2115 UP: 12/21/08

Friday, December 26, 2008

Identity of a memory

I was sitting on the bench when I heard it-a sound. I should better say that I felt the sound. It was an indefinable sound as I do not know in what way I can be more specific about it. Was it a feeling –amplified? I felt something but I failed to form it. It was something going off leaving in its trail a rumbling referring to an experience I had had in my far off past. I tried to be near to that experience. As I thought of catching it in its body- it became lost altogether in the very next moment! But what was significant and surprising that I was given a feeling of knowing it more than anything that was associated with my life. So I had to dig myself in order to find the root of that experience. It did not refer to any event but it had an essence of a tale.

Did it remind me of something I had forgotten? It was as if I was incapable of reading my own letter I had written to my dearest person. And the tragedy was that I could only remember her face if I could decipher what I had written!

I was falling to my bottom as I went on digging through me. After sometime I got near to a misty zone and had the faint touch of what I had lost. But more I was nearing it the more I got myself dissolved in that mist. I started losing myself and almost lost. At that moment the whole world started vibrating and I woke up by a terrible jerk. The brilliant light of the engine of 2115 UP fell on my face. It was entering the station.

SITARAMPUR RAILWAY STATION AND 2115 UP

Sitarampur is a small railway station in Bihar. There are thousands of railway stations big and small in India. Bihar is bounded by Nepal in the north and by Jharkhand in the south. Very few people know about this place outside the district of Rohtas, where falls this small town of Sitarampur. However The British liked this place perhaps the surrounding of Sitarampur was picturesque. The climate was healthy. There was a deep forest near Sitarampur. The Englishmen camped here frequently for hunting. And there was beyond the jungle a mica mine. The mine was owned by the British. So –quite naturally the local people of Sitarampur were accustomed with the white sahibs and they liked them also. It was because of the British- railway line was laid through this place and the Sitarampur station came into existence.

The British have gone and also the old people with them, who knew many things about Sitarampur. They were fond of their past and tales. So we heard many stories that still hang around the air of Sitarampur.

It’s a calm place with greenery on every side. I love this place and especially the railway station and enjoy strolling on the not so crowded platform or sitting on the bench under a tree to think about impermanence of life as the station is not a permanent destination of a train.

There is one passenger train running through this station. This is 2115 UP and 2116 DN. But like people of Sitarampur –I’m also accustomed to know it as 2115 UP. I love trains still like a child who loves to watch the driver of the engine with awe and wonder.

So if you ever feel to visit Sitarampur, just start for the place Sitarampur by 2115 UP and leave your destiny along the rails. Wish you a happy journey.