Kolkata, West Bengal
“Excuse me. Mastermoshai.”
The gentleman turned around. In the next moment, the wrinkles on his already lined face deepened even more.
It was that very train which had suddenly jolted to a stop and then refused to move again. It lay there, still as a huge python resting in a field. Who knows how long it had been? In the darkness, it felt as though I had entered the land of the dead. There was no sound from any of the passengers. After that jolt, my sleep had broken and never returned. A strange heaviness pressed on my chest, as if something weighty were sitting upon it.
A little while ago, I could at least see a few faint lights and now nothing but pitch-black darkness all around. Has something happened? How could all the lights of the train go out at once? It just stood there, unmoving.
Wait, now the train had started moving again. The lights and fans were coming back on. But why were the fans spinning so slowly? Even though winter was almost over, the air still felt cool. And why did the lights look so dim now? It seemed as if a bluish glow was seeping out from all the bulbs. Am I seeing things? I must get my eyes checked.
Just an hour ago, everyone in the compartment had been talking and laughing. Now it seemed as though everyone had fallen asleep. In my coach, all of them were lying under their blankets, completely covered. But it was only eleven at night, why go to sleep so early?
The train was entering a dark tunnel. On this route, there are five or six such tunnels, the biggest one usually takes about two minutes to pass through. But this darkness wasn’t ending. Almost five minutes had gone by. I didn’t remember any such long tunnel on this route. I reached for my watch but before I could look, faint lights began to flicker again in the distance.
I began to see light again. That meant the train had come out of the tunnel.
A station seemed to appear. I tried to look at the name. What! This is my familiar station! But I had read in the newspaper that after that incident, the old railway line had been shut down. Trains now take a detour. The old line hasn’t been reopened yet. Of course, I was abroad at the time. And how accurately can one really know what’s happening back home from foreign papers?
There’s a reason I rushed to Diyang town right after returning to Kolkata. My childhood friend Rajen studied with me there. During vacations, I lost count of how many times I’d gone to their home nestled in the Garo Hills. A huge house, with that beautiful black-and-white chessboard floor. When I was leaving for England, Rajen had said, “Ajay, don’t forget us, will you?”
“Let’s see if I do,” I’d replied.
“You have to write one letter every month though.”
I had kept my word. But lazy Rajen didn’t keep his. The last letter I got from him was after I came back home. What surprised me was that it had come to my home address. Why hadn’t he sent it to me in England? Stranger still, my parents hadn’t given it to me they had tucked it inside a book Rajen had once gifted me. I found it while flipping through the pages.
A short letter: “How are you, Ajay? We are fine. Do come back home. I really wish to see you.” That’s all! The faint postal mark showed it had been mailed just a day before that fateful day after which the whole town of Diyang was turned upside down.
Since that incident, I’ve never heard from Rajen again. Nor from his family. Every time I tried calling his number, the same message played: “This number is currently unreachable.”
One by one, the stations disappeared into darkness, and I still couldn’t make sense of it all. As far as I knew, there were no train routes to Diyang anymore. The North Eastern Frontier Railway’s line there was closed. You had to go by train up to Lusang, a hundred miles away, and take a car from there. But here I was, on that very same route I had traveled countless times before. Even when I looked it up online, this was the route shown. The ticket looked right too. Then why should I get down at Lusang? I’ll get off at Diyang station itself.
I did. The clock’s hands were almost touching two at night. When I stepped out, I saw the station master waving the flag as the train left, then slowly limping toward his office. On small stations, the master has to handle most things himself. I recognized him at once by his limp. I had met him when I last visited Rajen’s house.
He Hasn’t Been Transferred! How surprising!
“Excuse me, Mastermoshai.”
The gentleman turned around. In the next moment, the wrinkles on his already lined face deepened even more.
The station master smiled. “Ah, it’s Ajay babu! What a surprise!”
“Oh, nothing much. I’m going to Rajen’s house.”
“It’s been a long time since you’ve been home. Rajen babu was saying you’d gone abroad. For studies, was it?”
“Yes, something like that. But tell me, sir what’s going on? The train seems to be running perfectly fine. But I read in the papers that...”
“You’re talking about the newspaper reports. They love to make a mountain out of a molehill. Anyway, just yesterday I met Rajen babu. He said you might be coming.” More wrinkles creased his folded face.
I realized he was smiling again.
Strange. How did Rajen know I’d be coming? And he even talked about it with this man? Without prolonging the talk, I said, “Alright then, I’ll get going. What do you say?”
“Yes, go ahead. It’s just a short walk. Though, let’s see if you find the door open this late at night.”
Another faint smile on that wrinkled face.
