6:21 Borivali Fast

“Here’s your tea. Drink it before it gets cold.”

“I….don’t…want….tea”, said Mr Kulkarni in a quivering voice. His face was deathly pale and it seemed as though he had just seen an incarnation of Satan.

Mrs Kulkarni could not believe her ears. Never in their 20 years of married life had her metronome of a husband ever refused his evening tea.

Mr Madhav Kulkarni was the epitome of a law abiding citizen. A stoic and respectable white-collared Maharashtrian gentleman. A man of habits; he did not follow the clock. He was the clock. No colleague at the venerable old insurance company where he worked could recall a day when Mr Kulkarni did not occupy his chair sharp at 9:20 A.M in the morning. They often ribbed him good-naturedly about his fixation for punctuality, but he always shrugged it off with a half-smile that did not quite fail to reveal the twinkling of pride in his eyes.

Punctuality was a virtue instilled in him by his late father who would never hesitate to unleash hell with a bamboo cane if any of his five children ever strayed off the ‘proper’ path of living. Mr Kulkarni always regretted being too soft on his only son, who had developed into something of a rebellious slob. Having failed to make it to the IIT’s, the Holy Grail of the Indian middle class, Amit was now eking out a degree in an ‘ordinary’ Mumbai University engineering college. “Maybe there is still time to make something out of him”, Mr Kulkarni often mused to himself.

At 6 P.M on the dot, he would leave his office and walk to Marine Lines station. Some of his colleagues would stop at the khau galli for a quick snack, but not Mr Kulkarni. There was a ‘return train’ to catch and he’d rather stifle hunger for an hour than deviate from his daily routine.

The concept of a return journey is perhaps unique to the city of Mumbai. There are the Up trains and the Down trains. Trains travelling Down during the morning rush hours and the ones trudging Up after work hours in the evening transform into bowels of hell where sweaty human bodies are cramped together tighter than sardines in a can. The First class and the Second class distinctions between compartments cease to matter during these times; though one could argue that the First class crowd tends to wear perfumes, deodorants and after-shaves, thus making life a wee bit easier.

Crafty Mumbaikars board a train bound for the starting terminal Churchgate, from the penultimate station Marine Lines. Thus, they manage to grab a priceless seat, while many who burst in at Churchgate for a north-bound train are left standing in a crowd that swells with each passing station. Mr. Kulkarni unfailingly made a daily return journey through the 6:21 Borivali Fast, always in his favourite window seat.

Many who travelled in this particular train were regulars and known faces. There was the boisterous group of four Gujrati businessmen who would always be seen engaged in a highly competitive game of Rummy. They would become oblivious to the mass of humanity around them once they started with their game and one could often hear gladiatorial whoops of victory or demented sighs of defeat emanating from them. There was the middle-aged Bohri Muslim gentleman who owned a garment business at Crawford market and preferred to spend his journeys poring over his Blackberry. Elderly Mr Deshpande used to travel with Mr Kulkarni for the better part of a decade and the two had become close friends but the former had retired just recently.

One particular day, there was a new face sitting opposite Mr Kulkarni. It was a handsome young man in his late twenties, clean shaven and immaculately dressed. He too was making the return journey and carried a backpack, which he duly deposited in the luggage rack. There was also a stylish laptop case, from which emerged an expensive looking laptop. The man smiled at Mr Kulkarni and he smiled back. What registered at once were the confident gaze and the professional demeanour. The man fired up his laptop and got busy, looking every bit the urban corporate.

As the train chugged off from Churchgate and the pleasant December breeze blew into his face, Mr Kulkarni slipped into a reverie. His thoughts strayed towards his son, who was serving up one disappointment after the other. Just the previous day, he broke the news that he had flunked two subjects in the previous semester exam. The conversation was still fresh in his mind and annoyed him in no small measure.

“It’s cool Dad. That semester was hell for everyone. Many of my friends have flunked too.”

“So that’s the parameter by which you judge yourself these days? Those rich brats whom you call your friends just need a degree for a showpiece. You, on the other hand, have a career to build from scratch.” Mr Kulkarni could barely keep out the anger from his voice.

“Daaaaaddd”, drawled Amit, rolling his eyes and not making an effort to hide his boredom. “Can I go now?”

Was this the ‘generation gap’ that the media was speaking so much about these days? The long hair and the goatee that Amit had begun to sport multiplied Mr Kulkarni’s frustration threefold. He had already resigned himself to ignore those cacophonous noises that emerged from Amit’s room. ‘Death metal’, his son had labelled that diabolical din.

