Cushioned by the pillow and mattress, it took a while before the phone’s buzzing woke me up. It had gone silent by the time I reached out for it, and saw through a squinted half open eye that it was one of my cousin brothers who had called. Seeing the time on the phone’s clock, I knew I had slept enough to have taken care of having been up all of last night during Laylatul Qadr. I got out of bed, and it was then that Amma came into the bedroom with the news.
My sister’s father-in-law had passed away a few minutes ago.
The news came as a bit of a shock to me. Though he had been in the hospital over the past few days after a severe attack of asthma, I had a strong feeling that he would pull through. In the time that I had come to know and grown fond of him, all along he had always been so full of life.
A little over a month ago, sitting in the same living room, he was telling me of his selfish-by-his-own-admission reason for his interest in my getting married. That at his age, he wanted things to look forward to, and what could be better than a marriage in the family to inject some thrill and excitement back into life. Otherwise, he had seen all that he had to.
I realize he was probably the only person in recent times who I had fun talking to about the prospects of marriage.
A couple of days, a few shared meals and a lot of heartwarming conversations later, he got on a train and left.
It rained today. Heavy. Sheltered under a shade near the entrance to the railway station, I could see the slope on the sidewalks turning into conduits for mini waterfalls. Clear water gushed into the drains and spilled out onto the roads as a six inches thick transparent sheet which constantly kept auto healing the bubbles which kept breaking its surface.
The weight of drenched sneakers is a deterrent whose strength is underrated. What made things worse was that after I finally managed to reach the railway station, wading through ankle deep water, there weren’t any trains scheduled to depart around that time towards my destination.
The best shot was an evening train, which would have allowed me to be just in time to attend the Namaaz-e-Janaza and burial. I returned home to change into a dry set of clothes. There were a few hours before evening.
Trucks. Buses. Carts. Rickshaws. Vehicles coming on to you on the right side of the road as you.
As I ran towards the railway platform with a futility which had already become evident a few moments ago, I saw the train leaving the station.
It was the same train on which I had dropped him off on the last evening of his last visit here.