durlabh
02-08-2009, 02:04 PM
Gurdarshan was a stationmaster in a town in Punjab and enjoyed his work intensively. He joined Indian Railways in a junior capacity after passing his matriculation and worked his way up and got quick promotions due to diligence and reliability. The perk of his job was a free bungalow as his residence with a garden and a gardener thrown into.
When he took the post there was an older person, Ram, filling the post in an acting capacity and he thought that Ram would resent him as his senior but nothing could be different. Ram liked him and they got along with each other fairly well and soon became each other’s confidant. Ram was married and was advising him to get married too, to a nice girl as soon as possible.
Being young he was not in a great hurry and wanted to move around to have wider experiences of the opposite sex. As any other man, he was attracted to pretty and elegant ladies but an attractive face was more important to him then mere fulfilling of lust. There was something special he could feel in such a face, which took him to a new and tender level, which expressed his inner longing.
He and Ram often inspected the station and walked down the platforms to see that they were clean and tidy and made sure that the cleaners and sweepers were doing their job properly. The platforms were a hub of humanity with all variety of humanity inhabiting it, waiting for their trains to arrive and which could be late sometime several hours. The passengers had learnt the art of patience and most were not duly alarmed and thought it an opportunity to practice their art of conversation by telling tales to each other.
There were plenty of stalls selling eatables around and they made full use. Hot tea being popular during winter and cold sherbet during summer and on top of it all there was a special attraction waiting for Gurdarshan. This attraction came sometime in the disguise of young females with pretty faces. Whenever he spotted one there was a distinct change in his walking posture as inflated chest and walking tall came into his being. Ram could easily detect and issued a peel of laughter in a good humourous way. Afterwards they fell into a ‘philosophical’ discussion about features of each pretty face. It became a topic of interest and happiness to ease their daily routine.
One day Ram spotted a beautiful young lady sitting on a bench on platform two. He had seen her before and thought she traveled that way often and thought that he would report that finding to his boss Gurdarshan, as it would put him in a good mood. The following week when he reported it to him, he said:
‘ Yaar! You let a good opportunity pass, you should have shared that pleasant news with me.’ Retorted Gurdarshan
‘ But you were busy and on the phone but do not worry, I will report her next sighting.’
Days passed and nothing happened and he began to lose threads of that topic which had occupied his mind so long until Ram gave him the good news that he had seen the young lady concerned leaving the station and told him to look for her when she return to the station for her journey back to where she came from.
Hope was revived again in Gurdarshan’s heart and he was bent to keep a watch for the lady’s return. After spending the whole day on look out for her, he did not want to go home for the night but spent his night in the office stretched out on a sofa. He got up early in the morning and bleary eyed looked through the window in expectation. His heart jumped as he thought he saw a glimpse of her coming towards the station entrance amid a misty morning.
He ran out, roughened down by sleep with his hair disheveled, as she did not want to lose her. As he came closer and it was her, definitely her and his heart came to his mouth.
What to do now? He shook and ran back to the office and looked into the mirror and God he looked terrible, like a bhoot. He let the tap run and splashed cold water on his face, with a towel rubbed it and try to comb his unruly hair. He felt a pang of hunger but it was not a time to waste on such trivialities, he must hurry to keep track of her.
He ran to the platform where the first train of the day was due to arrive in half an hour. On the platform bench a woman was sitting with her back towards him and he proceeded slowly like a cat on a prowl. Firstly he caught sight of a delicate hand clutching the edge of a sari, she was wearing a sky blue sari and she looked charming with her long black hair falling over her shoulders. He was already under her control.
He stood behind her and tried to form some words of greetings but he was nervous and it agitated him, as he was not going to miss that chance.
‘Namaste! You are the first person to arrive for the train.’ He blurted out although he could see a few other people on the platform who had spent the night there sleeping on the platform. The woman turned her body towards him with a jolt as if surprised and returned his greetings with ‘Namaste.’
‘I am the stationmaster here and it is my job to look after the passengers. Would you like something to drink?’
The woman hesitated as talking to a stranger.
‘I was going to make a cup of tea for myself. Would you like one? It is cold and nothing cheers you up like a hot cup.’ He invented some action to communicate with her.
