The Crying Man In The Train

The crying man in the train

I travel a lot, not because I love to, but because I have to. When I was young I used to travel from Bangalore (where I used to live at that time) to Palakkad (which is my native place). And the best of entertainment which I used to get were the rush in trains, the tea and samosa hawkers, the announcements, everything was just wonderful. And being young all I did during those journeys was sleep. (I am a person who can sleep anywhere, anytime).

After my fifth standard the train journeys all came to a halt as we settled in Kerala. And then after seven years or so, my journeys came back again. I went Mangalore to do my graduation and with that I started travelling a lot.

Sometimes I used to travel with my friends while otherwise alone. And during all these times my only company were my books. I always stay away from my co passengers. I don’t like talking to strangers for no reason at all. Most of the time, I travel by unreserved ladies’ compartments and hence neither is there any entertainment (As there are no boys) nor am I interested in the co passengers with whom I travel. But once I travelled by a general compartment and that is where I met the crying man.

That time I was travelling from Vellore to Palakkad and since there was no direct train I had to get down in Coimbatore and board a different train to Palakkad. I got down at Coimbatore and there was a connection train to Palakkad which left in just about five minutes.

My train was in platform no. 4 and my connection train was in platform no. 3 for which I had to go all the way down and climb another bridge and there was very little time left and so I had to literally run, still by the time I reached the other platform with my two heavy bags and my sling back the train had already started moving hence I had to board on to a general compartment.

And there I met the guy. I was sitting in a semi empty berth. A lady was sitting to my left, and on the berth opposite to mine also only a lady was sitting.

And after around 2 minutes or so a guy came and sat opposite to me. He was tall, dark, and was in almost his late 30s or his early 40s. A good looking guy for that matter. But what caught my eyes was not his charm but his moist eyes. Well the matter that he was crying was not strange as it is a natural human emotion. But what was strange was the fact that he was crying in public, now that is not common especially in a country like ours where from the beginning the boys are thought not to cry especially in public.

At first I just let it go because it’s a free world and anybody can cry anywhere, but he was just not stopping it. He went on and on, and he was wiping his tears with his sleeve and shirt and so out of courtesy I gave him my handkerchief. He accepted it and started wiping his tears and blowing his nose.

“Hey, are you all right?” I asked

“Actually…. no” was his reply

“I know I am a stranger but sometimes talking to a complete stranger helps the most"

“Maybe, it will…. But I … I don’t know you”

He was right why should he tell a stranger the reason for his sadness.

“Ya you’re right.” Was all I could say.

But after around five minutes he talked to me again

“I am sorry for being rude I know you were just trying to help”

“It’s ok”

My curiosity to know his problem was now at peek. But I dint want to intrude again. So I just kept quiet and waited for him to open up himself.

“Well my wife is returning today”

“Returning from..?”

Well asking that was a mistake because now he started crying again

“Why are you sad if she is returning, shouldn’t you be happy?”

“Well if she had left for her parent’s house then I should be happy but she had an extramarital affair with my colleague and now since he got bored with her she is returning”

“What??” I exclaimed

“I know it all sounds strange, but you won’t understand, I don’t even know why I am explaining my whole story to you, maybe because as you said, saying everything to a stranger may help or maybe even because there is no one to whom I could tell all this

I had a best friend in office, he was my only friend. And he used to come home a lot too because I used to insist, maybe that was the biggest mistake I ever did. He was a bachelor and he always wanted to have home food and all, so I thought maybe I could help.

His character was also not that good; he changed his girlfriends every now and then and engaged in a lot of one night stands. I dint judge him for what he did because it was his life and he could do whatever he wanted to do.

But I dint think that this character of his would ruin my family life. My wife is very attractive. And instantly my wife and my friend became good friends and I dint think there was any harm in it, I was not among those husbands who have problem with their wife having male friends.

And within no time my wife and my friend were having an affair, well they managed it well because I dint have even a slightest doubt about them.”

I had to ask, “How did you know then?”

“I came to know about it when my wife ran away with him. She dint even explain things to me she just sent me a text saying “I’m leaving” and just left”

I gazed in astonishment. “Well do you have kids?”

“Yes a girl studying in class II”

I dint say anything, as he was saying it so he can be relieved I dint want to make it awkward for him.

“Well it’s been two weeks now and my wife called me yesterday and said sorry. She is returning today, I am going to pick her up”.

I was amazed, I was out of words, a guy was going to pick his wife who left him for two weeks, god I have never seen a guy like this, I wanted to ask a lot of things, but again I was just a stranger...

Maybe he read my mind or something

“I know you would be wondering what a guy I am. Maybe she just felt it as the heat of the moment and now she regrets, or maybe worse he is not a commitment guy, I don’t know what happened and I don’t want to know either, I just love my wife and my kid and I want my kid to have both her mom and dad to be with her when she grows up.

