Rajat Philip
Cease all sounds and bustle. Silence the world into simpering submission and just let a few footsteps fall. The sun is in a watchful slumber and birds start awakening to feed themselves and their young in a land where the swift conquer. You came off the train and escaped the seductive lullaby in its rhythmic motion, to confront your drooping eyes with an almost bare platform where a few move hither and thither while the antiquated PA system blusters. Godforsaken hours greet no man with a warming welcome and you – the wanderer, the traveler, who stole across the night from a blistering Delhi to Chittor, look for a retiring room to wash away the grime that covers your brow. Your bag and suitcase are all that there is to carry you forth for days of wandering and the traveling companion that is your loyal friend, who in this short space of time becomes your flesh and blood. Perhaps it is that you left home and hearth, perhaps it is how you shall return to them; these days of wayfaring have ceased life as it was and infused a new life – effusive and vivacious. And then, while water showers you lovingly in the attached bathroom that is larger than the retiring room itself (equipped with two beds, sofas and minimal furniture) you come to think of this wanderlust voyage (in the manner of ye olde bathroom and bedroom poets who found and exploited metaphors in Life cunningly) as a retiring room in itself in the saga that is life.
I love the epiphanies that one has while knocking around from place to place. Be it trains, buses or the ever humble auto-rickshaw or be it relaxing in the shade of a fawning tree or the shower in the retiring room of the Indian Railway station of Chittorgarh Junction, profundity abounds in thoughts. Soon thoughts shifted to how I started out on the path that lead me here, the rekindling of an old friendship, the shared wanderlust and lastly, how I ended up catching my train just seconds before its departure in the trademark style that was so me! It couldn’t have been more comic – on one hand, receiving texts from Raghav lamenting my absent presence while he waited on the platform (upon arriving a good hour prior to our train’s departure, say what?) and the death threats if in case the absence prolonged and on the other hand, I’m telling my mother and brother to take it easy while beads of sweat break out as mishap after mishap derail my clean schedule. We wouldn’t be telling this story if I had missed it and so, as surely as my name is Rajat Philip, I did catch that train without much hassle, so much so that as soon as I put my bags down in my compartment, the train like an anticipating steed began moving.
After freshening up, we left our retiring room 2 hours after our arrival. At 7 AM, we left the station.
ANGREZI LUNGI 