they say "you're going home, are you excited?" i smile, nod, even utter a word here and there. but my mind, unable to comprehend the bizzareness of this question jabs at my insides. i take the train, somehow, a friend and i had been mulling over rum through the noon, he has come with me to the station to drop me safe with the odious luggage i always travel with.
panting, i take my seat, hug him goodbye as he leaves to grab a waterbottle from the platform and wave a suave bye to me from the window. the train is delayed by three hours and according to the various websites, it should leave in another ten minutes. i check the time, close my eyes and pass out. waking up to the sound of my phone's ringtone, in what seems like a whole day to my drunk mind, i answer the phone. talking actively on the phone i stare back at the boy sitting on the seat diagonally in front of me. i tell him then to stop staring at me, i request. he ignores me, looks forward never to turn his neck back again in the next eight hours on the train.
the journey, metaphorically, has begun.
i continue yap-yapping on the phone with the friend when the train lugs our of the platform. network on my phone slowly dissipates, and so does the voice of my friend. i pass out again, drooling a bit, phone tightly clutched in my fist. this time i wake up again, to the sound of my phone's ringtone, in the silent clamour of the thinly populated train compartment, i realise the train has not been moving. it stands still as i try to plant a steady gaze out of the window. nothing moves, and i am transported to a time when nothing moved in my life as a kid growing up in kanpur.
i think of the days that were a reptition of the mundane everyday, going in circles. not learning, not talking, not reading, nothing happening in the repugnant stagnancy of the smalltown. tv was a big component. garbage like hindi movies, too. maths kept me occupied for most of my time. and then reading the coursebooks—for language.
the train chugs on. onto.forward. nearing uttar pradesh, with its usual stops at aligarh and etawah. i think of my visits to these small and big cities. the slowness of everyday reaching out to me from various branches of memories. i think of the patina of shadows that leaves would cast on the road right in front of my house in kanpur. mother tells me i would keep my eyes shut, and run into the trunk of the massive ashoka tree. i used to tie a red duppatta on my eyes and do this whirlpool of mad activity almost on every evening.
it annoyed my father so much to get my forehead and head injuries treated at the doctor, that he finally got the tree cut off. i never mourned its death or sudden disappearance. in the process though i made friends with crows that nested on the ashoka though.
in the coming years i didnt know that this friendship would cost me a lot many injuries later. i had really poor hair on my head as a child, the cure of which was repeatedly shaving the hair off my head. again on evenings i would stand on the balcony of the first floor of my dad's house, waiting for mum dad to return from office. crows from the same family would sit on the balcony with me, i would stare at them, mutely. nearing me, they would come close, too close to me face and i would twitch a bit, at max shut my eyes, trusting the bird.
but the bird would make an opportunity out of this and sweetly comb on my bald head. the statistics of these incidents were indecently absurd. i would feel scantily touched, relieved and so moved. and after a few seconds of being smothered by the bird, i would skimper my way downstairs seeing the parents' vehicle maneuver its way into the street.
mumma papa would be mildly amused to see me smile, and then maa would touch my head, or caress my forehead in a bid to show some affection and notice traces of blood. worried she would look at me and say, "have we been hanging out with the crows again?" boroline would be applied, and the slimy bald head polished off with some keo-karpin oil and i was told to stay away from the crows. but the story would repeat itself, day after day, each time i had a bald head.
i dont know where the crows went, i dont know how my hair got so wild, i did not understand how my hair had a twig lost in its narrow bylanes the other day after i came out of the shower, but this memory keeps tucking on my shoulder every now and then. but last night was a slow creeper. like the train, like the memories coming back, like the city (?) i grew up in, like my city's paleness, like the callow mules that stand next to rail tracks, this city is home, i realised this slowly as someone on the train passed me by and i recognised him to be from my city from the smell of his sweat.