Inside-out.....

The weather is one thing that prompts me to write. Good weather always encourages some sort of reflection. It’s not sunny. It’s cool but at lunchtime, it feels like a crisp, fresh morning. This for some reason takes me back to a journey in January.

Pd, Bhavi and I were traveling to Mumbai from Patna by train. It was a two-night journey. Our train from Patna station left past 12am. It was winter at it’s coldest and we were wrapped up in more layers than we could count. Had we been dressed in red, we could’ve given Santa a run for his money. Like us, our suitcases were also over-stuffed. Bhavi was asleep so she was another bundle (of joy:) that we were carrying.

If you’ve lived in Bihar in non-Nitish times, you will relate to a sense of threat that places like the station evoke (or anywhere else for that matter) at such odd hours in the a.m. So I think that suspicion was something we were holding onto as we got out of the car to the station. Pd was carrying his valuables (Bhavi and I- not the suitcases, please). I think he had a scowl on his face so that he looked adequately scary to someone who might think of misbehaving. I, being a typical protective mother had a scowl on my face- against the weather- should Bhavi catch a cold through what was visible of her in her woolens. We proceeded to haggle with the porters who were charging three times as was reasonable to help us with our luggage. We felt a general feeling of mistrust- they did not know which platform the train would arrive at.

Maybe it was the darkness, the chill, the stress of hoping that we would get on the train on time or knowing that we would have to wait on the bridge and then rush down with only 15mins in hand - but we seemed to be more wary of those around, than usual. I blew out a warm cloud of mist from my mouth into the cold air, and thought, ‘should we have booked flight tickets?…we had thought a train would be more reliable in the fog….’. We continued to walk with our guards up, trudging up the railway stairs, trying to keep up with the gentlemen and our suitcases. Trying to remember that we needed to pick up drinking water before we got on the train. Trying to cover Bhavi’s ears that kept wriggling out of her cap.

As we walked down the stairs, senses alert, someone kept calling out from behind. At first we didn’t hear. Then we didn’t think that someone was calling us. When we turned around, a man rushed down the stairs. He pulled out a hand from his thin shawl, held out a piece of folded paper. He asked us if it was ours. As we took it from him, we realized it was the print out of our tickets….. This gentleman had seen it fall from Pd’s pocket and had walked a considerable way, out of his way, trying to give it back to us. At that point, we could’ve hugged him!

Also at that point it struck me how easy it is for us, like in warm clothing, to get wrapped up in our own selves. While defenses often protect us, they also stop us from seeing the whole picture. I’ve been hearing a lot lately that our external world is a mirror of our internal world; of what’s going on inside us. Sometimes everything looks threatening and non- welcoming. But on a cold night, when we see through the cloud of mist that we’ve blown, we see things more clearly.

We sat safely and snugly on the train after that…trusting that all was well in the world and that wonderful people surrounded us. And guess what? We kept on bumping into the most helpful people all the way to Mumbai!