Suresh held her gently with both arms and patted her back reassuringly. “Don’t cry, Amma, it’s only been six months,” he said. “And I am quite well now; and you will always have Chetan, Ammama and little Neetha Kuttan.” Chetan was the endearing term used for his elder brother and Ammama for his sister-in-law. Neetha Kuttan was his adorable little niece. They lived in Bangalore where his brother was with a software firm. In time, the weeping subsided and she released him. “Sit down,” she said. “I will get your breakfast.” Suresh deposited his backpack under the dining table and followed her into the kitchen. He stood at the door, leaning against its sides, and stared after his mother as she went about her business. “It’s something you like,” she said as she oiled the deep concave skillet. She put some batter in its hollow and placed it over the blue flame of the gas stove. In a few moments, she again caught hold of the frying pan by its handles, took it off the fire and deftly rocked it slowly through a circle. The batter climbed up the sides of the vessel all around, leaving a thick centre and a thin, crisp rim all around. “Ah! Winged appam,” Suresh exclaimed.
And chicken curry,” she added. “What a treat,” he proclaimed, with a smile of anticipation spreading across his face. “I will go up and leave my stuff and have a quick bath, Amma,” said Suresh. After his bath, he changed into a lungi and T-shirt. He came down and sat at the table, where his mother sat waiting for him. “This is lovely,” said Suresh as he dug into his breakfast. There was a knock on the door. “That must be your father, coming back after his walk,” Aleykutty said as she went to open the door. Suresh turned to the door as his father strode in. “Did you have a good journey?” he asked, clapping him over both his shoulders from the back. He went around and sat at his usual place at the head of the table. He leaned forwards, put his elbows on the table, cradled his chin on his palms and proceeded to quietly survey his son as he ate his meal. Mathachen was of average build. His hair, which was combed back, revealed symmetrical balding at the temples. It was mostly ash-coloured, with streaks of black. His bronzed skin, thin lips, bushy eyebrows and penetrating dark brown eyes gave him a rather stern appearance, which beguiled a rather friendly disposition. Although he shared his mother’s complexion, on the whole, Suresh was more like his father. “So how are the tribals getting along? And how is Dr Ravikumar?” he asked after a while. After the good food, they talked together for a long time before his father advised him to get some sleep. “You can never get good rest on that bus,” he added.
Suresh climbed up the steps to his room, pushed open the door and it was as though thirteen years had fallen away all of a sudden. On the wall to his left was the painting he had done when he was thirteen. It was a silhouette, which showed a maiden with long hair, leaning out over a castle balcony and reaching towards her beau who held out a perfect rose. His bed was in the same place, and so was his cupboard, which held knick-knacks from his childhood. Among these were his stamp collection, an old and now rusting Meccano set and his favourite ‘Inderjal’ comics. As he rummaged through the lot, one other object caught his attention. He picked it up in his hands and turned it around. It had belonged to his grandfather who had died eight years ago. As the old Swiss pocket watch lay in his palm, it carried him back almost twenty years, to his grandfather’s home in Kottara. The watch was bulky by present-day standards. Although it did not work anymore, the shining stainless steel had lost none of its glitter; you had to flick open the front cover to see the dial with its Roman numerals. It had a winding knob at the top, surrounded by a ring with which it could be attached to your belt rings. Suresh lay down to nap, but sleep would not come as vivid memories assailed him from every side. The oldest of them concerned their biannual trips from Cochin, where they lived, to Kottara, their ancestral home. These trips were something he had looked forward to as a child. There was much packing and he had his own little airbag. A beat-up old ambassador taxi took them to the train station. As the train rumbled onto the platform and stopped, there was much jostling to find place in their third-class compartment with hard wooden benches. Those metre-gauge trains had only an aisle on one side, and therefore, fewer window seats—and a window seat was Suresh’s yearning.
