ஒரு றெயில் பயணம்

Translated from the original Tamil short story oru ṟeyil payaṇam (ஒரு றெயில் பயணம்) from the 1976 collection of short stories titled kōṭukaḷum kōlaṅkalum (கோடுகளும் கோலங்களும்) by Kuppilan Ai. Shanmugan. The original collection is available at noolaham.org. If you have any questions, please contact ez.iniyavan@gmail.com.

The train was speeding along noisily. Inside, a teeming crowd bustled. I stood at the open door of the carriage I was traveling in and surveyed the scenes outside. The railway line was hugging the coast. The train moved ahead, occasionally letting out a long sigh. My eyes scanned the coast. My mind strayed from the actual scenes that were rushing past, and dwelled on imaginary scenes, forming a tapestry.

Pockets of people sat on the blackstone benches that lined the shore, busily chatting with one another. Officials wearing trousers, ordinary workers wearing sarongs, fishermen wearing only loincloths, women, old men, young men, damsels, crones, and toddlers formed knots after knots of people, and immersed themselves in conversations. Humans engage in conversation from the day they are born. Even Adam and Eve must have conversed. I wondered when this conversation would end.

It seemed to me that many of them were laughing, some were talking aloud excitedly, others were moaning weakly from illnesses, while yet others were crying. All the different types of humanity were represented there.

The train heaved a long sigh and sped along. As if to announce an approaching station, it blared out a high-pitched wail. Eventually, accompanied by a series of jolts, moans, and squeaks, it came to a halt at a station. I turned my eyes from the outside towards the inside of the train. A middle-aged man and a young twenty something woman in a red sari got off the train, almost bumping into me. She had the power to instantly attract attention. Many others got off from my carriage, too. But my mind was fixated on that woman. She and the man rushed towards the south, mingling among the sea of heads on the platform, and disappeared from sight.

I was lost in thought, thinking about her. My eyes stared blankly at the platform. The hawkers’ calls of vadai.. vadai.. soda, gently rapped on the wall of my consciousness.

The train sounded its horn, getting ready to leave. I peeked outside. The guard waved the green flag from the carriage at the northern end of the train. The train started with a jolt and began crawling slowly. I yearned to catch a glimpse of the woman somewhere on the platform. The crawling train gradually sped up to a steady trot. I kept looking outside until the platform disappeared from sight. Finally, with a sigh, I turned my gaze inside the carriage. The crowd had dissipated. Everyone but me had a seat. I looked around to see if I could find an empty seat.

Suddenly I saw a pair of eyes looking at me inquisitively. When she saw me returning her gaze, she blushed and cast her eyes downwards. Her face was round like the moon. She was a little paler than a lemon. She wore three thin lines of vibhūti on her forehead. A small black poṭṭu adorned the center of her forehead. She had parted her hair in the middle in a straight line and wore it in a plait held by a red ribbon. She wore a white pāvādai long skirt and a green blouse with a flower pattern. In her arms that looked like banana stems, she held two books and a notebook. I tried to read the title of the book. ‘Bharathi and Shelly.’ She must be a literature lover, I thought. My eyes refused to move away from her.

She lifted her eyes up once again, only to cast them down when she noticed that I was still looking at her.

With a smile, I turned my gaze towards the outside. I marveled at my own psyche. Just a little while ago, I was infatuated by a woman, yearning to see her again. But now, I want to look at a different woman, admire her beauty inch-by-inch, and struggle to take my eyes off of her.

My mind urged me to look at her again.

I resolved to suppress this urge, forcing my mind away from thinking about her.

The sun’s gentle evening glow pervaded the landscape. The sea water shimmered in the sun. The white waves reflected the sunlight directly onto my face. At a distance, the hazy pale dot of a ship was hurrying away. Nearer to the shore, on the northwest side, a sailboat was gently swaying in the wind. Two people on the boat appeared as two tiny dots. A couple stood by the railway tracks looking at the passing train. A three-year old boy, standing between them, cackled and waved.

With a jolt, the train came to a halt at the next station.

She, who was regarding me from the corner of her eye, smiled and turned to look at the sky.

I suppressed, with difficulty, the urge to laugh and looked for a seat. I resolved to speak to her.

As luck would have it, right next to her in her seat, there was just enough space for one person. She kept staring at the sky. I hesitantly walked towards her and sat down next to her.

She turned to look at me nonchalantly, as if she was in fact expecting me to sit down next to her! Her eyes shone with an intoxicating beauty. She squirmed a little in her seat as if she could not bear my body brushing against hers. She also seemed very anxious to tell me something.

The train started again with another jolt. She was gazing outside through the window as if she was ignoring me. With a sigh, I turned my eyes to scan the interior of the carriage. She turned to look at me as if my sigh had interrupted her reverie. I pretended not to notice her glance and stared intently at something. I could sense through the corner of my eye that she was sizing me up from head to toe. I continued to ignore her.

