Rhomboid white boards, the quintessence of
Indian railway stations, with Bhubaneshwar written in Hindi, English and Odia welcome
me onto the platform. Each one of them is attached to a pillar holding up the
perforated asbestos roof. A giant black and white clock, coated with a thin
layer of dust, hangs from one of those pillars. Its otherwise dead minute hand
flexes every thirty seconds or so, as if hiccupping. It shows 11 a.m. My train has
reached on time, however not many are as lucky as I am. Announcements blare non-stop
from loudspeakers. The ubiquitous robotic voice nonchalantly avers that the
train supposed to arrive on platform number three is running late by a paltry seven
hours. As a consolation, it adds, ‘The inconvenience caused is deeply
regretted.’
The commotion is overwhelming. There are hordes
of people moving in all directions: red-clad porters, carrying as many as three
to four suitcases stacked on their heads as if they were pots. Passengers,
weary from the journey, uninterestedly haggle with porters whose gamchas are rolled on their heads like
doughnuts. Tiny effervescent children persuade their parents to allow them,
not the porters, to wheel the gargantuan case with rollers.
As the crowd drifts past, some even harmlessly
brushing against me, I notice stationary faces – dark, chubby and moustached – caught
in this tumult against time, staring at me. I try easing the wrinkles of my
white shirt and reset my ruffled hair. With a piece of tissue, I wipe away the
last vestiges of the journey’s grime from my sneakers. The stares don’t cease. I
look into the camera of my handicapped Nokia 5233. Nothing is amiss, except for
the slightly disheveled hair and a face damp with sweat. While the rest of
northern and central India is bathed in spring, summer arrives as early as
March on the east coast and stations itself like an annoying guest who’s not
willing to take leave until November.
Fragments of a new language waft in the air.
Odia, a tongue as circular as its script, is by no means easy. For someone conversant
in Hindi and English alone, this unfamiliarity is enough to set one’s pulse
racing. What am I doing here? Why on earth did I decide to come to Bhubaneshwar
of all places! How easy would it have been to remain at home, eat good food
while surfing Facebook, as opposed to getting burnt in the early Eastern summer?
My backpack seems to have doubled in weight, my calves plead for respite. I put
it down on the platform studded with petrified betel stains and squat over it.
Through the jungle of legs, a shrill whistle
manages to make its way to my ears. A giant trolley conveying upon it numerous parcels,
with numbers writ on them in red and white, impales the mob at brutal speed. Its
conductor, an emaciated boy clenching the whistle, swings his hands like the
wipers of a car to rid of the idlers on its way. I withdraw myself just in time
before getting flattened. My ears start to buzz and palms get clammy. I squirm
as a thin trickle of perspiration drips down the small of my back. There is
throbbing at unusual places – fingertips, jugulars and the temples – where it
is the loudest, as if gnawing through my brains. In some time, it becomes the
only thing I hear. No, this couldn’t be a panic attack, could it? I have never
had one before. Why would I even get one? I am young, fit and hardy. I have
experienced much worse. Like having had to live on moldy bread when I was an
entrepreneur on the verge of bankruptcy. To worsen my dehydration, there is now
a sudden urge to pee.
I climb back up on the train with my luggage
and rush to the toilet. The previous
occupant has left behind his precious leftovers for me that are contentedly
lazing in the Indian railway commode. The thought of him hopping away happily on the platform while I’m
stuck having to tolerate his shit enrages me. I flush thrice, do my business
and wash my face. Despite the repugnant odour, I stay in the cubicle for a few
minutes, doing nothing, breathing in the constant ‘Indian train’ smell, and staring
at myself in the pockmarked mirror. There are traces of fear – in the faint
lines of the forehead, in the beads of sweat glistening on the sideburns, and in
the quiver in my voice as I try to hum an old R.D.Burman song in an attempt to
calm myself.
‘I think I left my … huh … phone here.’ A
petite man of around thirty with large elephant-like ears barges into the
toilet, nudging me in. He has a peculiar voice that is slightly shrill, the
kind on the telephone that is often mistaken for a woman’s. He peers into the
snot-laden basin. It clearly doesn’t interest him; his reflection in the mirror
does, which he leaves only after adjusting his hair. Finally, he looks into the
potty hole with significant interest. This man, in his yellow shirt and black
trousers, is the one I flushed a minute ago.
‘You used this toilet after me, hai ki nahin? Isn’t it?’ The man is
hideously small, so much so that I can lift him up by the scruff of his
vomit-yellow shirt and hoist on top of the train. ‘First I’ll check you and
your bag.’
His authoritative tone doesn’t go well with
his childlike voice. I try to push him aside. His elephant ears redden and he
fumes as if about to puncture my balls any minute. With his height, he probably
can.
‘It was a Nokai,’ he adds. ‘I had all my contacts in it.’
‘Nokia, you mean?’
‘No, Nokai.
Chinese brand. Half price, same looks.’
I ask for his number and dial it on my phone
before he dares to frisk me. Something somewhere rings; it’s a bhajan, a
prayer-song. As both of us start looking for the source, our heads bang into
one another. The man starts to laugh, a high-pitched neigh, for no apparent
reason. He begins unbuttoning his pants and this time, my ears turn red. I push
him aside and rush out onto the platform. Twenty meters away, safe amongst the
very same people who seemed like spies earlier, my phone rings, flashing the
number that I had dialed a moment ago.
‘It was inside my pant pocket. I put it
there while using the toilet and forgot about it. Thank you so much for your
help, bhaina, big brother.’
He compensates for the wasted roaming
minutes by teaching me a new word in return, Bhaina.
