None to return

It is advised to read the earlier post "Home" before reading this.

Ramprasad was transferred to a station near to his home. He did not expect that his application for transfer to his desired station would get the approval of the authority so soon. But hopes are sometimes fulfilled in this world which seems always to stand against individual preferences only to make fun with its own woldly norms. So one day he packed up his bag and left Sitarampur. The transfer order came all on a sudden only fifteen days after Mallika and her brother had left for their home.

It was a unique situation for me as I always was sympathetic for Ramprasad –who had become a close friend-for his lonely life here in Sitarampur leaving his wife, child and parents in a far away home. So I congratulated him for his good luck. But at the same time I was to lose someone who was perhaps more than a family member in my so called ‘home’. I knew that it was a permanent parting of ways for us as Ramprasad would never come back to this small rural railway station in future.

During Mallika’s brief stay here-the air of Sitarampur had been filled with fragrance and she had induced a seeking in me for a permanence. I had not exactly realised this so far unaccustomed element in my psychology. But I had lost that cosiness of living in one’s preferred place after she had left. The coming and going of the trains had turned the platform and the cosiest bench on it as something abandoned. Mallika had put me in embarrassment for not inviting her just at the last moment she had been leaving me. On sitting over the bench of the platform I had many times –in my silent uttering-told Mallika that Sitarampur had been a lesser world for me after she had left. In the impermanence air of the platform –the inarticulate invitation meant a vague hollowness.

But we mortals live in extended time. So I hoped that next time when Ramaprasad would go to his home I would send my invitation to Mallika through him. I had asked Ramprasad several times about his next visit to his home. A sad smile appeared on his face every time I asked him of it. He did not know that I was sadder than him for his not having the opportunity to visit his home so soon! I always carried a sense of hurriedness like that person who was a bit late and so was hurried in his steps of walking to catch the last train. I would have to mend my lapse by inviting Mallika. But however impermanent the world might be it was certain to me that sooner or later Ramprasad would have his leave application approved by his authority. But sometime our fate gives more than what we want. So Ramprasad’s original application for transfer was approved in an unusual swiftness.

The relieving station master had already taken charges and we all like so many similar occasions in different times and with different persons were waiting for the 2115 UP on the platform. Ramprasad like a good friend became sad for leaving me –as both of us knew that we would never meet again. The 2115 UP arrived and Ramprasad boarded the train.

The train left with Ramprasad in a few minutes. This time I had been robbed of my opportunity to invite Mallika. Mallika was forever lost in the impermanence air of the railway platform.