Madhulika Liddle

When the Farakka Express pulled out of Delhi at 9.45, I was already comfortably seated. A bespectacled young man in faded jeans and checked shirt was the only other occupant of the compartment. He looked quiet, respectable—a decent youngster, I thought.

“Are you going all the way to Malda, sir?” He asked me.

“No,” I replied. “Only till Lucknow.”

“Oh. I’m going to Kanpur.”

He remained silent till after the ticket checker had gone; then he remarked, “The coach seems pretty empty.”

“People get on along the way,” I replied. “It happens in long distance trains.”

He nodded abstractedly. “I hope so. I—I hate empty coaches at night.”

Most people would have welcomed an uncrowded coach. He must have noticed my astonishment, because he said, “That surprises you? Actually—but no; I’m boring you.”

I could see he had a tale to tell, and I was willing to listen. “No,” I assured him. “Go ahead.”

He spoke, in a flat voice, after a minute or so.

“I’ve been in Delhi five years, and I go home to Kanpur a couple of times a year,” he said.”I invariably take this train—it’s very convenient.”

I nodded. I’d found the Farakka Express convenient too.

“Three years ago, I was going home for Diwali,” he continued. “And, like tonight, the coach was fairly empty. I was at one end, all by myself. But it didn’t bother me, so I lay down.”

His face tensed.

“I woke with a start, just past midnight. I checked my watch- you know how it is on a night train. You’re always scared of missing your station. A sound had woken me. It was the clanking of a bucket—that aluminium bucket hawkers carry on trains, filled with Coke bottles. I’d heard that—and someone’s footsteps.”

He paused. “It was dark—only one light, outside the toilets, was on. But there was enough light for me to see that I was alone… And I could hear the bucket clanking—right there, in front of me. Where nobody was standing.”

I stared, my arms suddenly covered with gooseflesh. “That’s—that’s impossible!”

He began to unfold his blanket. “I don’t know. I got up and went to investigate. The clanking and the footsteps moved on, down the empty corridor. That’s when I turned, and ran to the other end of the coach, where some berths were occupied. I sat down there, just relieved to be among people. I stayed there till we reached Kanpur, where I told the TC.”

He untied his shoelaces. “He said there’d been an accident ten years back. A hawker in the general compartment dozed off next to the open door, and fell off—straight into the path of a passing train. He was crushed, but his bucket remained where it was. On the train.”

I tried to say something, but the words would not come.

He lay down and took off his spectacles, placing them beside the pillow. “That’s why I don’t like empty compartments.” Then he added, “If you’re up early, and Kanpur arrives—could you wake me, sir, please?”

I nodded, and he closed his eyes.

Though the train was clanging and puffing, an unearthly silence seemed to descend. I could not hear anybody talking, laughing, or even snoring. The Farakka Express was probably three-quarters full, but other than this young man, there was, to all appearances, nobody around. Nobody except—what?

I could have lain down; but I kept sitting at the window. Since the coach was airconditioned, it wasn’t a window, really: I couldn’t look out. But I could imagine the countryside. Dark, dense groves and pitch-black forests, inhabited by God knows what. Moonlit cropland, grey and dim, each field with its own scarecrow. Dead villages and towns, deep in a slumber from which some may never awake. I almost wished I could push down the window and look out, reassure myself that the world was still alive, still sane.

Someone turned off the light in the corridor. A weak blue nightlight lit our compartment: it wasn’t dark, but it was dark enough for me to suddenly want to reach out and wake up the young man.

Firozabad came, just past 1.30. And Firozabad went, two minutes later. I could not even rush to the door and get to savour the sight of a living place. I sat listening to the sounds drifting in: the faraway hoot of a train; a distorted announcement; a shouting coolie. And then we moved on.

The night inched its agonising way towards an unreachable dawn. I sat still, my aching spine glued to the backrest, unable to sleep.

Stations came and went: Shikohabad, at some unearthly hour past 2; Etawah an hour—or an eternity?—later. At both, I listened at the window, trying eagerly to catch some sound of life from the platform outside. But Shikohabad and Etawah merit only two minutes each, and the train continued all too soon.

I do not know whether I stayed awake, or dozed off after all. The footsteps that passed sometime during the night may have been those of the TC. The distant clang may have been a loose shutter, or the toilet door. The shadows and the oppressing silence that hung over the noise of the train may have been a nightmare—or a reality so grim that I almost sobbed with relief at the first glimmerings of grey snaking through the cracks in the window. Dawn was here.

And with dawn came Kanpur. The train pulled into the station at 5.30 and I nudged my companion awake.

“Thank you, sir.” He sat up, tied his shoelaces and rose. “Goodbye—and happy journey.”

He picked up his backpack, and turned to me.

“I hate alarm clocks,” he said. “Such a nuisance. It’s so much easier to have a fellow passenger who’s wide awake and looking out for all the stations.”

He winked. “It’s never failed.”

And then he was gone, whistling cheerfully.

(First published on www.sulekha.com)