Rajen’s house was just a short distance past platform number three. Not a single streetlight was working. I switched on my phone’s flashlight and walked ahead. That huge house stood there in the still night, silent like a sleeping dinosaur. Strange, the door was open! And who’s that? Rajen?
Seeing me after so many years, Rajen said, “Come in, come in, Ajay! I was just thinking about you.”
“Thinking about me? Have you taken up astrology or what? And what are you doing standing at your front door so late at night, thinking? How are you, man? You look exactly the same as I remember, you haven’t changed one bit. Where are uncle and aunt?”
“Father and mother have gone to my sister’s place in Kolkata. Right now, I’m the emperor of this house.”
“Excellent! Then we can really chat the night away, Your Majesty!”
“Not tonight, my friend. Have something to eat and get some sleep. Tomorrow morning we’ll have the whole day to catch up.”
“Are you going to say all that standing here? Come on, let’s go inside.”
I realized Rajen was sleepy. But somehow, by what magic I don’t know, he’d already arranged hot rotis and a spicy red egg curry for me.
“Rest for a few hours, Ajay. We’ll have plenty to talk about tomorrow morning.”
I entered that same old room. There was the Burma-teak bed, just as before. The room carried a smell like it hadn’t been lived in for a long time.
When the room is shut tight, it feels like this two wooden idols staring at me with unblinking eyes. At some point, I had fallen asleep. Who knows what time of night it was.
Suddenly, I felt the bed beneath me shaking. And Rajen was banging on the door—
“Ajay! Ajay! Come out quickly!”
The two wooden idols toppled from the table onto the floor. What was happening? As soon as my feet touched the ground, I realized the earth was trembling. Was this the end of the world?
All around, conch shells were blowing. The entire earth seemed to shudder and quake. The moment I stepped outside, Rajen dragged me toward an open field.
“Good thing we got out in time! But… what’s that, Ajay?”
Before my eyes, a crack appeared on the wall of Rajen’s house. I watched as it widened into a gaping fracture. Cement chunks fell from the roof with sharp thuds. The house was collapsing!
Somehow, Rajen had wandered off toward the pond by the courtyard, I hadn’t even noticed, too stunned by the destruction around me. Then came his cry, piercing, desperate— “Ajay! Save me!”
Some of the bricks on the pond’s edge must have loosened earlier. Rajen lost his balance. His foot slipped straight into the pond. The steps were slimy with moss. He fell into the deepest part of the water.
Rajen flailed, splashing helplessly. He didn’t know how to swim, he had always feared water since childhood. I ran, mind blank, instincts on fire. I had to pull him out.
I reached out my hand but only a cold gust of air brushed past my fingers. Nothing. Just emptiness. My friend was sinking before my eyes.
Why couldn’t I grab his hand? Why couldn’t I save him? Only his voice echoed in my ears—
“Ajay… save me…”
The world around me began to shatter, piece by piece. And just before I lost consciousness, one thought flashed through my mind, there had been an earthquake just like this, one that destroyed Diyang town. Exactly three years ago. On this very same day—January twentieth.
When I came to, I saw my brother and sister-in-law sitting beside me, faces drawn with worry. Tubes and wires surrounded me. On a nearby monitor, lines pulsed steadily up and down.
They told me the train I had taken to visit Rajen’s house had met with a terrible accident near Tinsukia. From our compartment, I was the only one who…
Local people had rescued me, bloodied, unconscious. After forty-eight hours in a coma, I finally regained consciousness. It took another six months to recover completely.
Because Rajen’s parents were in Kolkata at the time, their lives had been spared. When they embraced me, they wept uncontrollably. I learned that Rajen’s body had been found floating in that same pond, the one I had seen in my vision. I was the only living witness to that terrible event.
Rajen had written in his last letter that he wished so much to see me again. And indeed, we had met, just not in the way either of us imagined. Listening to his parents, I could only think of Rajen’s outstretched hand, his desperate cry for help. That day, perhaps he had really called out for someone to save him. But had anyone heard that voice?
Even now, I wonder what truly happened to me that night, standing at the threshold between life and death? Was it all a dream born from my unconscious mind? But then, how did my imagination reveal the exact way Rajen had died?
I’ve come to believe there exists a realm between life and death, a thin layer that connects the two. Perhaps while I lay in that coma, I had somehow crossed that layer, reached back to that night three years ago… that dreadful, terrifying night.
Or maybe… I don’t know. I keep thinking, but no answers ever come.
Only one image remains, a hand rising and sinking again and again in dark water,and a voice, trembling with desperation, calling out—
“Ajay… save me.”
And every time I think of it, my eyes blur with tears.