The Sampark Kranti Express took a U-turn, leaving behind its long shadow on the Veli lagoon. Standing at the door of his coach, Karamchand was looking towards the rear of the train. Sunlight reflected off the headlight glass of the Wanderer. Suddenly the piston, coupling and connecting rods of the steam engine sprang to life. The wheels that had been arrested and silenced for decades gained speed. They woke up. The coal caught fire, spewing clouds of black smoke into the sky. Two blackened men kept feeding the gluttonous furnace of the steam engine. A white man clad in coal-blackened overalls and a black cap pulled levers and drove the train. It sped along, breaking the rules of time and space. Distance and speed perished in the heat of the furnace that was capable of burning down everything that came in its way.
Fire.
The fire spread in Karamchand’s panicked mind. The universe had given all its luminosity to the fire. He travelled backwards in the company of fire. A page from an unrecorded era in history dropped into his imagination.
Karamchand saw a horde of hominids – who, progressing through evolution, had started to walk upright – traipsing through forests. Without language, the creature was not an individual but a cluster. They had just started to walk on their legs in African valleys. Many millennia had to pass for them to turn into homo sapiens. One among them was the forefather of his clan, ejaculating them into existence. He was one of the last links in the chain of millions born from the natural multiplication of that one ejaculate.
They were setting a trap for wild horses. In the shared valley of two adjacent hills they rolled in boulders, stacked tree branches and leaves and made a corral, leaving a narrow opening through which only a single horse could pass. Afterwards, they rested.
Holding stone weapons and staves, they waited on the sides of both hills for the horses to appear. Grass grew abundantly on the plains at the foot of the hills.
The sound of galloping hooves reached them. The plains were soon filled with lazily grazing horses. With slavering mouths, they grazed slowly. The hominids hiding behind rocks started to pelt stones at them; the stones started to land like raindrops. The frightened horses started to mill around and run. They had only one way to run, through the narrow gap left by the hominids. As they passed through the gap, the hominids waiting on the other side smashed heavy stones on their heads, felling them. Their blood flowed in streams. The hunters dipped their hands in the warm blood and smeared their bodies with it. They drank the blood. They ate raw horsemeat. They danced and celebrated their successful hunt. The branches and leaves turned red.
A sudden wildfire blazed. Both the hunted and the hunters got caught in it. They started to run, watching their lands being consumed by fire. The children who could not run were licked up by the tongues of flame. The lucky ones survived by crossing the river. Standing in safety, they watched the fire consume their lands and forests. They saw lowing and bellowing animals scamper around with their bodies half-burnt. The fire travelled up the hills.
When the fire died down, they crossed back the river. Cooked animal meat was waiting for the famished hominids. They ate, savouring, for the first time, meat with a different taste. They danced wildly. They sparred with one another. In their ecstasy, they mated in groups. They fell asleep, stacked one above the other.
Taking the embers from a piece of burning wood, one of them made a fire pit in the cave. The rains came. A spear-toting warrior from another tribe arrived to steal the fire.
His name was Prometheus. He became an exalted member of his tribe when he managed to fight off the hordes and return with fire. Man discovered that fire lurked inside stone. Using the sharpness of one stone against another, he rubbed fire into existence. The fire residing inside bamboo was deified as the presiding deity of yagnas. During man’s peregrinations, fire was tamed like an obedient rakshasa; it was used to reduce enemies to ashes. Man made fire-pits near riverbanks and prayed, “Om Agnim-Iille Purohitam Yajnyasya Devam-Rtvijam.”
Meanwhile, millions of generations of hominids had travelled through time and space to settle down in various corners of the world.
Fire became man’s companion. He stored it in a small box. It became his faithful servant. Cast-iron vehicles sped using the power of fire. Steamboats hastened the progress of explorers.
Trains hooted and whistled like keening demons and sped over rail tracks crisscrossing the face of the earth. In eras of conquest, they ran through history, carrying men, slaves, animals and armaments.
From the rear of the Sampark Kranti Express, the Wanderer, which had borne Karamchand into thrilling memories of fiery history, now brought him back to the present day. He started to walk back into the vestibule.
The soldier was still lingering at the door of the B3 coach. His bloodshot eyes still showed pain, sorrow, despair and the pangs of separation.
The soldier opened a bottle of Pepsi, poured out half of it, poured rum into the bottle, winked at Karamchand, and as a slow smile started to spread across Karamchand’s face, sipped his drink.
After rounding another bend and passing over a bridge, the Sampark Kranti entered Varkala Station.
A procession was moving along the road running parallel to the rail tracks. Everyone was dressed in yellow. Karamchand entered the B coupé and closed the door. John was lying on his stomach, watching the sights through the parted curtains of the double-glazed window. The yellow procession was proceeding at a stately pace and marked singlemindedness. Karamchand took his seat.
A movement under the carpet caught his eye. A pair of shiny, bulging eyes appeared where the two edges of the carpet met. It was the resident mouse of the railway coach. It emerged from beneath the carpet, sat up on its hind legs, the forelegs mimicking that of a praying mantis, and surveyed the two other occupants of the coach. The sight made John scramble and pull his legs up onto the seat. Karamchand stamped his feet on the floor to scare it away. The startled mouse ran in a circle on the carpet and disappeared into the gap from which it had emerged.
John had not got over his panic. He rang the call bell and summoned the coach attendant. He took out his anger at being accosted by a mouse on the attendant. After listening to the tirade for some time, the attendant said, “Sir, this is India, after all. On occasions, a mouse will ride in the First Class AC coach. And at other times, humans will travel sitting on the toilet.”
He went out and quickly returned with a mouse trap. “Doesn’t matter how big it is. It’ll be caught.” He left after leaving the trap between the feet of the two passengers.
Meanwhile, Karamchand’s selfie had taken wings. It spun around in his mobile phone as if gathering enough speed to reach escape velocity.
After swerving to the left, the train straightened and eased onto the platform of the Varkala Station. Drawn by the procession of yellow clothes, John walked to the door of the coach, with Karamchand in tow. The yellow-clothed men were clambering onto various coaches. A young couple, busily chattering with each other, got into the S1 Sleeper coach. An ear-shattering song in Malayalam that seemed to hold the earth and the soul in a bear hug floated down from the crown of the weeping fig that stood on the road outside the station.
Excerpted with permission from The Wanderer, V Shinilal, translated from the Malayalam by Nandakumar K, Eka/Westland.