A baby started to scream. The young mother who was sitting opposite to me tried to hold the baby tightly to her chest, attempting to make the baby fall asleep. The baby’s cry subsided in the comfort of its mother’s bosom. I turned my attention to the carriage. It was now a little more crowded. A couple of people must have boarded the train at the last station. A young man was standing where I used to stand, immersed in some imagined stories. Next to him, a fisherman had upended his empty basket and was sitting on it. A boy selling lottery tickets was holding a board with lottery tickets hanging from it and regarded the seashore with interest. Beyond him a bearded old man was staring at me and the young woman sitting next to me. Some beggar woman was doing her rounds while singing a new film song. She came to stand before me and thrust her hand towards me for money while continuing to sing.

I groped around in my pocket. I could not find anything smaller than a fifty-cent coin. The young woman deftly opened the black handbag next to her, took out a ten-cent coin and put it on the beggar’s palm. Until then, I had not noticed that she had a handbag.

The beggar looked at me. I signaled her to go away.’ I was embarrassed to do this while the young woman was still watching me. But I did not have any other option. Some romeos would give up anything to be able to impress women. But I could not part with a fifty-cent coin as casually as they would have.

I am not sure what she thought of this interaction. She turned to look at me. I met her gaze. She cast her eyes downwards. She did not have the same flourish on her face as before. The beggar moved on and started her lament once again. I silently cursed the beggar.

The train paused at the next station and started again. The beggar woman and the lottery-ticket boy had disembarked. The young woman with the baby was leaning her head onto the seat back while still holding the baby tight. The fisherman with the basket was mumbling a popular Sinhala song. The young man at the door was immersed in some deep thought. The bearded old man was fast asleep.

I looked at the young woman. She was lost in the scenes fleeting past outside. Her beautiful hands tightly clutched her books and notebook. Her handbag nestled among them.

The train left the coast and turned inland. It was zipping along on the railway track that snaked through beautiful verdant paddy fields. In the dimming sunlight, the scene glittered with a particularly beautiful elegance. I, like her, kept looking at this stunning natural beauty.

The train rumbled noisily over a river bridge. There were two women bathing on the riverbank. Next to the path lay lavish green paddy fields and banana plantations.

Tired of looking at nature, I turned my gaze towards her. There was no change in her. She kept staring outside.

“May I borrow this book?” I asked. She moved slightly as if being woken from a reverie. Without turning her head, she flipped one of her plaits over her shoulder, laid it on her chest, and adjusted it. When the plait moved from her back to her front, it caressed me on its way. I yearned to embrace her. She had not responded to my question. I thought perhaps she did not hear me.

The train rolled on through a tunnel, engulfing the carriage in an artificial darkness. I assume she turned her gaze inwards during this time. When the train emerged from the tunnel, she lifted her head and looked at me. Our gazes met in a head-on collision. With a shy smile, she bowed her head once again.

The old fisherman on the basket was mumbling ādarē, mama ādarē (in love, I am in love). The baby in her mother’s embrace wiggled its toe playfully. The young man standing at the door thought of something and smiled.

I looked at her, and asked again, “Could you please let me have a look at your book?” Her hands moved. She took the book with care and placed it in my hands. I looked down on its cover. It said, ‘Two Poets — Dr. K. Kailasapathy.’ I was right — I decided that she was indeed deeply into literature.

I turned the cover over. The name ‘Piramiḷā’ was written in Tamil, Sinhala, and English. I turned the next page and asked, “Is your name ‘Piramiḷā?”

She nodded, and asked, “What is your name?”

“Iḷaṅkō,” I responded. “Oh! You have the name of the author of Silappathikāram,” she laughed.

I flipped through the pages. I did not feel the urge to read even a single word. She was observing me.

“Do you know Sinhala?” I asked suddenly. She said, “I am deeply fond of literature. While I was reading Tamil literature, I accidentally came across the Tamil translation of a poem called ‘The House.’ A Sinhala poet had written that beautiful poem. From that day, I resolved to learn Sinhala so that I can read Sinhala literature in its original form. Now I know Sinhala reasonably well!”

“In that case, would you help me learn Sinhala?” I asked.

She laughed out loud. “We are on a train,” she said. “You and I are friends during this journey. Once the journey ends, we will go our separate ways,” she let out a deep sigh.

I have no idea how I mustered so much courage. I said, “Having met you in this train journey, I cannot forget you in my life journey, Piramiḷā; you have captured a permanent place in my heart.”

She smiled silently. Tear drops glistened in her eyes. Suddenly, she buried her face in my chest and cried. I stroked her hair.

The bearded old man kept staring at us. I did not pay attention to the others.

The train slowed down. She wiped her tears and said, “All these days, I was waiting for something. I found it here,” she pointed to my heart.

Presently she returned to her jovial self. “Would you return my book? My station is approaching.”

I gave the book back to her. The train came to a stop.

She got off the train, and told me, “Like you said, we met on this train journey, but I, too, cannot forget you in my life journey. It is from you that I received what I was expectantly searching for. Life is full of expectations, is it not.?” She brought her hands together in farewell.

Her beautiful form was disappearing from my view. The train blared plaintively in a sorrowful tone and started moving again. Through my tears, I saw the outline of her waving to me. I waved back.

The train has traveled far. I glanced inside the carriage. The fisherman with the basket, the young woman when the baby, and the young man, had all disembarked from the train. The bearded old man kept staring at me intently.

I cast my eyes outside. The crescent moon was disappearing behind the cloud cover.

The train was speeding towards its destination.

1968