23 years. Barring the weekends, I everyday have taken the 8.10 am local to work. Wave a quick goodbye to my wife who drops me at the station, rush to platform 3 and wait. Then find a way through the hordes, somehow board the train, quickly run to the corner seat and take out a newspaper and read for the next hour till reaching my destination.
It was another similar day. Waved my wife goodbye, ran to platform 3 and waited. The train came, I plunged into the mass rushing into it and moved towards my corner seat only to find it taken. I grumbled aloud, started looking for another seat and finally found one near the door. Still indignant over being displaced, I kept glaring at the usurper as I fiddled through my bag to locate the newspaper. As I took it out and turned my furious eyes towards it, the front page boldly proclaimed yesterday's date and I despairingly realized that I had forgotten picking up today's paper. Cursing aloud, blaming myself and the world in general for making the day horrendous, I began pondering my options for occupying my mind for the next hour and as the train stopped at one of the stations, I accepted grudgingly that I had to contend myself with scanning the faces around me.
It was then that she caught my eye. Not that her appearance was an anomaly in either extremes or that she tried to attract any attention. Dressed in fading and over-sized ragged clothes with a bundle in her hands, she was barely able to get on the train as it sped away from the platform. The people standing near the door yelled angrily at her, mouthing obscenities and she fearfully ducked away from them and settled down on the floor between the doors on either sides. She peeked into her bundle and continued to smile beatifically looking at its contents till she was accidentally shoved by one of the standing passengers. It seemed to have disturbed her from a reverie for she was startled and then stormily stood up and started screaming loudly at the guilty passenger.
Despite myself, curiosity got the better of me and I leaned over to see what was in the bundle and was surprised to find an infant wrapped in it. Perhaps noticing an alien set of eyes on it, the child started screaming out its lungs and I started fearing a rebuke from the woman but despite its loud cries, the woman seemed oblivious to the child and had her attentions focused on the now-irate passenger.
I drew back quickly and paid attention to the woman's screaming only to realize that she was uttering incomprehensible noises and was perhaps mute. The passenger seems to have noticed the crying infant for he pointed towards it and as soon as the woman looked back and saw the child crying, she quickly bent down and picked it up and started cajoling it with incomprehensible sounds. The child quickly grew silent, as if it could completely understand its deaf-mute mother's unique language.
All I could do for the remainder of the journey was to watch that woman who without a spoken word from either side was engaged in an extremely coherent conversation with the infant and for the first time in years I felt something stir my soul.
As I got off the train, I realized that everyday, in that sea of humanity, I had become less and less humane; losing my innocence, optimism and empathy, bit by bit as I withdrew more and more into myself. My thoughts kept returning to the woman, who would never be able to say anything or listen to what the child would say for a lifetime. I could only wonder at the lot of us who do have the ability for both, but in our ego, fear, anger, arrogance, leave so many things unsaid and refuse to listen to as much. I could only think of all the people who I had stopped communicating with over the years. I could only feel guilty about the fact that I had nothing to say to my wife of 20 years apart from waving a simple goodbye.
It was ironical and poetic that it took an encounter with a woman who could not speak or listen. for me to realize that we fail to recognize the gifts that we have been bestowed with. A kind word, an expected response, an encouraging sentence, an expressed emotion could make someone's day, perhaps even someone's life better.
It was another similar day. Waved my wife goodbye, ran to platform 3 and waited. The train came, I plunged into the mass rushing into it and moved towards my corner seat only to find it taken. I grumbled aloud, started looking for another seat and finally found one near the door. Still indignant over being displaced, I kept glaring at the usurper as I fiddled through my bag to locate the newspaper. As I took it out and turned my furious eyes towards it, the front page boldly proclaimed yesterday's date and I despairingly realized that I had forgotten picking up today's paper. Cursing aloud, blaming myself and the world in general for making the day horrendous, I began pondering my options for occupying my mind for the next hour and as the train stopped at one of the stations, I accepted grudgingly that I had to contend myself with scanning the faces around me.
It was then that she caught my eye. Not that her appearance was an anomaly in either extremes or that she tried to attract any attention. Dressed in fading and over-sized ragged clothes with a bundle in her hands, she was barely able to get on the train as it sped away from the platform. The people standing near the door yelled angrily at her, mouthing obscenities and she fearfully ducked away from them and settled down on the floor between the doors on either sides. She peeked into her bundle and continued to smile beatifically looking at its contents till she was accidentally shoved by one of the standing passengers. It seemed to have disturbed her from a reverie for she was startled and then stormily stood up and started screaming loudly at the guilty passenger.
Despite myself, curiosity got the better of me and I leaned over to see what was in the bundle and was surprised to find an infant wrapped in it. Perhaps noticing an alien set of eyes on it, the child started screaming out its lungs and I started fearing a rebuke from the woman but despite its loud cries, the woman seemed oblivious to the child and had her attentions focused on the now-irate passenger.
I drew back quickly and paid attention to the woman's screaming only to realize that she was uttering incomprehensible noises and was perhaps mute. The passenger seems to have noticed the crying infant for he pointed towards it and as soon as the woman looked back and saw the child crying, she quickly bent down and picked it up and started cajoling it with incomprehensible sounds. The child quickly grew silent, as if it could completely understand its deaf-mute mother's unique language.
All I could do for the remainder of the journey was to watch that woman who without a spoken word from either side was engaged in an extremely coherent conversation with the infant and for the first time in years I felt something stir my soul.
As I got off the train, I realized that everyday, in that sea of humanity, I had become less and less humane; losing my innocence, optimism and empathy, bit by bit as I withdrew more and more into myself. My thoughts kept returning to the woman, who would never be able to say anything or listen to what the child would say for a lifetime. I could only wonder at the lot of us who do have the ability for both, but in our ego, fear, anger, arrogance, leave so many things unsaid and refuse to listen to as much. I could only think of all the people who I had stopped communicating with over the years. I could only feel guilty about the fact that I had nothing to say to my wife of 20 years apart from waving a simple goodbye.
It was ironical and poetic that it took an encounter with a woman who could not speak or listen. for me to realize that we fail to recognize the gifts that we have been bestowed with. A kind word, an expected response, an encouraging sentence, an expressed emotion could make someone's day, perhaps even someone's life better.
