AN UNFORGETTABLE ENCOUNTER

AN UNFORGETTABLE ENCOUNTER

Many of those who travel by train must have had many good and bad experiences with people. So have I. I’ve met many people on trains, but this one was special.

It was a December morning. I slipped out of a beautiful dream at the ring of my phone. It was my father; he asked me to get ready to go home. I remembered him mentioning it yesterday. I wasn’t very interested and didn’t even care to set an alarm. Trying to recall the dream, I walked to the washroom. By his next call, I was ready to go. He was waiting for me outside the gate, and we walked to the railway station.

As we reached the station, the train arrived. My father, by his nature, never allowed me to hook onto the crowd at the door. But I always managed to crawl in, find a seat, and get settled. This time, though, I couldn’t make it; he had a pretty strong hold on my bag. We finally got inside the train, and I had to sit where he instructed me to. I was a little annoyed since I didn’t get a place near him.

I took out my headset, switched on the music, and closed my eyes, trying to get back to my dream. As the train started moving, I felt someone looking at me. Without showing much expression, I looked around. I saw a young man sitting near me ; a North Indian by his looks. He resembled actor Prabhu, with his big, cute face, and also the shopkeeper next to my hostel, with his heavy tummy. He smiled, and I smiled back.

We started our conversation with a simple hi-hello, and soon it grew into different topics. I didn’t really want to talk much, but there was something about him that made me answer his questions. He was special with his style of talking: very gentle, polite, and jovial. He even said hi to my father, who was sitting in the next seat, and my father nodded back.

We discussed many things. He was from Varanasi and had come to Kerala with his Keralite friend. Only then did I notice his friend sitting next to him. The friend started talking to me in Malayalam. Even though I loved Malayalam more than English, I replied in English- that’s how I usually avoided loose talk with strangers. His friend pointed at some random stream outside the window and called out, “Deepak, look at that!” He turned around and asked me, “You didn’t know my name, right?” I just smiled.

At the next station, I got a seat near my father and shifted. As I waved him goodbye, he said, “Visit Varanasi, it’s a nice place.” I smiled as usual and took my place near my father. We shared glances and smiles until we reached the station. As I got off the train, I waved him goodbye, and he waved back with a smile.

About three months later, I found a friend request on Facebook- Deepak Kumar. I saw a message in my inbox: “Hi Revathy. You remember me?”

I replied, “The train?”

He said, “Yeah!”

I moved the cursor to accept his request. My friend, who was watching me, grew curious and asked, “Are you going to accept it?”

“Why not?” I rolled my eyes.

“I thought you wouldn’t—by your nature,” she said with a grin. Then she added, “If he searched for you all over Facebook with just your first name, he really means it! Accept it, yaar—he’s damn cute!”

I didn’t smile. I just gave her a “don’t mess with me” grin and, without a second thought, deleted the request.

I don’t know what made me delete that request, but whenever I boarded a train after that incident, the first thing that crossed my mind was his face—or maybe it was his natural behavior and the way he spoke. He didn’t seem like a guy from the present tech era. Instead, he reflected a certain humanity within him.

It was indeed an unforgettable encounter—an encounter with a serene human being.