‘No, thank you. I just had one this morning before I started for the journey.’
This was blow to him but he pleaded with her with an expression of sadness in his eyes.
‘It will make my day if you have some tea with me. Please.’
‘ Ok if you insist.’ The lady yielded to his sad eyes.
‘If you don’t mind coming to my office where I can make some tea.’ He said
With shaky hands he made two cups for tea, one for the lady and one for himself.
‘By the way my name is Gurdarshan and yours …?’
‘Rajini.’
‘That is a pretty name.’
‘Thank you.’
He saw her to train and plucked his courage to ask her.
‘I would like to see you again.’ with a blush on his face.
‘ I will be hear next week, same time, same day.’ stated Rajini to make his day.
The following week was a week of expectation and agony for him as he realized the emotional turmoil of his thoughts. He always thought himself as a rationalist who could control his emotions in a reasonable way but now he felt slighted by himself in being in a sentimental fix. Once this is passed, he would recover and be again himself.
* *
He could not sleep properly in the night before the day of reckoning and spent the dark hours in his office. He got up early in the morning to prepare himself and dressed himself in his best suit and put a lot of subtle perfume on his body.
With trembling heart he awaited for her and was not sure whether she would turn up as it might had been a joke played by a pretty woman on a man who had come under a spell.
But she did t return and after the tea ritual, he took her to the railway carriage with a suffocating load in his breast s he wanted to say something but could not formulate the words. He stood outside the where Rajini was sitting and train had only a few minutes to depart. It was a do or die time now and involuntary he held her hand:
‘Would you marry me?’ somehow he managed to say.
As the train started with a screech, there was another sound, which overwhelmed him with its sweet music, ‘Yes’.
‘Yes’ ‘Yes’. The train whistled.
They were married after a month and spent their honeymoon in the Kulu Valley.
For the first few months there life became like a bowl of roses, full of excitement, companionship and new emotional discovery. As usual Gurdarshan became infatuated with all his success. He had a good job, a new beautiful wife and some close friends. He was invited to various functions to give talks on the art of living and on which he thought he was an authority now.
Slowly all this success inflated his ego and he began to find fault with all manners of people specially the poor. He blamed them as being lazy, work shy and burden on the society at large and when they defended themselves as being their fate. He became furious stating the man was capable of doing and achieving everything by his own labours and did not need any divine help or favours and sometime went as far as denying the existence of God.
In a traditional society like his, it was not taken kindly and remarks were passed that he would learn soon enough when he got into physical and emotional troubles and to which he gave a laugh or a sneer. In the meantime he was confident that if a man applied all his faculties whole-heartedly, he was bound to succeed without any outside help from any divine source.
Fulfilling his material and emotional needs, he became sound of body and mind and had peaceful sleep for most of the nights but some of the night he felt apprehended due to some disturbing dream and to which he did not want to admit to but his wife noticed his body getting agitated and screaming at some unwanted visitation. Gradually his condition worsened and his wife requested him to see a doctor but he ignored that request.
In his heart he began to dread going to sleep and there began a recurring dream of woman hanging with a rope by the branch of a tree with her contorted face and asking help from him to relive her suffering. This dream always occurred with a background of hills. Whenever he went to help her, her face became soaked in blood and the drops of it fell on his hands and then he woke with scream. Eventually he went to see the doctor and blamed it on over exertion and did not want to go to a psychiatrist for consultation.
He thought his dream related to some people who did not like him and had grudge against him due to his anti religious views and it showed in his dreams. Doctor gave him some tranquilizer to ease his mind when going to sleep and gradually the horror of the dreams diminished and he recovered his poise and self-confidence. He began to pursue his normal attack on anything religious or spiritual.
Years went by and he found his work engrossing and company of his wife inspirational. He wanted to rise higher in his profession and began to apply for suitable positions. Soon he was called into the HQ for interviews for various posts in the country and eventually was accepted for a remote part of the country at much higher scale of remunerations. He consulted his wife and after some objections, she agreed to the new posting of her husband. There was some shortcomings w in the new post as the couple had to move away from their relations and surroundings but in the end decided to accept the new post.
