. It had all my money, books, clothes and sleeping bag. The
crowd was thinning out and I was left helpless in the dark. "Could he be
a fraud ?" This was becoming plausible. Fear gripped me. I sat down and
could feel beads of perspiration run down my cheeks in this December evening.
The events were racing past me......events since
I changed trains. All the striking coincidences of the day were grinning
at me. I should have guessed. I had abandoned rationalizing.
"What a fool I have been".
"Yes, I had given him my address first. And I was stupid enough to
believe he stayed next to me".
"But...But how could he know he know so much about Physics ?" "Oh,
that isn't difficult. If you are upon it, some jargon may be......and really
what he spoke was not what I understood. It just sounded esoteric".
"Their address they have given me"
"Nobody lives there by that name". I gave up.
I must get a taxi and go home. Passing through the
Queens Way, it looked as if the city was being gagged by a blanket of smog.
I was feeling very uneasy. Those dark corners looked so eerie. Behind the
huge pillars was danger lurking to leap on me. If I shouted, no one would
help.
I reached home, paid the taxi and told my worried
parents about it. It was too late in the night for anything to be done.
I could not sleep. I kept remembering the couple in the train. The face
of the scientist presented in such fearful forms. If I winked, a nightmare
was closing in on me.
When I woke up next morning, it was already 9.00,
I must have slept near dawn. The sunshine was very soothing to the agony
I have been through. I felt better. I would brush, eat, change and then
find out if anyone lived in that given address.
At breakfast, I went to fetch the newspaper. The
scientist was there. He was carrying some books under his arm and behind
him was a man carrying my rucksack.
I received him in. He was looking tired and sorry.
"I'm sorry", he said. " I am suffering from vertigo and last night I just
collapsed at the taxi stand. My wife could not locate you anywhere and
we had to leave immediately. She was very perturbed about you. I regained
today morning. "I'm sorry for all the trouble I have given you", he repeated.
His monologue shamed me to such depths that I could
not look up to him. The realization had dawned upon me. How wrong I had
been. " Please do not say so. I had guessed something may have gone wrong".
I mumbled.
The old man left the expensive editions on the table
and said :"These are for you". On top was his card. He invited me to his
residence in Bombay. My mother requested him much to accept even a cup
of tea but he seemed to be in a hurry. In keeping with an East Bengal tradition,
he accepted a paan, but without zarda.
I accompanied him to the Dhakuria Bus Stop. And
when he had left I was still standing there. It was office time now and
hundreds of buses and countless pedestrians had raised much confusion.
But there was music in the chaos that they produced.
The story was originally published in the National Defence Academy journal of the year 1988. It won the first prize. The story is a dramatization of a true incident that happened with the Author the same year.Except that there was no rucksack.