Stories of the Wind

The night mail from the Fort to Vavuniya was packed. All the third-class compartments looked like Nazi gas chambers, and picking one (knowing that you would spend eight hours inside it) was no ordinary task. Given our limited options, we chose a compartment that looked like a festival-season oven. My fellow traveller, Benislos Thushan, carefully loaded the luggage on the top railing while I made a quick trip to the canteen and bought water. The train left the Fort at 10.30 pm. This is what happened during the journey.

The smell of urine and cigarette smoke gave the compartment a ‘mystic’ touch. There were more than two dozen people standing in the narrow aisle space; this was in addition to all the poor souls squeezed in the seats. CO₂ level was noticeably high. A lady to our left – standing in the doorway – was visibly upset with the person who booked her family’s ticket. She was cursing under her breath. A young fellow to our right – seated on the edge – was deeply engrossed in a book. An old man was already snoring hard. A pretty girl, seated opposite us (in the far corner of the compartment), was a therapeutic sight.

I was tired, having travelled extensively in the past few days. I wasted no time and settled cross legged on the aisle. Within five minutes, Thushan too acknowledged the aisle’s calling. A middle-aged man’s butt was directly above my head, and pondering about what-he-had-for-dinner was unpleasant. I quickly shoved out such thoughts. It was not long before Thushan and I stretched our legs underneath a seat and fell asleep. We were occasionally disturbed by restless passengers scurrying back and forth, ostensibly to urinate. One chap stamped hard on Thushan’s palm; I received a boot-smack on the face.

It was sometime after midnight when I woke up to find a pair of preying eyes staring at the pretty girl through the window, from outside. Thushan returned to his senses a bit later, and was quick to spot the wannabe Superman (he was standing on the footboard and doing crazy things). The girl oblivious to all this was sleeping peacefully. 

The population of the compartment had increased considerably with time. When the train slowed down to a stop at a station few coffee-sellers climbed inside, chanting ‘kiri kopee’. I resisted the urge to buy a cup, as one of the sellers stepped over my outstretched legs. The arrival of kopee sellers breathed life into most men, and the thickness of cigarette smoke predictably increased. The acrobat too had a cup of kiri kopee, in the doorway. We dozed off again.

At Anuradhapura many left. When the seat opposite the pretty one became vacant, Thushan hurriedly substituted. I found myself scrambling for space in the seat on the other side of the aisle. The acrobat was nowhere to be seen. It turned out that the acrobat had, in fact, jumped off the train after grabbing hold of the pretty girl’s ‘silver’ chain. He was too dumb to realize that it was an imitation chain.

Following the incident, the pretty girl swapped her corner seat with an older lady who was next to her. A chap, evidently drunk, came out of nowhere and seated himself right next to the girl. Within minutes he was rubbing himself on the girl. The pretty one was clearly upset and uncomfortable: Thushan promptly offered his seat. Then it was the older woman’s turn to become the victim! Sensing the degree of the chap’s perversion, she vacated her seat and stood up for a while, before she moved to my seat. After a while the harras-er left the compartment. Perhaps he felt awkward.

The older lady was picked up by her brother at the railway station in Vavuniya, and we put the pretty girl in a Mullaitivu bus upon her request.