The couple duly arrived in their new district and found the surroundings enchanting and picturesque. The green hills of the district were a treat for the heart and simple inhabitants of the district, with colorful dresses, was great site for the sore eyes. People offered the couple lot of respect and a few new friendships. To them it was a perfect start in the new post and was confident that they would soon adept to their new surroundings and nothing was unlikely to go wrong.
But things not always come up to our hopes and expectations. Gurdarshan began to have recurrence of his old dream and was much troubled by it. The irony was theses dreams were more intense and showed the hilly background, which he recognized as of the new district. He did not tell his wife about and suffered in silence till he began to scream from his nightmares while sleeping next to her wife .As happened previously she persuaded him to go to the district hospital to consult a doctor and possible get a supply of tranquilizers as previously.
As he sat in the waiting room of the hospital surrounded by other people including an old woman who seemed to be looking at him constantly as if she knew him. He did not like that intrusion but she moved closer to him.
‘Do I know you?’ as ked Gurdarshan
‘No, but I know you. Your face looks familiar.’
‘You can’t be serious. I never been here before.’
‘May be from the past.’
‘ You are talking nonsense. Go away.’
‘ Exactly the kind of anger that drove that woman to suicide.’
‘ What are you talking about?’ he said in anger.
‘ I will tell you the story when I was a child but still I remember it. There was a man like you in the village, very strict and full of authority and had no love for anyone including his wife and when she found another man to find some love. Rumors began to circulate and he set jasoos, detective on her and one day he found his wife in company of another man from other district in compromising position, he became furious and drag her to the house. He made her life a hell and one day she hanged herself on a tree and we found her dangling there and we screamed and ran away. I can still see that horrid expression on her face. There was no road here than but the tree is still there.’
The old woman pointed out the tree from the waiting room window. He felt sick and could not stay there. On the way he went close to the tree and horridly he found the tree and the background of his dream.
He went home with pale face drenched in perspiration am and dropped on a bed.
‘Are you ill? You look terrible.’ His wife came running.
‘Yes it is about a the tree in my dreams and it is dreadful.’
‘ Oh God. You are not going to have nightmares again! You just have a vivid imagination and will drive yourself sick again.’
He wanted to tell her about the truth but knew she would never believe him to do justice to his agony.
Durlabh Singh© 2009.
When he took the post there was an older person, Ram, filling the post in an acting capacity and he thought that Ram would resent him as his senior but nothing could be different. Ram liked him and they got along with each other fairly well and soon became each other’s confidant. Ram was married and was advising him to get married too, to a nice girl as soon as possible.
Being young he was not in a great hurry and wanted to move around to have wider experiences of the opposite sex. As any other man, he was attracted to pretty and elegant ladies but an attractive face was more important to him then mere fulfilling of lust. There was something special he could feel in such a face, which took him to a new and tender level, which expressed his inner longing.
He and Ram often inspected the station and walked down the platforms to see that they were clean and tidy and made sure that the cleaners and sweepers were doing their job properly. The platforms were a hub of humanity with all variety of humanity inhabiting it, waiting for their trains to arrive and which could be late sometime several hours. The passengers had learnt the art of patience and most were not duly alarmed and thought it an opportunity to practice their art of conversation by telling tales to each other.
There were plenty of stalls selling eatables around and they made full use. Hot tea being popular during winter and cold sherbet during summer and on top of it all there was a special attraction waiting for Gurdarshan. This attraction came sometime in the disguise of young females with pretty faces. Whenever he spotted one there was a distinct change in his walking posture as inflated chest and walking tall came into his being. Ram could easily detect and issued a peel of laughter in a good humourous way. Afterwards they fell into a ‘philosophical’ discussion about features of each pretty face. It became a topic of interest and happiness to ease their daily routine.
One day Ram spotted a beautiful young lady sitting on a bench on platform two. He had seen her before and thought she traveled that way often and thought that he would report that finding to his boss Gurdarshan, as it would put him in a good mood. The following week when he reported it to him, he said:
‘ Yaar! You let a good opportunity pass, you should have shared that pleasant news with me.’ Retorted Gurdarshan
‘ But you were busy and on the phone but do not worry, I will report her next sighting.’