By the time the train chugged out of the station, Suresh would usually have wheedled his way onto some seat with a view, failing which, he stood in the aisle with his face pressed against the bars of the window. There he remained, his eyes flitting back and forth as he watched the world go by. Everything held a fascination for him. They passed a patch of wild bluebells that grew out of the dirt. Wide-open rice fields stretched into the distance, where they met a grove of coconut palms. The scent of ripening paddy wafted up to him as the lime-green stalks rippled in the breeze. The journey went on. A buffalo was sunning himself in a mud pond, with an egret perched on his spine, busily picking off the nits. He spied a cream-coloured foreign car among those that waited at a crossing. A stretch of garbage made its presence felt by the stink. On the farther side, he saw a few urchins outside a row of shacks. They jumped up and down, gleefully waving their hands. Suresh waved back with equal enthusiasm. When the tracks took a turn, especially towards his side, he saw the whole string of coaches speeding around the bend, with the locomotive steaming away in front. They went over a river and abruptly, the clattering of the wheels turned into a deep rumble, as the girders of the bridge reverberated under them. So the morning passed. Every once in a while, a speck of coal flew into his eyes, making him smart, tear and rub his eyes till they were red. Hours passed before his mother could coax him from this position for a bite of something. By the end of the journey, his sleeves and collars were sparsely coated with coal dust, but he didn’t mind one bit. They pulled into the large Quilon junction where they were to get off. Getting their things together, they climbed down wearily onto the platform. Did I say wearily; yes, most of them,
but not Suresh. He bounded down and seemed to have enough energy for another trip. As soon as the luggage was gathered together and accounted for, Suresh began badgering his father. “Can we go see the engine?” he begged again and again, tugging at Mathachen’s shirt sleeves. “OK, OK,” he said finally, giving in to his son’s demands. Entrusting the baggage to his mother, they walked towards the front end of the train. As they drew close, the sound of hissing steam became louder and the little boy’s excitement rose with it. Now they were standing only a few metres from the completely black, towering beast. The fireman opened the hatch to the firebox. Standing on his toes, Suresh could see the white and orange flames dancing within. He watched in wide-eyed wonder as the fireman dug into the coal bin with his spade, swivelled around and spooned a shovelful into the inferno. They moved back a feet or two, in awe of the heat that came to them in quivering waves. After feeding it a few more times, the fireman closed the firebox. The engine driver leaned out, looked this way and that before he pulled on a lever, sending a piercing whistle into the air. The boy looked towards the source of the sound and saw a thin powerful jet of white steam escaping from the top of the boilers. It hit the insides of an inverted tumbler, setting the air howling around it. It looked like steam did everything around here. Standing in front of it, the boy wondered if this gigantic mass of steel would ever move, but the whistle meant the train was soon to depart; it also seemed to indicate the start of a wrestling match between steel and steam.
The heavy inertia of metal on one side, the energy of steam on the other. The monster appeared to swell a little as steam seeped out of its many pores. The hissing grew louder, as the pressure of superheated steam built up along the pipes and rushed into the cylinder. The beast seemed to snort, as huge puffs of black smoke shot out from its chimney. Through the cloud of steam swirling around it, they saw the gleaming piston rod move forwards ever so slowly, pushing the giant wheels through a tiny angle. Suddenly, for a moment, the friction on the glistening tracks gave way and the wheels spun freely, struggling to get a grip before traction was restored again. The hulk inched forwards. With each gust of smoke and steam, the wheels rolled faster and the locomotive pulled away, hauling behind it, its twelve carriages. Suresh had counted them, so he knew. Steam had won the day, and as it often was, energy was much the master. As Suresh lay on his old bed, memories fast-forwarded themselves within his mind. Twelve years later, he was out of school and going to college.
He had done well in the national medical entrance exam and was allotted a place at Sevur Medical College in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu. His father had accompanied him on that first journey to that faraway place. They had boarded the train at the same station in Cochin. Things had changed though. His fascination with locomotives had long since passed away, and with it, those old steam engines of his childhood. Their place had now been taken by the sleek smartly attired diesel-electrics. With a polite tweet on their horns, they would slip out of a station with hardly a whimper; a loud hum was all you might hear. You could not even see their wheels under the chassis. These did not excite him as those old iron horses had. They were too sedate and refined; much like today’s soldiers with their dainty guns as against the raw strength of the gladiators of times past. It had taken Suresh less than five minutes to daydream his way across his childhood and now he was reliving his time in college. He was going away from home for the first time. The rest of that trip, after they left Cochin, somehow held a special place in his memory. Sevur was almost five hundred kilometres away, all the way across the peninsula, on the east coast. They travelled through the night and across the Palghat gap. By the time the first light of day tinged the eastern sky, they were well onto the reddish-brown plains of Tamil Nadu. The sun rose higher and seemed to gain strength by the minute. Well before noon, its oppression began to be felt inside their compartment. The draught blowing in through the windows was like the warm blast from a furnace.
Hoping to escape its clutches, Suresh spread a wet towel on the top berth and climbed up onto it. He lay there and found it was not much different. It was like being in an oven. He wet his face and shirt, which made him feel a little better. He reached up to touch the tin sheet that made up the inner layer of the roof. It was as hot as freshly baked bread. When he was on the floor, he had felt the two small fans on the ceiling blow hot air down on them and now he knew where it came from. He could only imagine what it would be like to touch the outer steel roof. Suresh temporarily resigned himself to his oppressive surroundings and poured more water onto the towel. He lay on his back, then on his tummy, then on his sides in an effort to cool each side in turn. He was always on the lookout for slack in the speed of the train for this might indicate an approaching station and the one resource that seemed all important-water. Water was vital on a journey like this; it was their only weapon against the onslaught of a remorseless sun. After what seemed like a lifetime, Suresh detected a slowing down and then some extra clatter along with the wheels. “Are we nearing a station?” he shouted down to his father.
Looks like,” returned Mathachen, who was sitting with one foot up on his berth, looking out with weary eyes. “I can see some sidings appearing,” he added, looking up at his son. Suresh bounded down from his bunk, grabbed his watercan and made for the door. He could still remember that watercan. Made of aluminium alloy and shaped like an oversized Eau de Cologne bottle, it had a large screw-on metal cap and a tight-fitting jacket made of thick flannel. The jacket served as insulation and when wet, it kept the water cool. He was not the only one in search of water; there was a crowd at the door, each with his water-can.
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