Days

Wake up every morning and start the grind again. It’s been this way for the past nine months. A hasty breakfast and a long long journey after that. But thanks to Indian Railways, if the things could have been worse, they made it happen. I have trusted the infallibility of our trains so much that I know that my 7:32 train will never come before 7:45 and it never fails me. Seats? Did you talk of seats in the train? Whatever in the world are those? Here you will find sacks of homegrown vegetables trudging their way to the wholesale market proudly taking their place among seats meant for humans. And you find, fellow passengers who refuse to load their luggage in the cargo....the seats belong to the suitcases and the tomatoes and the flowers and the sacred unmentionable idonnowhats of this country. Meanwhile I stand....

And then my mind flies along with the train to the country side, taking along with it memories of the years gone by, the peals of laughter and the tears of joy, the pouts of disappointment and the frowns of frustration. I remember the train rides that I used to take as a child. Stations flying past me, each with its own story lost in the maze of people thronging to it every day. The jhalmuri and the pepsi, the potato chips and the hair clips..They’re all still there.....the balloons are still there...the stations stand testimony to the days that are past.

Only I have changed.