By then his station came, he bid me farewell forever, thanked me for listening to him and went away. I don’t even know his name. And I won’t meet him for the rest of my life also, but he left me with a heavy heart. I was speechless. I have seen a lot of couples in my life, my parents, my uncles and aunts, and a lot others like that.

My own parents were divorced. They have two kids but they dint think of any such thing. In fact no man’s ego would allow him to do such a thing.

The crying stranger was one of world’s best fathers I have known.

More Posts from A-small-startup and Others

7 years ago

I dont want to...

You seldom start a journey with hopes of being somewhere, excitement of meeting someone and the thirst to be around your people.

So did I want to be in a place where no matter how crazy I become it would be fine.

Because I was going "home" where there were "my people"

Mistaken was I that it would not matter.

Because I just was an obligation they could not say no to.

The excitement was one sided and so were the hopes.

Even before reaching I want this journey to end

My destination never to come.

I want to go back and never return.

This was a bad idea but now I cant turn back.

I dont want this vaccation

I dont wanna go "home"


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5 years ago

Dear April

Hey there April. I see people all around me asking you to be nice with us. I ask for the same. 

January jumped away with violence… fire in its tail burning down the forests

February fled with the aftermath

March was marching with a virus that we all sat home

I wonder what you bring, April. I wonder.

Life seems dull with solitude. Staying home figuring out ways to kill time. With so much time in hand, I thought I’d get back to all the pending work. But locking me in, doesn’t work. 

I miss the monotony in life.

So be nice to me and everyone else, April. Be nice.

I’m not asking for more but to return my happiness with being able to do things I used to cringe about, complain about, cry about, argue about, the things that I wanted to run away from.

Take me back to the people, talking and doing something.

Take me from this closed room, my laptop and me.

Hey April, try being nice.


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5 years ago

I gaze at the evening sky

filled with all kinds of birds chirruping...

the parrots flying in flocks, the crows sharp enough to notice everything, the eagles high enough that they don’t care of what’s going down...

the sun sets in one corner, the moon now visible in between trees, in between clouds....

All the birds fly back home, the pigeons finding shelter in tall buildings, the crows in the big tree.

suddenly the night grows dark

not because of the night, or the clouds

rather something else is filling up the sky

I look up and find hundreds of bats all flying

filling the night sky with just enough space to reveal the moon

welcoming the full moon....


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5 years ago

Snowy....

These human beings are so strange. They love you so much that they try to chain you down. They think only if you can hold on to something, maybe someone only then love remains.

Well, I love them too. They say, a dog is the most loyal animal, a man’s best friend. I am loyal to my humans, and I have been their best friend.

It’s funny, they think they can chain me down and love me more.

Yeah I know this is all very confusing to understand as to what is happening. I’ll begin from the beginning.

So, I’m Snowy; a white Pomeranian. I know not a creative name, but I like it now. I was 3 weeks old when I saw this beautiful family of human beings. A man, a woman, and a tiny human, all riding in a bike together. Cute..

I thought they’d feed me, so I went in front of the bike, they stopped but before that, they hurt me. I got hit by the bike. It did hurt, a lot. I was screaming, howling to be precise. They took good care of me. They cared a lot. I kept hearing them saying, I saved their life. Apparently, there was a stone in front of the bike and because I came in front they got saved. Otherwise they would have got hurt it seems.

So, now I’m theirs, just like that. They picked me up and I’m theirs. Named me Snowy, it was a silly name in the beginning, but now it’s nice. There is love when they call me Snowy. Cute...

Soon, I got a collar, a chain and a new home. I started marking my territory. I peed in all the poles and corners, so that no one else came in. There is this another human, the one who always wears the blue shirt, who always stays next to the tall iron wall. He help-s me keep my territory mine. He doesn't allow other dogs to come in. He help[s me keep my territory mine. My blue human.

A lot of people come here and everyone loves me. Not bragging or anything, but I am cute. You know the type girls like. So ya, I get a lot of attention. I see a lot of other dogs, trying to come in, trying to be friends with me, trying to scare me. At first i wouldn’t allow, but then I needed some friends.

But the actual problems was during the nights. Now, we dogs love nights. The phrase shouldn’t be night owl, rather night dogs. because we are the guards of dogs, we are the night owls, I mean the night dogs.

But these humans, they are so boring. They sleep at night, and they don’t bother much, so at night the other big dogs, they come to my place, they try to mark my territory as theirs. I bark and bark until they leave, I howl I scream. But this happens every night and the humans don’t like it.

