Chhattisgarh <\/em>overnight slow train with scheduled 6:30 am stop at Delhi the next morning instead of earlier planned 10:30 pm arrival Delhi that night. Our quiet moment ended suddenly thereafter. Now we were rushing for this slow train standing on the other platform scheduled to leave at 6:30pm, minutes away. But we made it.<\/p>\nNow this story was before the days of cellphones where simple phone call would have taken the next wrinkle out of our lives – \u201cHey, I missed this train, now on this one, Don\u2019t Worry!\u201d Short and Sweet!<\/p>\n
Gul knew we were not on her train. We too fully knew what mess we were in. One person oblivious of all, and in her happy zone was Mamma, in her world all order was in place in all of our worlds.<\/p>\n
When Ludhiana station pulled in, Papa informed us that he will call Mamma from a phone booth and inform her of the revised itinerary and to pick Gul from the train station (unlike previous expectation of us coming home on our own). With that he left.<\/p>\n
Kaka was using his humor techniques to alleviate the gravity of the situation. I had an unfaltering gaze from the window searching for a running shadow resembling my dad\u2019s as the train emitted the final horn signaling departure.<\/p>\n
No Shadow, No Papa, just random faces walking past each other, none towards the train. I couldn\u2019t sit still inside my window sleeper booth. There was commotion inside my being. So, I walked to the door with Kaka following me. He was munching on a sandwich, holding the rest of it in his hand. My eyes sifted through the crowd. The sun had set and it was now dark. No sign of Papa. The situation called for some action. I couldn\u2019t just wait. I turned to Kaka and said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt any cost, do not get out of the train. Stay in our booth with the luggage.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be back.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n
I let the train slide by. Kaka no longer laughing, or joking, wearing a serious look one of worry. Now worry had reached a carefree 8-year-old heart. I walked fast in the opposite direction of the train, looking for Papa. When train picked up speed, I knew it was now or never. I could not abandon little Kaka. I was now the adult. I envisioned it all with a lump in my throat, I climbed on to an overcrowded non-A\/C coach car or someone helped me climb, I can\u2019t say. Train was now moving at full speed.<\/p>\n
The coach car was so crowded with men there was no space to stand or figure a way out to where Kaka would be freaking out at this very moment. Right alongside our air-conditioned car I could not have imagined existing a car without A\/C of course but with so many people that there was no room to sit down. One stranger witnessing the horror on my face enquired, and understood. I needed to go to the AC side. He led the way making room for me to pass. Following him, I prayed fervently no longer fighting with Waheguru, I couldn\u2019t risk making God more angry! \u201cWaheguru, may there be papa there!\u201d I repeated like a saint. I opened a shrine inside my head, shoved back tears, folded the hands – the whole nine yards, as I followed the stranger, my feet trembled and I could hear my heart pounding inside my chest, an organ I had happily ignored ever existed right inside my chest. It made its presence felt abundantly especially now when I reached our car to find a bunch of men standing by Kaka looking down. When he looked up and saw me, he said softly,<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought I will now go alone to Delhi with all the luggage.\u201d<\/p>\n
I could see a stream of dried up tears on his cheeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh No! Oh No! This could not be happening. No Papa, just me and Kaka now!\u201d rang voice inside my head.<\/p>\n
I slumped into the space next to Kaka and wept like a baby, not the newly pronounced adult, the actual 16 year-old, but a baby.<\/p>\n
Right then, Papa emerged from behind the crowd, I called \u201cOur Misery Audience.\u201d I leapt up and hugged him. He looked shocked and surprised.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t have missed this train at any cost, you know that right?\u201d<\/p>\n
I did not know. I did not care. He was back and everything was going to be ok.<\/p>\n
And, it was. I slept soon after. Our eyes were cloudy and hair ruffled as we climbed out next morning from the slow Chattisgarh train. I never thought about the journey we did not take again, for the one taken was far more significant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was a muggy month of mid 1990’s. My parents both doctors lived extraordinarily busy lives. Amongst us, the children was my sister Gul, studying in Amritsar to become a dentist, and my younger brother Kaka, younger to me by whopping 8 year age barrier. He had yet to hit the freight train of teenage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,16,17,18,15],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kaFb-5p","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookofdreams.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookofdreams.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookofdreams.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookofdreams.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookofdreams.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bookofdreams.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":338,"href":"https:\/\/bookofdreams.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions\/338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookofdreams.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookofdreams.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookofdreams.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}