Days passed and nothing happened and he began to lose threads of that topic which had occupied his mind so long until Ram gave him the good news that he had seen the young lady concerned leaving the station and told him to look for her when she return to the station for her journey back to where she came from.
Hope was revived again in Gurdarshan’s heart and he was bent to keep a watch for the lady’s return. After spending the whole day on look out for her, he did not want to go home for the night but spent his night in the office stretched out on a sofa. He got up early in the morning and bleary eyed looked through the window in expectation. His heart jumped as he thought he saw a glimpse of her coming towards the station entrance amid a misty morning.
He ran out, roughened down by sleep with his hair disheveled, as she did not want to lose her. As he came closer and it was her, definitely her and his heart came to his mouth.
What to do now? He shook and ran back to the office and looked into the mirror and God he looked terrible, like a bhoot. He let the tap run and splashed cold water on his face, with a towel rubbed it and try to comb his unruly hair. He felt a pang of hunger but it was not a time to waste on such trivialities, he must hurry to keep track of her.
He ran to the platform where the first train of the day was due to arrive in half an hour. On the platform bench a woman was sitting with her back towards him and he proceeded slowly like a cat on a prowl. Firstly he caught sight of a delicate hand clutching the edge of a sari, she was wearing a sky blue sari and she looked charming with her long black hair falling over her shoulders. He was already under her control.
He stood behind her and tried to form some words of greetings but he was nervous and it agitated him, as he was not going to miss that chance.
‘Namaste! You are the first person to arrive for the train.’ He blurted out although he could see a few other people on the platform who had spent the night there sleeping on the platform. The woman turned her body towards him with a jolt as if surprised and returned his greetings with ‘Namaste.’
‘I am the stationmaster here and it is my job to look after the passengers. Would you like something to drink?’
The woman hesitated as talking to a stranger.
‘I was going to make a cup of tea for myself. Would you like one? It is cold and nothing cheers you up like a hot cup.’ He invented some action to communicate with her.
‘No, thank you. I just had one this morning before I started for the journey.’
This was blow to him but he pleaded with her with an expression of sadness in his eyes.
‘It will make my day if you have some tea with me. Please.’
‘ Ok if you insist.’ The lady yielded to his sad eyes.
‘If you don’t mind coming to my office where I can make some tea.’ He said
With shaky hands he made two cups for tea, one for the lady and one for himself.
‘By the way my name is Gurdarshan and yours …?’
‘Rajini.’
‘That is a pretty name.’
‘Thank you.’
He saw her to train and plucked his courage to ask her.
‘I would like to see you again.’ with a blush on his face.
‘ I will be hear next week, same time, same day.’ stated Rajini to make his day.
The following week was a week of expectation and agony for him as he realized the emotional turmoil of his thoughts. He always thought himself as a rationalist who could control his emotions in a reasonable way but now he felt slighted by himself in being in a sentimental fix. Once this is passed, he would recover and be again himself.
* *
He could not sleep properly in the night before the day of reckoning and spent the dark hours in his office. He got up early in the morning to prepare himself and dressed himself in his best suit and put a lot of subtle perfume on his body.
With trembling heart he awaited for her and was not sure whether she would turn up as it might had been a joke played by a pretty woman on a man who had come under a spell.
But she did t return and after the tea ritual, he took her to the railway carriage with a suffocating load in his breast s he wanted to say something but could not formulate the words. He stood outside the where Rajini was sitting and train had only a few minutes to depart. It was a do or die time now and involuntary he held her hand:
‘Would you marry me?’ somehow he managed to say.
As the train started with a screech, there was another sound, which overwhelmed him with its sweet music, ‘Yes’.
‘Yes’ ‘Yes’. The train whistled.
They were married after a month and spent their honeymoon in the Kulu Valley.
For the first few months there life became like a bowl of roses, full of excitement, companionship and new emotional discovery. As usual Gurdarshan became infatuated with all his success. He had a good job, a new beautiful wife and some close friends. He was invited to various functions to give talks on the art of living and on which he thought he was an authority now.
Slowly all this success inflated his ego and he began to find fault with all manners of people specially the poor. He blamed them as being lazy, work shy and burden on the society at large and when they defended themselves as being their fate. He became furious stating the man was capable of doing and achieving everything by his own labours and did not need any divine help or favours and sometime went as far as denying the existence of God.