His train of thought broke off as the young man opposite him began talking over the phone. He spoke in impeccable English without any trace of an accent. His manner of speaking reminded him of Harsha Bhogle, the famous cricket commentator. He was discussing real estate deals at various locations in Mumbai. He dully wondered whether he would ever see Amit looking and sounding as professional as this bloke. Forty minutes passed and Mr Kulkarni got up to disembark at Andheri and saw that the young man was doing the same.

*********

A week had passed and the young man became a daily fixture in the 6:21 Borivali Fast. Mr Kulkarni was by now on talking terms with him and learnt that his name was Nikhil and that he worked as a manager at a multinational real estate broking firm. Nikhil had done his MBA from a very prestigious B-school in Mumbai. Mr Kulkarni had always nurtured ambitions for his son to get an MBA degree and he was glad that he had found a brain to pick. Maybe after a few months, he hoped he could invite Nikhil over to his place and ask him to shove some motivation and guidance down his lazy son’s throat.

One evening, as Nikhil boarded the train, Mr Kulkarni could sense that everything was not quite right with him. His usually bright smile was half-hearted, his eyes looked pensive and his hands were fidgeting about in a nervous manner. The amiable Mr Kulkarni could not ignore this change and enquired as non-obtrusively as he could.

“Is everything fine, Nikhil? You seem a bit disturbed.”

“Ummm…yeah. Actually I am just facing some pressure at work. Not too serious though. It will pass over in the next few days.”

“Oh..the dreaded deadlines. Don’t worry. Deadlines come and go. Smart people always find a way to survive”, guffawed Mr Kulkarni. “Maybe it is time for you to get hitched. Women have their own way of making our problems seem small”, he added with a wink.

“Hehe….that may well be true. My parents keep bugging me all the time to get married”, said Nikhil nervously while shifting uncomfortably in his seat. He excused himself to answer a call and with a sombre expression, kept talking in gruff monosyllables.

Sensing that his young friend was not really in a chatty mood that day, Mr Kulkarni decided to busy himself with a novel he had borrowed from the office library.

Andheri was about to be reached in a couple of minutes and the two of them got up. Mr Kulkarni’s subconscious again registered something amiss with Nikhil but he was soon distracted with the unenviable task of cutting a way through the peak hour Mumbai local train crowd. As they alighted, the older man turned around to say goodbye to Nikhil but found that he had already disappeared into the ocean of people at the station. “Poor guy must have had a really tough day”, he mused. “He was not quite himself today.”

Mr Kulkarni preferred to walk the two kilometres from the station to his house. The weather was cool enough and a bit of exercise would not hurt either. His wife opened the door and he was immediately greeted by the shrill music originating from Amit’s room.

“Is our son planning to become a professional musician?” he asked his wife in a sardonic tone. Should I stop paying his hefty engineering fees?”

“Let him be. He was studying all day long and has just taken a break”, said the mother in a proud tone which only protective mothers possess.

Mr Kulkarni freshened up and plonked himself on the sofa. He switched on the TV and began surfing channels mechanically. He reached the news channel and his heart skipped a few beats as he saw the scenes unfolding in front of him.

Breaking News: Multiple train blasts in Mumbai. Hundreds believed to be dead.

The details that followed next made him break into a cold sweat. One of the blasts happened at Jogeshwari in the middle-first class compartment of the 6:21 Borivali Fast. The very compartment he had been in half an hour ago.

His subconscious had started making detonations of its own. Every fact was bearing down on him like a hammer. When Nikhil got up to leave, he only had his laptop case with him. Where was his heavy backpack? Surely it couldn’t be….But then, why was he behaving in this manner today?

But he was Nikhil, an MBA with a fancy job. That is what an alias is, you idiot.

Wasn’t he a regular in the compartment? Ever heard of reconnaissance?

I remember his face all too well. What if I approach the police? Yeah sure, as if he has not already disappeared into the darkness from where he had popped up.

The world around him was spinning in circles and Mr Kulkarni sank deeper into the sofa.

“Here’s your tea. Drink it before it gets cold.”

“I….don’t…want….tea”, said Mr Kulkarni in a quivering voice. His face was drained of colour and it seemed as though he had just seen an incarnation of Satan.

Mrs Kulkarni could not believe her ears. Never in their 20 years of married life had her metronome of a husband ever refused his evening tea.

The lyrics of the Slayer song bursting from Amit’s room could be heard clearly in the heavy silence of the living room.

Waiting the hour destined to die
Here on the table of hell
A figure in white unknown by man
Approaching the altar of death
High priest awaiting dagger in hand
Spilling the pure virgin blood
Satan's slaughter, ceremonial death
Answer his every command