The Express- part 1

The Express, my first attempt at anything resembling a short story, and the one closest to my heart. I'd published it first, but redoing it in case anyone missed it the last time :P...It turned out to be rather dark without having any intention to be so. Not much happens in it, to be honest, but it tells a deep story. I've tried to make it more layered, for eg. the unexplained 'relationship' between the schoolmaster and his daughter, i tried to make it gently dark, if that makes any sense...anyways hope you enjoy it...

CROOONN!!!

The train rushed past eight year old Niranjan’s frail figure cutting a sorry outline against the mellow morning light. The sun had just begun its gradual ascent over the hills and it bathed the valley in a soft, orange halo. A slow, silent breeze caressed the shrubs on the incline as if to wake them, and if one heard carefully enough, they would hear cows mooing in the distance.

But day after day, this pristine moment would be routinely shattered by the thundering train. Every day at the same time, the same train would make its way through the valley. Niranjan was in his usual position; on the boulder just beside the tracks. He narrowed his large brown eyes, with a sly grin on his face and tried to take in all the different faces that blurred past him on the train. He didn’t know its name so he just called it ‘The Express’.

It had become sort of a habit with him now and it had all started six months ago. A resident of the village of Devrajanagar, he helped his father by herding the cows of their village. On that eventful morning, he had chased a stray cow right to the train tracks. With a start he realized where he was and his first reaction was to run away. It had been drilled into his head never to go near the railway lines. His mother said they were too dangerous. Until that day, he had only heard of them, heard them and his curiosity had been piqued enough. Ordinarily, if he’d have dared wander up to them he would have received a sound thrashing at home. But on that day he seized this legitimate opportunity to take in the spectacle and with one eye on the cows in the distance, he lingered a while on a big, lopsided boulder resting right beside the parallel lines. As he was gazing curiously at the shiny tracks, an ominous sound rang in the distance. Scared out of his wits and yet rooted in place, he wondered what it was. Soon enough, the first few compartments of the express snaked their way through the winding valley. Niranjan looked on.

It was a whole new world. He saw countless faces within the open windows, mostly bored, some anxious and some curiously taking in the sights. He saw kids, adults and old folk too. There were more people in the train than he had ever seen in his village. Then there were those mysterious compartments where you couldn’t see beyond the dark windows. Niranjan wondered to no end what dwelled within them. But most of all, he gaped at the people standing in the open doorways to the bogeys. How the wind whipped through their hair, flattening their clothes against their body. It was noisy and combined with the engine’s whine, made for a god-almighty din. Add to that the cacophony of the travelers. It was something else entirely. And just like that, in a minute, the train disappeared, leaving behind it the shook up valley gathering its bearings. Niranjan had stared at it, open-mouthed the whole time.

From then on, he came every day. The train was his ticket to a different world, a world he had never seen but wanted to. It took him out of his mundane and idyllic village existence and thrust him amidst a whole plethora of new sights, sounds and smells. He loved it. Some days, he saw familiar faces, people who travelled to and fro often. But mostly, he saw an unending stream of strange and varied looking people that made him wonder how many of them lived outside of his world. He knew barely a handful of persons in the village besides his family. Their neighbor, another farmer who prayed to the gods all the time because he thought they controlled everything, regardless of what he did. The village potter, who had been making nothing but sinister looking figures holding guns ever since his son had died fighting for the army. Everyone reckoned he’d gone right over the edge. The village trader, who sold everyone’s produce to the distributors; with his tobacco lined, toothy yet cunning smile, he was a complete leech. Then there was the graduate schoolmaster who was known to be a principled man. But for some reason, his daughter was scared of him and did not come to the school for days on end, Niranjan noticed. She walked with an awkward gait; her legs spread apart. She was also unnaturally silent and timid around her father.

There were a few others too; the nosy, gossipy ladies and other patronizing old folk with their worldly wisdom, who- truth be told- hadn’t really seen much beyond the horizon. The train was his window to a fantasy. And every single day, come rain or shine, he would walk the three miles from his house just to stand in the same position, at the same time and watch the same train go by. It was a member of his life now, albeit a very, very long and noisy one.

But today, Niranjan wasn’t as wholeheartedly absorbing the spectacle as always. He was thinking about the lottery ticket he had secretly bought with the money he’d saved up. Having not even told his younger sister, he has sneaked out with his ten rupees and bought himself a ticket for a lottery of ten lakh rupees. That was last month, and today was the draw. He innocently believed that he was indeed going to win it. Submerged in his thoughts, he barely noticed the large ‘X’ on the last compartment on the train as it passed him. Busily herding his cows back, he walked with a spring in his step and a confident smile. But then, right at that moment, his heart stopped beating and jumped right into his mouth...