I vividly remember that crazy man. I came across him last summer on my return journey, from my maternal grandmother’s place, in the jam-packed environment of sleeper class, which in summers is like India in a nutshell, so many inhabitants to support so little room to sustain. This man sitting adjacent to me carried a facade as grave as funeral, which materialized unfittingly on his rather funny face; and he projected a depressed spirit evocative of an insolvent stockbroker, which again was erroneously placed on his frail shoulders.
It was a night journey and the reserved people rested flat on their respective berths with the waitlisted one invading the bordering unexploited spaces. An aged couple, waitlisted ones, invaded the majority portion of my side birth. Not knowing how to ask them to relinquish the annexed territory for me to slumber off, I reluctantly lay awake as a minority, surveying the shadowy trees pacing behind and tracing the path of adjacent tracks luminous by the moonlight, speculating how they at places converged together and at places emerged apart.
Suddenly this desolate man left his seat and walked across the aisle beside us towards the door. I happened to glance at his comical face which on that night faked seriousness and was by then wetted by tears. The counterfeit toughness was moistened by unrestrained emotions, summing up the inherent humorous potential of the face to its artistic pinnacle. I may appear to make fun of his melancholy but I swear the first thought which comes to mind seeing something as funny can never be sympathetic. Though I am deprived of judging people yet at that time I was convinced that his emotions were superficial, and not deep enough beneath the wet comical face to sympathize with. But then I heard the unlocking of a door followed by a thump. And then through the window we saw him rolling down the embankment.
While I was shocked taut by the incident and ashamed of my doubts, the aged male invader rushed to pull the chain, with an agility that bellied his age and the female companion contributed her part by disseminating the news at a piercing voice to all the incumbents of our and the immediate neighboring coaches . (Sure this grandpa generation must have been lot fitter in youth than what mine young coco-colaized generation is)
No sooner the chain was pulled the train stopped within few hundred meters -the only instant service provided by the Indian railway lived to its credit- and no sooner the news was spread all the Indians who heard it charged hurriedly to the door – unfailing to seize such once in a life time adventure in their typically unsporting Indian life. Commanding my shaken senses, I too joined the great Indian escapade.
The echoing sound of engine stabbing the death like silence of night vanished and the rumbling commotion of energized masses acted as surrogate, though a feeble one. An equally worried and thrilled crowd ran in the direction where the desolate fool was last seen progressing down the steep rocky gradient. I too was running with the mostly lungi wrapped crowd; a few moments earlier with nothing to do I had found a purpose worthy and thrilling enough to run for it in a deserted landscape.
Soon the rolling fool was in sight lying motionless in the middle of the unfarmed weeds. I expected him at least three-fourth dead if not deceased. But then to my surprise or better say to the collective surprise of the crowd the hopefully dead fool roused surreally defying death, and even more, he ran away deep into the darkness leaving us behind shocked, puzzled and frightened.
Different reasons were floated down by different scholars in the rest of the journey, of which the most logical one seemed that he ran away fearing the furious crowd, which discovering him alive contrary to their hope might push him to death . May be escaping death by a whisker made him realize the worth of life and he learned to love life in the face of death.
Some scholars forced by curiosity forced the CRPF to investigate his luggage which later was found to be a mainly a collection of love letters and memoirs. The same old story: Attraction to some lady…. worship of the lady…. declaration of the passionate devotion…....a virtuous rejection…….renewed wooing and few oaths of eternal fealty which when unsuccessful leads fools to the permanent solution of the time bound suffering.
Quixotical moral of the story: “Devotion can either render you victorious or destroy you”
A rather practical and useful caution: “Beware jumping from an Indian train is poor option to die; it may live you crippled for the rest of your life to try anything as such.”
P.S. : The narration is a mischievous amplification of a real life confrontation witnessed by a good friend of mine. The ‘I’ in the passage is he through my eyes.