In a traditional society like his, it was not taken kindly and remarks were passed that he would learn soon enough when he got into physical and emotional troubles and to which he gave a laugh or a sneer. In the meantime he was confident that if a man applied all his faculties whole-heartedly, he was bound to succeed without any outside help from any divine source.
Fulfilling his material and emotional needs, he became sound of body and mind and had peaceful sleep for most of the nights but some of the night he felt apprehended due to some disturbing dream and to which he did not want to admit to but his wife noticed his body getting agitated and screaming at some unwanted visitation. Gradually his condition worsened and his wife requested him to see a doctor but he ignored that request.
In his heart he began to dread going to sleep and there began a recurring dream of woman hanging with a rope by the branch of a tree with her contorted face and asking help from him to relive her suffering. This dream always occurred with a background of hills. Whenever he went to help her, her face became soaked in blood and the drops of it fell on his hands and then he woke with scream. Eventually he went to see the doctor and blamed it on over exertion and did not want to go to a psychiatrist for consultation.
He thought his dream related to some people who did not like him and had grudge against him due to his anti religious views and it showed in his dreams. Doctor gave him some tranquilizer to ease his mind when going to sleep and gradually the horror of the dreams diminished and he recovered his poise and self-confidence. He began to pursue his normal attack on anything religious or spiritual.
Years went by and he found his work engrossing and company of his wife inspirational. He wanted to rise higher in his profession and began to apply for suitable positions. Soon he was called into the HQ for interviews for various posts in the country and eventually was accepted for a remote part of the country at much higher scale of remunerations. He consulted his wife and after some objections, she agreed to the new posting of her husband. There was some shortcomings w in the new post as the couple had to move away from their relations and surroundings but in the end decided to accept the new post.
The couple duly arrived in their new district and found the surroundings enchanting and picturesque. The green hills of the district were a treat for the heart and simple inhabitants of the district, with colorful dresses, was great site for the sore eyes. People offered the couple lot of respect and a few new friendships. To them it was a perfect start in the new post and was confident that they would soon adept to their new surroundings and nothing was unlikely to go wrong.
But things not always come up to our hopes and expectations. Gurdarshan began to have recurrence of his old dream and was much troubled by it. The irony was theses dreams were more intense and showed the hilly background, which he recognized as of the new district. He did not tell his wife about and suffered in silence till he began to scream from his nightmares while sleeping next to her wife .As happened previously she persuaded him to go to the district hospital to consult a doctor and possible get a supply of tranquilizers as previously.
As he sat in the waiting room of the hospital surrounded by other people including an old woman who seemed to be looking at him constantly as if she knew him. He did not like that intrusion but she moved closer to him.
‘Do I know you?’ as ked Gurdarshan
‘No, but I know you. Your face looks familiar.’
‘You can’t be serious. I never been here before.’
‘May be from the past.’
‘ You are talking nonsense. Go away.’
‘ Exactly the kind of anger that drove that woman to suicide.’
‘ What are you talking about?’ he said in anger.
‘ I will tell you the story when I was a child but still I remember it. There was a man like you in the village, very strict and full of authority and had no love for anyone including his wife and when she found another man to find some love. Rumors began to circulate and he set jasoos, detective on her and one day he found his wife in company of another man from other district in compromising position, he became furious and drag her to the house. He made her life a hell and one day she hanged herself on a tree and we found her dangling there and we screamed and ran away. I can still see that horrid expression on her face. There was no road here than but the tree is still there.’
The old woman pointed out the tree from the waiting room window. He felt sick and could not stay there. On the way he went close to the tree and horridly he found the tree and the background of his dream.
He went home with pale face drenched in perspiration am and dropped on a bed.
‘Are you ill? You look terrible.’ His wife came running.
‘Yes it is about a the tree in my dreams and it is dreadful.’
‘ Oh God. You are not going to have nightmares again! You just have a vivid imagination and will drive yourself sick again.’
He wanted to tell her about the truth but knew she would never believe him to do justice to his agony.
Durlabh Singh© 2009.