Volatility

Train travel. It meshes in and out of my day effortlessly, sometimes caressing me with its quirky sense of humour, sometimes surprising me with deep insight into the nature of things, and sometimes crushing me just as effectively as a boa constrictor flown straight down from the equatorial rain-forests of Amazon. Over time, I’ve taught myself to eat, sleep, study, and play and air-guitar in moving trains. I probably perform these actions in Indian Railways trains for a greater time than I actually do at home. I’m at a point where I can use the term ‘home’ instead of ‘railway’ without scandalizing myself. During several boring lectures, I’ve caught myself looking forward to the sound and feel of Matunga and Thane Stations, rather than looking forward to reaching home. (I assure you this action is not driven by any sense of deep affection; it’s just a matter of being horrendously accustomed to rail travel now). And so it is, that most of my brain food comes from my experiences on trains or railway stations (given that I barely have time to read anything other than Mumbai Mirror, and I don’t watch TV). Still, every journey, however short, has something unique and unforgettable about it. I wish I could post it all here. Maybe I should start a blog on train travel…

Anyway, this one took place about a week ago.

I’ve just negotiated a charming ride on the footboard of a TMT bus, having lost miserably at Musical Rickshaws earlier that morning. There’s something remarkable about travelling within Thane. It does wonders for your patience and teaches you to resist blowing your top when the cosmos seems to be working against you. So I’m a bit more subdued than I would have been a year back on learning that my train is late. I’m standing with my head bowed down, breathing deeply, hoping against the overcast morning sky for a dry journey, trying hard not to just chuck it all and lose it and lock myself in solitary confinement for a year.

Suddenly my eyes “slide back into focus”. I realize I’ve been looking at a two inch long millipede with some-number-more-than-a-hundred-(which is why it isn’t a centipede)-but-certainly-not-one-thousand-(cos’ that’s impossible) yellow legs. There is a sort of grace in its motion as every millimeter it advances sends a ripple along the length of its body. I’m feeling murderous. Wait. Correction. I’m just pissed. I give it a slight shove with the scuffed toe of my sneakers. Get away from me. Scram. Mind your own business. Go on. Another shove. Jason, that’s what I’ve christened him by then, just hovers off course a bit and is then back to shimmying towards the entrance to platform 1. Irritated, yet not in the least, intending to squish him, I shove harder. This time, poor Jason capsizes over. “ALL HANDS ON DECK!” scream its sun coloured limbs. Like some weird robot, Jason twists and turns till he’s right side up again. And he resumes his arduous journey to his goal. I consider shoving him off the edge of the platform just for fun, but it sounded way too mean even in my narrow mind. Instead, I repeat my shove-and-capsize routine. Jason repeats his robotic twist routine. Then suddenly, as though struck with a grenade, I decide to stop. The sun comes out. I realize I’m bugging the poor fella. He probably just wants to go home and meet his mama or something. I sincerely wish him luck on his journey and turn my vacant, now-less-violent mind to other things.

The train is still nowhere in sight. It’s a whole minute since I stopped bugging Jason. I decide to look how far he got. I scour the cemented-and-pitched platform. He’s not to be seen. Just as I realize with great pleasure that he must be well on his way to wherever, the female standing behind me inadvertently nudges my bag as she shifts her weight. Horror of horrors… Jason is trapped, with just a millimeter of his length lightly pressed under Fat Woman’s cheap all weather sandals. He’s doing all sorts of robotic routines to escape. The sight shakes me from the very deeps. I pray that Fat Woman should shift her weight away from my poor friend. I consider warning her about it. But the sight of Jason writhing holds my eyes like Fevicol holds tissue paper. I can’t tear my eyes away.

Nanoseconds stretch into hours as every fibre of me prays that Jason should get away safely. Parkinson was listening intently. Fat Woman grumbles a bit about Central Railways; lifts her leg (Sigh of relief) and stomps it square onto my friend as she scratches her double chin. The cement darkens about the heel of the cheap sandal. I still can’t look away. (Looking back, I realize that I was behaving pretty dull). But Fat Woman, she shifts her leg within a microsecond (that had felt like a century). If she had wanted to reposition it anyway, why did she go to the trouble of stomping out poor Jason? My eyes are riveted to the mangled oozing body of Jason, my friend of two minutes and forty seven seconds, lying defeated and squelched on the platform. A tide of guilt washes over me. Or is it just helplessness knocking?

Waking up to absolute helplessness. It’s something we do everyday. No matter WHAT you say or do or believe, every single one of us is helpless. The forces of nature have absolute power over us. Whatever those forces may be. For poor Jason, Fat Woman and I were the forces to reckon with. And he was helpless against us. One conscious ‘force’ with the power to alter his future and one that was oblivious to his presence in the fabric of the Universe. These forces had total control over his life. Humans have named their controller as ‘God’. The One with the absolute power to make or mar all he/she/it purveys. Everyone; atheist, believer or agnostic; is at the mercy of this ‘God’. Everyone, however determined or skeptical, will have to reckon with this force one day, sooner or later. And that’s when you’ll realize how volatile everything is. Your life, your love, your success, your peace… everything is disposable for the Grand Orchestrator of the Universe. He moves consistently towards some goal, invisible to mortal eyes. In God’s sea of intellect and awareness, our lives are but the tiniest drops. Our joys and sorrows, the ones our souls feed off, are as invisible to God as Jason was to Fat Woman. Or one could probe the consciousness of this God, but, oh, I won’t go into that. One is tempted to believe in the volatility of it all.

Poor Jason knew nothing about volatility. Or even about the letter V for that matter. But let us not end on a somber, funereal note. Allow me to quote Einstein:

The Lord God may be subtle; but malicious he is not.