Journey to Deepawali

Keshav was never fond of traveling and hated to travel every second weekend from Delhi to Ahmedabad but the choices were limited for him as his family was settled in Ahmedabad with his wife and kid and job opportunities were negligible there. This was the first time in his life when he was away from his family, he was born and grown in the same city and even his college years were been spend in same city. He didn’t had any siblings and his mother had expired long time back in his childhood days, his father owned a grocery store and was getting too old to move from places to places, his wife Karuna was a homely by nature and her life revolved around taking care of daily chores at home along with taking care of their 2 years old daughter Meera.

Though Keshav was older than Karuna by few years but they were friends from the child hood days and  during their teen years their fondness for each other evolved in to love and they ended up marrying each other. Post his college days Keshav spend couple of years at his father shop but earnings from the shop were not good enough to support the family, left with no other option he started looking for the a job and ended up with the sales profile for a retail company in Delhi. It was not paying much but in hard times whatever was available was not supposed to be ignored. This was the first experience for Keshav to be all by himself and going back to his family on bi-weekly or monthly basis. His days were long and busy and most part of the days were spending in either moving from place to place within the city or choking on the wrath from his Customers. These were not the good times for him and had started taking toll on his health and mood. He appeared far angrier than his earlier days and his daughter was a bit too much scared to some to him in those rare times which he used to get to spend with his family. Karuna was also losing sheen on her face and the glow which was visible on her face till few months back was almost gone now, may be the strong winds of time was getting  better of them over all these years.

It was the Deepawali time and he was not able to book the train ticket in advance since his sales target were still not met and was not sure when he will be able to leave. It was only after he received a one hour long lecture from his Sales manager he was allowed to go to his home for the weekend. Moving from one place to another place in Delhi was a big challenge during festive times, but the thing which worked out well was for him was his rented accommodation in a shared PG around Paharganj area which was like a stone’s throw from railway station. It was not a good place to live and was a lot dirtier than his home with no arrangement to cook food and wash/dry clothes but it was a lot cheaper than other places in Delhi and very near to the railway station which helped him in saving money and time.

He reached the railway station just in time and train came within 2 mins of his arrival on the platform. Since he neither had the luxury of the reserved seat nor had the money to bribe his way out in getting a reserved seat he started the tussle of getting in to the unreserved compartment - it was difficult, even for a recently turned frequent traveler like him, the crowd in the compartment was more agitated than usual and was trying their level's best to push back the huge sea of crowd from trying to get inside.  Still somehow he got succeeded in getting inside the compartment but was not able to move beyond the toilet gate at the beginning of the compartment, once the train stated he managed to spread the newspaper he was carrying on the floor and find just sufficient place to sit on it. He knew it was a long journey but hoped that crowd will ease out after some time and good number of it may get off around Mathura.

With in few hours into the journey and most of the crowd settled, his mind started wandering in to the direction which he never wanted. He looked around trying to change his thought process but there was nothing which could cheer his mood, all the faces he was looking at appeared glum as if they all were losing their battle with life slowly and steadily. It was dark outside by now and he was feeling a bit hungry as well, he had some bread and biscuits with him which he carried to avoid spending money during the journey, he munched on those along with the tea.

He had traveled many times on the same train but this time he was feeling a lot different, he felt as if he had lost it, as if there was a void inside him which was growing moment by moment and time will come when this void will engulf him completely, he felt as if he needed to run away – run away from his job, from his ailing father, from Karuna, from Meera, from everything and everyone he knew off.  He tried to catch up some sleep, it was not easy – not because of the noise from the people in the compartment as most of them were already asleep or because of the cyclic rhythms of the wheels where every forth stoke made a different sound than the previous three stokes but it was difficult because of the cyclone of the thoughts brewing inside him, because he was still trying to come up to terms with life, the terms which he felt were really harsh on him and he did not deserved those, he wanted to quit, refuse to play the game which life was playing with him, he was feeling helpless and suffocated as if someone has reduced him to a miniature dummy and packed him inside a sealed bottle which he cannot break. He kept on fighting with his thought process and trying to sleep - the self conflict was draining him out from every bit of energy he had. His felt as if he is done and has left nothing inside him to give, as if he is empty; he was now contemplating with thoughts of committing suicide by jumping off from the train from the door which was just couple of feet away and was open most of the time so that people can smoke there or try to have a few moments of fresh air in the suffocating compartment.

He realized that though it is still dark outside but it is early morning and he'll be reaching his destination in an hour or two and if he wanted to end his life this was the time…. He moved towards the gate while not sure of jumping off it or not, the train was running fast and the early morning breeze was a lot cooler than the day time weather, he looked around to see if anyone was watching him, no one was - but he saw few guys gathered around one seat and the expressions on their faces were full of fear. Out of curiosity he moved towards them and saw the guys were glued while listening to a local radio station – it was about a breaking news of Anand Textiles factory @ G R Road catching fire couple of hours back due to some crackers and the whole area burning in to flames, there were a lot of casualties reported and fire brigade was still struggling to control the fire. Keshav was ice frozen now, he knew the factory mentioned was just a block away from his home. He suddenly felt as if something cold, very cold which can freeze his bones is entering in his body and soul, the images of Meera, Karuna and his father were floating in front of him. He was struggling to stay on his feet and with trembling movements came back to the spread news paper where he was sitting. He was scared now, not because of the fire but because he just realized that his family may not be alive by now and he was experiencing the same pain now which his family would have suffered if he would have jumped off the train few moments back – he was the victim and the culprit; Victim for the probable loss and culprit for the thoughts of ending his life to run away from all the probing questions life was asking him. He tried to scream but as if his vocal cords refused to budge, he was weeping from fear, remorse and regret but his eyes were stoned. He had now realized the value of life and what it meant to others. There was nothing which can be done now but to wait till the train reaches the city, he was helpless and had to spend his time in the mixed bag of feelings full of regret, remorse, fear and love for his family.

Train reached the city with the first rays of sunrise and before he realized he was running to his home, he cannot wait for a rickshaw or bus; he had to reach his home and reach there as fast as possible. He reached his home after running like a mad man for 20 – 25 mins and once he reached at his front porch - he saw there was not much of the home left, everything was burned down to ashes. Fire brigade was still at the other end of the block still trying to control the fire. He shrieked in pain – pain of losing his daughter, wife and father, and then suddenly he felt a gentle tap on his leg. It was Meera, tapping his leg asking him with her sweet half audible voice to pick her up. Her face was dirty with the patches of ashes but her eyes were full of innocence looking at him. Then is saw Karuna was running towards him as well from a distance – his family was safe!!! He bent down on his knees and hugged Meera like he had hugged her for the first time, his was weeping profusely now -  his tears were flowing like water dripping from a full glass. The tears were not of remorse or pain - they were of joy and happiness. He knew he had learned his lesson and though he may have lost most of the materialistic things but he still had which mattered the most. It was Deepawali morning, and for him it was in truest sense a day to celebrate joy, happiness and cherishing.

~lokesh v. (XX)