The Track - Chapter 1

 Jamnagar railway station is just around the corner, Havildar Yadav said while struggling to carry two big bags. My mind was still somewhere else. Even when I return after completing my service, I can feel that I am breaking the routine of a soldier's life and calling back everything I have held back here. When the life I have lived seems like a story, there is nothing to call my own....not even memories..

I was torn from my thoughts when I heard the voice of Saab Yadav at the railway station. Walking along the platform, Yadav put his bags on a long bench and smiled before leaving the journey... Happy journey Saab... Yadav extended his hand... Yadav watched him. My chest was pounding like it was somewhere isolated.....

In the meantime, a gust of wind was slowly blowing my overcoat upwards to comfort me. I leaned back on the bench with some relief. There were still ten minutes left for the train to arrive. Leaving behind the boring discomforts of the day that had begun to fall, I bid farewell...., I too...

.The train was coming, the dim yellow light was approaching.. The crowd was light. I put my bags on my shoulders and got into the coach and got a side seat. I slowly raised the window. It was dark outside and the city had fallen into the languor of night, and the electric lights were flickering here and there like scattered embers.

The mischievous girl who had come earlier came through the window sills as if to bid farewell and passed by, caressing the strands of her hair.

The middle-aged man sitting in the opposite seat, probably seeing her leaning back with his eyes closed in nostalgia, asked with a wide smile, "Are you going on vacation?" He replied with a small laugh. He had folded a towel and tied it across his forehead like Balachandra Menon in old movies. His wife, not opening her eyes to the outside world, is holding his left arm and leaning her head on his shoulder. On the right, a young man, his wife, and a child are sitting. The middle-aged man winked at the child like a mischievous friend and gave him a small sweet lemon in his little hand. He held it tightly and laughed at him..... Then he threw it down... "Don't take it, sir, you won't eat it for nothing" said the young man.

Boys are like that, our little one was also very naughty. When he said that, his wife suddenly lifted her face from his shoulder and he stroked her cheeks and leaned her back on his shoulder. Tears could be seen spreading to his eyes

He woke up when the sound of the tracks reached his ears... The train slowed down like a star through the creaking of the tracks and approached the next station platform. The light of the electric lights filtered through the windows of the carriage. Rajkhot Junction has reached. The noise of the vendors on the platform is loud and most of the passengers woke up and raised their heads. Some people started looking and pulled their heads back into the blanket.

I have to get down here, I have to call him. I put my bag on one side and went out and found a public phone and dialed his number and he was on the other end of the phone, just one ring away.

Still, the same thought kept running through my mind. Why did I see him again? Why did I drag him back to the terrifying memories of the past that I didn't even dare to look back at? Even though my mind told me a thousand times not to, I waited for the voice on the other end like a machine controlled by someone else.

                                                                     -tbc-