I am 2 years old now. All grown up and there is this another tiny human in the house. A little cuter than me. He gets all the attention now, doesn’t like me much, and now I’m not allowed inside the house. I like this tiny human, but I’m not allowed to be close to him. I wonder why.

I go wandering to find some cute dogs, friendly dogs, some nice dogs, I really need someone to spend time with.

One time I was walking around and this human just took me away. I don’t understand these humans, they think they can just pick me up and take me home. Like I’m this thing they can possess. I was chained there for a few nights and one night I got the chance to run away. I came back to my humans. told you I was loyal, again there was so much love, but there was something missing. No dog understood me. There are a lot of humans who really like me, but these humans don’t understand me.

That’s when I saw this cute little girl dog. she was heavenly beautiful. She crawled in at night and ate my leftover food, I didn’t feel like barking, her puppy eyes, wagging tail... it was just beautiful. She was so adorable, like that little human.

She started coming every night from then on and I started leaving some food for her every night. But for some odd reason, she seemed very scared. It seemed like someone had hurt her. She licked me to say thank you. I sat her down and asked her one time, why she was scared and what happened. She didn’t wanna talk and just gave out a meek bark. I respected that, so I never asked her again. It’s up to her, but I assured her that she would be safe around me and my humans. Since then she’s always around me. She goes out to meet some other friends and come back at night when no humans are around, tells me everything that happened during the day, and just like that I become a part of her adventure and she became a part of my life. Eventually they found out but accepted her, and I told you right, those eyes have a charm!

Then we’ve always been around. I went out again and those huge scary dogs, they started barking and started chasing me away. I started running and everywhere it was the same, those huge dogs. They just couldn’t stop barking. I ran and ran and came near this car. It stopped and the humans gave me food and again those humans thought they can take me home, and just like that I was in their house. I was gone again. I didn’t know where I was, what I was doing. I was chained, taken care of, fed properly, loved. But I was chained. I wanted to go back to my humans.

I had to leave, I just had to, after a long time, many nights, they take me back to my humans. It was strange, they loved me and still just gave me away.

My humans, they kept asking me why I left, I told them, I barked and barked, I told them I was chased but they didn’t listen to me. I mean how would they, these humans only hear only what they want to hear. Ever since then, I’m chained. They say it’s for my own good. I can’t walk more than 8 feet, this chain, it pulls me back, pulls me down. Remember that puppy, she still comes visit me. She has grown up a little now, but those puppy eyes, they still are the same. She licked my face as soon as she saw me. Told me how much these human were worried. I told I went to see the world she always used to tell me about. The outside world.

Now I’m struck in my own world. These humans, they’re strange. They think in the name of love, they can lock me down and say it’s all for my own good. They say they love me unconditionally and put me under conditions. These humans, they love in a strange way.


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7 years ago

We seem to often complain that life seems strange. Well, life IS strange. There is really nothing we can do about it. In life everything is a surprise, we say that all we have is the present, but guess what we even ruin that. Coz, we don’t know what we are gonna end up doing.

I am not depressed right now, I am not angry either, for me this was a surprise. But somewhere deep down the lane, I knew that I would burst out, that I would lend a shoulder to cry on like I did last night, and that I would burst out the next day.

“It’s too good to be true.” It indeed is. How can you just agree to anything that someone says? What about your perspective then?

What about taking care of yourself, when are you planning to do that? I have done the same thing that you do. The same question is what rings in my mind all the time “what would they be going through?” BUT YOU SHOULD FUCKING STOP. In this long and tiring process of taking care of others, we lose our self. Because like we do, nobody in the fucking world cares. I know it’s not easy to change, but when you can change for good, why not?

Why would you want to keep stumbling upon the same stones that you always have? Why?

I know there are a lot of questions I am asking you here. I know. But these are questions you should ask yourself. I just am asking it so that it rings a bell.

I was the same as you. Talking care of other people’s feelings, their thoughts, what they would feel, and how they would have been feeling at that moment. But who are we to decide that? Everybody in life has shit to deal with, and it is their problem not ours. We need to have a grip on us, our feelings, our thoughts, what we are going through, because only then can you have a clear perspective about what you want.

Compromises for others are to be made in life all the time, but that doesn’t mean that we just keeping pushing our feelings in to that deep pit. Nope. We don’t do that and moreover we shouldn’t.

I don’t know what you feel, what you think because you don’t say and all you do is just agree with whatever shit I say. I may make sense, I might ever be right, not for you but for me. So stop doing things for me, stop agreeing with me and start giving respect to what you feel and you.


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3 years ago
Hot Summer Days Are The Worst Time To Go On A Drive, But I Still Decided To Go On One. I Thought Maybe

Hot summer days are the worst time to go on a drive, but I still decided to go on one. I thought maybe the AC in my car and the sunny sky would be a better change in comparison to my cramped room with humidity hitting the roof.

