Stories...yes!
But not the Instagram ones, but the ones we daily weave or are being knit unknowingly. I have a special thing with the winter season, for it inspires me to write.
One fine day I was all tired from work or specifically the life and was snuggly fit into the quilt. I looked at my cellphone screen, took my feet out of the quilt to assess how cold it is. God! Did I just get frostbite? It was really cold, but I had nothing to do on that boring weekend. I layered myself up and locked the place I had rented. The lock handle made squeaking sounds, the wind conspired me to get inside again. But the courage...courage to get out of monotony was strong and warm than the wind.
I started walking down the mud layered path, looking high up in the sky and spotting my workplace "Kasauli", for which the Doordarshan signal relay tower was an iconic landmark.
I passed by few fruit shops, a dumpling takeaway, garages, wineshop and the heritage Kalka Shimla railway track.
I headed to the Dharampur railway station and sat on a bench. Little did I know that I require a platform ticket to even sit idle and aimlessly over that bench. The natural lights dimmed a bit, the breeze got colder. I did not want to move, not a bit. I sat there, I talked to myself, longed for a shoulder to lean on and thought of everything that could possibly go wrong while overthinking, that train might run up the platform, might get electrocuted, or maybe the "not so stray dog" can bite me up in the leg, and then I would have run to my own work to get antirabies treatment, preventive treatment to be accurate. Did they make some, good ones? Not sure!
I watched trains come and go, I saw people heading over to their "heavenly abode" with their children, I saw passengers boarding trains to and fro, not so hurriedly because the platform had a maximum of 2-3 passengers most of the time. But, I was stranded in a hope that one fine day everything will fall into place. I could hear "gurbaani", religious chants from Sikh community, a bit bleak though, when my eyes caught sight of the building. I bowed while I sat cross-legged on the bench.
Later I headed to the small eating place which served lentils, aloo gobhi (cauliflower and potato) and thick burnt tandoori roti on a daily basis. Now you might relate to the monotony I lived for over a year. The low roofed Dhaba with the serving area was painted all blue, adding more blues to my life. On occasions when the electricity went off, the owner would light up a vintage kerosene lamp.
Onions...a bit dehydrated were the only salad served. Many times, a glass of water (possibly unhygienic) was the only dessert.
Next stop, sweetshop!
A small sweetshop right opposite to the Dhaba came to rescue at times, to overcome the bitterness of life. The hot gulab jamun plate would try to lift my mood up, but trust me, it has failed almost every time....every damn time. The compliments I paid to the owner were only out of goodwill gesture. I ate two and left.
Reaching back to my room, I sat down right in front of a single rod heater which took all the time in the world to light up fully.
Every person I met, I saw, I talked to and I thought about is weaving his or her own story. Maybe I will also be a part of that but maybe I won't get to know. Who remembers who?
Maybe one fine day when I will leave the place, the Dhaba guy will share stories about me, or maybe the platform ticket collector will, maybe one day they will read, that I have written about them.
They might fit into the stories you tell people or they may become insignificant in the stories you will tell to your grandchildren, but deep inside you know that they have been a part of the journey you have lived with those scars.
Maybe these maybe's will come alive, maybe!
Comments