THE OFFICE DUDE:
The office train to Kandy was
pulling in at the platform. Hundreds of steel wheels rattled against the steel
tracks with slowing tempo. The milling crowds on the platform edged towards the
slowing train. Some were already hanging on to the handrails, their feet trying
to find foothold on the foot board or at
least some horizontal surface.
I clutched my bag and ran alongside
the train, dodging commuters in the hope of grabbing the handrail to get into
the train. This is the worst part of the day for most of us office workers.
We office workers had what the other
people called cliques on the train. Generally, we occupy the same place in the
same compartment every day. As we have to travel a reasonably long distance,
this was a tonic for our hectic day. We used to chat, joke, bully, play cards
and an endless list of other fun things on the train. Some days there were some
outsiders trying to grab our places and we had to declare war till the outside
threat is withdrawn. This could be verbal abuse or just confrontation. Most of
the time, the invaders pulled out without a fight, muttering curses under their
breath.
As I was running I noticed this dude
I had seen several days a week for the last few months looming out of the
milling crowds and join the running mob. This dude was in a sour mood the other
day when he had to give up the seat I secured for my partner. I didn’t like his
face ever since.
I came alongside with the handrail
and grabbed it. Seconds later, I got a foothold too, and was riding the train.
The dude with a bitter face who had joined the race later than I had, was also making similar progress. He grabbed
the rail and was running alongside desperately looking for a foothold. I dug my
elbow into his exposed rib under the raised arm. Dude cringed and let go of the handrail. And
he disappeared in the milling crowd with a grunt. I pushed in with the crowd
that emerged victoriously in the compartment and dumped my office bag on my
seat. By the time the train ground to a halt I had completely forgotten about
the dude.
SENAKA:
I
saw the train before I heard it. Its face growing larger at the end of the
tracks every second. The PA system rambled away an unintelligible announcement
in one of the three languages. I asked my daughter to stay put. She sat on the
bench, smiled at me with rounded eyes, and nodded. I ran towards the oncoming
train in the hope of grabbing a seat for my daughter and calling her putting my
head out of the window, when it came to a standstill by the bench she sat. For
the past few weeks I had done the calculations and knew which compartment
stopped where. The milling crowds on the platform edged towards the slowing
train. Some were already hanging on to the handrails, their feet trying to find
access on the footboard or some horizontal surface. I was almost face to face
with the train, me on the platform, train on the tracks.
Hundreds of steel
wheels rattled against the steel tracks with slowing tempo, but not slow enough.
I swung around and started running back alongside the rushing train. The
compartment I aimed for was the fifth one. I adjusted my speed to suit the
decelerating train. Mmm.. there it comes. I grabbed the handrail with one hand
and was running with along the platform. I tried to get a foothold desperately,
and finally I thought I succeeded and heaved myself off the platform hanging
onto the rail with all my might.
Then it happened.
I
felt an elbow digging into my ribs like a sledgehammer. I doubled up
impulsively, letting go of the handrail and the foothold and thudded against
the platform. As the train overshot, I was still rolling and rolling towards
the edge of the platform closer to the rattling steel wheels rumbling by
echoing through the station… My daughters innocent face flashed before my eyes.
If I die here under this train now, what’s going to happen to my innocent
helpless kid?
HENRYBLOGWALKER THE DUDE:
Some in the crowd shrieked. Women’s hands shot up to grab
their cheeks. Eyes rounded. Some screams froze in the throats. Time seemed to stand still.
Then the rolling body stopped just short of the rumbling
wheels. Someone grabbed him and pulled him to safety. Everyone heaved a sigh of
relief.
SENAKA:
I was visibly shaking like a leaf. I
had just escaped the jaws of death. I felt my knees had turned to jelly
and my throat like parchment. An
unquenchable thirst! I felt feverish and heard my heart pounding away in my
head. I collapsed on the bench next to my daughter and grabbed her to never to let
go… She clung to me. I heard her say, “Appachchi..” (Dad!)
FROM HENRYBLOGWALKER THE DUDE TO THE OFFICE
DUDE:
Dude, even though I hate to call you dude, I’d still call
you like that. Some of the first words that came into my mind were four lettered, but
definitely not dude. I’m supposed to be a cool dude, so I have to live up to my
reputation. I don’t know if you would ever set your eyes on this blog post,
anyways what has to be said has to be said.
First, let me introduce Senaka, whose ribs you dug your
elbow into.
Senaka is a father of two kids, both daughters. First one
is a perfectly normal and a bright kid.
Second one wasn’t that lucky. When she was born 14 years
ago, in private nursing home in Kandy, she didn’t breathe for some time. By the
time the staff managed to get her to breath normally the deprivation of oxygen
to her brain had caused enough damage to put her and her family into a lifelong
suffering.
Even today, she is about 7 years behind than her peers.
In a world full of perverts, I don’t have to tell you what the two of them
underwent to protect her. Senaka couldn’t hold on to one job for too long, both
local and foreign, as he had dedicated his whole life for this child. They
couldn’t achieve many things in life they would have done if it wasn’t for this
few minutes without oxygen. This incident certainly turned their lives upside
down.
Even that day, when you nearly took his life, he had gone
to Colombo with the second kid for a special therapy class, which she attended
several days a week. He knew by experience that nobody offered the child a seat
on that crowded train, all the way to Kandy. As a father he couldn’t bear up to
see the child suffer in the crowded train for 114km.
The dude whose ribs you dug your elbow into, had spent
the last 14 years constantly tending to his daughter, being a shadow to her in
a world where there are mothers who dumped their newly born babies in trashcans
and fathers who raped their own daughters.
Moments before you knocked him off the train with your
elbow, this dude had left his daughter with special needs on a bench on the platform and
risked his life by hanging on to the moving train to get themselves a seat so
that she could sleep on his lap after a hectic day for them both.
While you were digging your elbow into her father, that
child whose life wouldn’t have had a meaning without a father like him, was
waiting with wide eyes, sitting on that bench for him to call her through a
window of the train.
I can visualize this because one day I stopped the van on
a narrow hilly road in Kandy for Senaka to go a wayside grocery store. This girl
was sitting at the back with my family. Then because another vehicle appeared,
I had to take the van a few meters ahead to allow it to pass. When the vehicle
started to move without Senaka, “This girl started screaming, “ Uncle, Don’t
leave my dad. He’ll be all alone…” This brought tears to our eyes. Imagine how
she would have wailed if he rolled a few more inches and ended up under the
train that day…!
You nearly ended the life of a dude who missed many good
things in life, because of the fate dished out to him.
And most of all, the dude whose life you nearly ended
that day, happens to be henryblogwalker the Dude’s brother in law. He married my wife’s sister who is a lecturer
of English in a College of Education, making it impossible for her to attend to
this kid all the time like her father does. I can go on like this, making you
feel more and more miserable for what you have done, but there’s no point… and
I’m no sadist.
So I ask you of one thing before I end this post…
THE NEXT TIME YOU ELBOW YOUR WAY THROUGH YOUR LIFE,
PLEASE STOP TO CONSIDER WHOSE RIBS YOU DIG INTO.
YOU who stared at the mixed up
fried rice sleepily after waking up from a deep sleep on our laps and said, “What’s this? Cat food?” because
it was the first time you saw fried rice and because we used
to mix up all the left over rice and feed the stray cats…,