It was one of those days where I was eagerly waiting for the summer rains to drench the soil and let out a cool breeze.

As I keep driving, without a destination, nor a map to guide me through, taking turns as my brain tells me to and my heart wants me to.

I stop at an empty road, waiting for the 30 seconds on the signal to pass so I could head to the place I didn't know of.

That's when it came, the thunder, the lightening, the wind the breeze the dark afternoon and the darker clouds.

The radio tells me it's some cyclone, my heart tells me it's the first of summer rains.

I pause, I don't move an inch. The clouds starts pouring, the heavy water droplets on my car roof hits my ears, I scroll the window pane, and let the rain drops fall in.

My face now wet, my head filled with a hundred thoughts, I make a U-turn and head home.

I play loud music to shun the voices in my head. I stop at a tea shop, ask for a strong filter coffee and lit a cigarette, the radio yet again tells me of casualities due to the cyclone and my head tells me it's just the summer rains.

Image from @a-small-startup


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4 years ago

.’.’.’.’.’.’.’.’

I was walking down the foothills of some huge mountain, in a small corner of this world. It was an evening with mist, a slight shiver and a cool breeze… I was walking with some excellent music plugged in, a nice evening of solidarity.

That’s when I saw two really old men sitting next to each other, sharing a cigarette and smiling at each other. At a glance, they seemed like two people who had grown old together, that smile caught a lot of warmth, I couldn’t resist a smile looking at them.

I walked past them, sat on a small rock and lit a cigarette and started smoking, they were still smiling, I couldn’t stop myself from talking to them

‘Hey uncle, are you guys childhood friends?’ I asked.

They looked at each other, then at me and smiled again, I couldn’t quite understand what that smile meant, maybe they did not want to answer, so I continued smoking and looked away.

A few minutes later someone tapped on my shoulder, I looked up and saw those two smiling faces…

‘We just met each other a couple of years ago, and are deeply madly in love’ and they gave out a shy smile followed by the answer. That blush on their face was undefinable. I gave out a smile, they waved at me and told me,

“find that love soon, we waited a bit too long”

I love old couples, because there is this happiness on seeing people having spent their entire life with someone. It sends out hope. I always believed love was in growing old together, and that love was doing everything together. But I had never seen love like that, the love in the eyes of those two, in the smile of those two, it was beyond all the love I had known, it was the love that made me smile throughout my way back. 


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4 years ago

Why is being strong so romaniticised.

Why is crying and talking and being yourself considered weak?

Why is letting go difficult

Why aren't we given time if it's difficult?

Why is being you so suffocating

Why can't you be you?

.

Why is romance so fragile

Why is it that you need someone?

Why can't you cling to pain

Why is ease so easy?

.

Why can't you whine

Why can't you complain?

And Why is that you can write only when you are in pain?

.

Why is your healing

Someone else's pain?

.

Why is your time not at their time stamp?

.

Why can't people know we're all at a different pace

In our journey towards ease.

.

Why is it difficult to see someone cry

And not just be.

.

Why do you want everyone to smile even beyond that pain.

.

Why can't you let the pessimism

Go away on its own

.

Why do you guilt someone over healing

Why do whine over someone else's pain.

.

Why can't you trust over time

To do the healing.

.

Why can't you love the pain and the sorrow

And embrace the person

.

You don't want change you want remedy

You don't want ease you want comfort

.

You don't want serenity you want pleasure

You guilt others over your guilt

.

You ease others over your ache

.

It will all be right

Just no more wrong infront of you.

.

Let's put up a brave face is it?


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7 years ago

For me

What would you do if you wake up tommorow morning and realize that you are not that person anymore. That you have changed overnight. How would you react when you realize that you dont remember anything at all what happened. What would you do if you suddenly found yourself in a time span much much ahead of where you last were.

I dont know either. But somehow, somewhere I feel that I am lost. Lost in my own life. My own vicious cycle of finding myself. Being good to myself. Being the person whom I am expected to be. Whom I expect to be.

I am tired of deciding things in life after analyzing whether I am becoming what they always doubted that I would become. I am tired of the realization that I have lost track of myself.

I want to live for me. Decide for me. And do or dont do things because I want to or dont want to. I dont want to stop doing something just because maybe that is what I am becoming. I am tired of justifying everything I do. I am tired of fulfilling the expectations of others. I am tired of not becoming and sick of living for others.

I want to be me and live for me decide for me and understand me justify me feel happy for me guilty towards me and me me and me no one else.


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7 years ago

“Giving you pain is not the only way life knows to make you suffer. Sometimes taking the pleasure out of you will suffice.”

lsr

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