Strangers

Posted by Seema Ramnarayan on Monday September 25, @01:13AM

Every time I travel alone by train I can hear them. Nothing to do with trains of course. Sometimes I hear them screaming even when I am crossing the street.

It’s one of those few times conversation is not drowning them out. Each time I hear them I wonder where they came from. Why does that man on the opposite berth stare at me like that? Can he hear them too? Not all of them are similar. Some of them are louder than the rest. Like the one that keeps reminding me about about having lied to Mom the other evening.. Or the one that notes how long it’s been since I last wrote to my brother. Then there are the quieter ones. The shy one that whispers a question hesitantly; “Why do you do this everyday? Is this what you thought you would be doing? What is it you are always waiting for?”. Surprisingly enough, he’s often the clearest and the most persistent. He’s also the cleverest of them all. Sometimes, without even raising his voice, he sneaks up on me when I least expect him: in the middle of a lecture or sipping vodka at a party. Then there’s him with the loud, evil grin; the black laughter. Insensitive, callous. Cruelly he asks, “So you worry about whether these people like you? You actually think it matters? Oh poor you.”. That unbearable hallowed laughter that drives a knife through the heart. How could I forget to mention the revolutionaries? The ones that carry banners and parade around advocating one cause or the other. Banners that say, “Push, Shove, Fight”; others that say, “Give, Love, Share”. Then there’s the raconteur who keeps recounting those stories from my childhood. I wonder how he knows those when he didnt even seem to be around then! Suddenly the ticket checkers arrival shuts them all up. The pandemonium of a second ago turns to a deathlike silence. I wonder if they are afraid of other people. I wonder if they’ll ever go away for ever. I wonder about these voices in my head.