23. Steps on the sands of time
It was already midnight when I reached the nearest city's railway station. Except for a few homeless people it looked deserted.As I left the house that evening, I had felt as sense of joy passing over me. I tried to understand the significance of it. I realised that the joy was about 'Action' , that I was doing something, getting out of the house and walking, working towards the solution. It was the joy of a hunter with hunger in his stomach sensing a prey in his sight. The joy of 'just do it'.
I had a plan, not an exact plan perse, just an outline of what I had to do. I made sure that I didnt plan too much as I was notorious for skipping the queuqe far too many time. The order and structure of a well planned plan used to always bore me to death. But, even if I had planned exactly what I was supposed to do, How would that plan look like?
The goal was pretty clear : Find mother.
Fortunately or unfortunatley, Coincidentally or fatefully, we both experienced the same things. I walked in her foot steps. It was like a equation which produces the same solutions given the same input data.
Step 1 : Mental Breakdown.
Step 2 : Shock from husband's change of behavior.
Step 3 : Left the house.
Step 0 : We saw the samething.
After those initial steps on the sands of time, it all looked fuzzy, as if a herd a buffaloes passed in that direction erasing her steps. I could able to think up two scenerios pointing at the directions she might had taken, based on her mental condition.
Scenerio one : She had gone crazy.
Scenerio two: She didnt.
If she had gone crazy, Some one must had helped her? Who was it?
If she hadnt gone crazy, Did she leave the house just like me, just like me....
That thought brought a chill to my spine.
She got up that morning. She ate. She thought. She made up her mind. She argued with my dad. She finalised her decision. It was midnight. She woke me up. Took me in her lap.She cried. I cried. Then she left. I slept. She went to a railway station. She sat at the same bench where I was sitting now.Then she started crying.
I got up from the bench, and carefully observed it. I looked around. It looked surreal, but it all looked familiar, as if I was just walking through my mother's memories. People were looking at me. Who are they? Theives? Rapists? A woman in the middle of the night, quater century back, in india. Was she robbed? raped? and then hit with rocks, and thrown on the tracks?? What happened?
I didnt feel any kind of fear in me though, especially the fear of coming face to face with a thief or a serial murderer. 'Hey you, come here, who are you? a murderer? you wanna kill me? hahhaha, come here. Try your murdering skills on me. You wont kill me? Why? Oh, because I dont have fear?'
I didnt fear none of those things : Going to strange places, getting robbed, attacked, or even raped. What I feared was the doubt in me -- What if I am fucking up my life? A doubt, a small doubt. I knew the source of all that fear : Inspite of me saying fuckall, and going after my mother, I still wanted to be part of the society. I wanted to fuck sexy women. Love a woman and be loved. Who will love a man like me? is there a woman who is in search of her mother..just like me??
Announcement about an incoming train. Dejavu. Sad.
What was that emotion? How to explain a complex emotion?
A boring train gallopped into the station. A poor family got down from the general compartment. Another poor family boarded the train. People starting their journeys. People ending their journeys.
Hey you, where u going?
I dont know
why are u going?
to find my mother.
Where is she?
no idea
How is she?
no idea.
R u gonna take the train?
I dont know.
Announcement again. The train started moving.
Take the train.
Why?
You have no choice.
I ran towards the general compartment.
I stood at the door watching the huts of the poorest of the poor, whose lives revolved around timings of the trains and trains themselves.The train pulled away from the station, picking up speed, chasing the darkness.
Destination : Hyderabad.
Continued here..
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