~
Three foreigners with rucksacks, which
appear significantly lighter and more compact than mine, manoeuvre out of the
packed station with an enviable confidence. They seem to know the unsought
railway station of this underrated city much better than I do. After gulping in
some water, I follow them, trying hard to keep pace. Very soon, their dodging
blond-heads disappear. They are too swift for me – a plump sedentary failed
entrepreneur. Well, not too plump. Borderline plump, the kind where your face
just starts to look fuller than before with a chin for each cheek.
The portico outside the station is
surprisingly quiet. It opens up to a sprawling concrete piazza with cars, jeeps
and autos parked on the periphery that would have become fully functional solar
cookers. Other than a few auto-drivers swarming toward their prospective
customers, there aren’t many people around. Soon I am mistaken for a staunch
tourist – the backpack’s doing – and lured to visit the “‘Lingoraj’ Temple,
only thirty rupees away”, and tempted to be
shown a posh five-star hotel, most likely because I look like a waiter. I
ignore them all. An auto-driver seated cross-legged near a chai-shop walks up
to me, chafing his beedi on the concrete, and mutters indiscreetly, ‘if you
want something else, I can arrange at no premium.’ I ignore him too. Perhaps, I
should have spoken further with the last one to glean what exactly his something
else comprised.
Away from the flurry of the station, the thrill of being on
my own with an entire city at my disposal sinks in for the first time. At a
relatively stranded bus station nearby, a local bus reeking of stale onions is about
to head towards the other end of the city. I grab a seat by the window and
stretch my long, long legs as far as I can, accidentally grazing against the
leg of a middle-aged aunty seated in front. Before I could apologize, she
turns, stares hard at me and mutters something in Odia that doesn’t sound too
sweet. The bus conductor, a dark man with a face like a box and teeth as yellow
as dal, comes forward and inspects me from top to bottom. I utter the only word
I know: bhaina, hoping against hope that it placates him.
‘Five rupiya, first,’ he says in English, adding ‘bhaina’ on
an afterthought. The word is magical. I take out loose change and place three
coins on his greasy palm. He motions me to sit beside him, by the window. Like
a dog in a car, I thrust my head out, away from the pungent smell of onions,
drinking in the wideness of Bhubaneshwar’s roads.
The conductor prods me, in all politeness, to alight near a
newly whitewashed building that’s infested with foreigners, perhaps considering
how touristy (and clueless) I looked. Surrounded by manicured vegetation on all
four sides, what looks like a forlorn boarding school turns out to be the State
Museum from inside. One look and I silently scream a no! I’m not the museum type. I prefer spending
time with living beings to dead fossils. Should I start sightseeing? In this heat? Or would I be better off
meeting up with my potential host, the only person in my contact list who lived there, my friend from childhood, Amit Anand? I call Anand and tell him that I am in his city, and might need his help. He's surprised, receiving a call from me after ages, but his tone is most welcoming. Ajao, he says and texts me the address to his place. I walk on, with a smile this time.
A middle-aged man with a severe face and a smattering of grey
hair on his head stands a meter ahead near the bus stop. Having cracked the
code, the fundamental brotherhood that Odisha advocates, I prod him with a meek
bhaina in hope of gaining some insights into his city. He glances at my rucksack
and says with a grin, ‘New? New? Here? I, travel agent, laujj?’ He flies an imaginary
airplane with his right hand directed to the other side of the road. I thank him
for his gracious offer and cross the road before he does. A minute later, I pass
by Amrita Deluxe “Laujj” on the other side – fully air-conditioned with “testy”
food and hot water running all of 24 hours.
Random conversations with strangers, most of who are looking
to extort money out of me, may render me penniless before sunset. The practical
thing would be to rid myself of the parasitic rucksack as soon as possible. It
has been a rather foolish decision to choke it with half a dozen books, a
jacket, a change of shoes, a tablet, and an SLR among other redundant items. Half
an hour later and a hundred rupees down in a smoke-spewing auto-rickshaw, I’m at
Anand’s flat, lying comfortably on his bed with calm, wet winds gushing at my
face from his cooler. Nothing can make me go back to the city until the sun calls
it a day.
Anand, my host, is a final year student of engineering at the
ITER College and lives along with six other guys in a dingy 3BHK very near his
college campus. He also happens to be my first-ever friend in life. Being
next-door neighbours in Patna, we grew up playing cricket with tennis balls,
often hitting and losing them on neighbouring rooftops from where they could
never be reclaimed. When I was 10, my father was transferred 200 kilometers
away from Patna and our friendship – in the absence of cellphones, the Internet
and the zest for writing letters – waned. Only a year ago, Anand somehow traced
me on Facebook. Before starting off for Bhubaneshwar, I had hesitantly messaged
him there if he could host me.
Although it has been almost eight years
since we last met, there is no sense of unfamiliarity. His face hasn’t changed,
neither has his appearance. He is as skinny as he used to be. The last time we
saw each other, we were at the cusp of adolescence: a foot shorter, barely
moustached and too decent to talk about
girls. Instead, we would devote most of our time to WWE trump cards or cricket
matches – on the TV during the day, and on the roof of our houses in the
evenings.
After the cloud of awkward small talk
cleared, I venture into indecent
territory. ‘Any girlfriends?’ I ask. The phrase acts like a detonator that breaks
loose the imaginary wall between us, all hesitation trounced in an instant. He
shows me pictures of a bubbly and charming Bengali girl on his phone, his
college-mate – ‘the best singer there’, while he plays the keyboard along with
her. There is a giant Roland on the side,
draped in a flowery bed-sheet. I urge him to play for me. His fingers scurry
along the black and white keys – playing classics, contemporary melodies, and
western soft-rock. I can’t recall when I fall asleep.
~
Written for #TheBlindList and #SayYesToTheWorld, Lufthansa’s exciting new campaign. Do check the video below:
