An unusual holiday to Dharwad

Early morning mist and biting cold had engulfed Dharwad station. Hardly any soul moved. They were not required to, as most trains did not bother to halt here. Indolence was the pre-occupation of the porters, who sat whiling their time talking of ageless local stories chewing tobacco and squatting on worn out wooden benches. The platform floor appeared painted with fresh red color, courtesy of platform residents spewing flavored juice of beetle leaves and nut mixed with tobacco. It seemed the railway establishment had erased this station from their maps after the British had commissioned it in 1888.

As the clock struck 6.30 AM, the Miraj bound express train announced itself, hooting, still at a far-away distance from the station but visible through the mist of a porter’s eye. The porters, now, leaving behind their talk spread across the platforms. They seemed to have decided their positions or it must have been their daily routine. The station master had also slipped out from his office onto the platform. The tea and coffee vendors were ready to jump into the oncoming compartments to sell their adulterated content. Suddenly the station had come alive.

The express train was one of the few to take time off here, albeit only for a minute. So a special bond had been established between the train and its regular Dharwad bound passengers. I, my younger brother and my parents were one of those privileged travellers to board this train every other weekend, sleeping the distance between Bangalore and Dharwad.

The train chugged and screeched to a halt. The station bell had just stopped resonating. We got down from the train and shoved away all the porters. A gentle breeze blew on my face with a faint fragrance of a Niligiri, a nostalgic greeting by the destination. The Niligiri trees had been standing adjacent to the station since ages. We cleared our way through hustle and bustle of people getting down, evading gunny sacks being unloaded or should I say, thrown at us, and into the nearby auto stand.

“Malamaddi” said my father and nodded his head as a question. The driver responded saying “20 Rupees”. My father agreed. The customary negotiation between my father and the auto driver was missing this time around. The occasion was such. It demanded that we get to our grandfather’s house in Malamaddi by the soonest means possible. Our grandmother had left us forever.

The ride to Mahishi compound in Malamaddi was brief. As we got down from the rickshaw, my young eyes were excited to see the old charming bungalow standing beyond the compound wall. The red tiled roof, French styled windows and stone built compound walls mirrored a British era colonial building. A mini forest encircled the inside compound walls. The vintage ambassador parked next to the elevated sit out near the door entrance, had been lying there in state of neglect for decades. In-fact it had become a part of that mini forest. Spiders, cockroaches and other forest animals had put up their signboards throughout the car. Every time I came here, my young brain wondered who ever rode that automobile.

The elevated sit out of the house and the steps leading to the door was crowded with people. Silence had occupied the house and the forest. As the rickshaw sped away from the landscape, Ramesh kaka came to the gate to receive us. His blurry red eyes spoke of the event that had occurred inside the house. Tear droplets washed his cheeks. My father rushed into the house leaving us and Ramesh Kaka,

who had taken our luggage, behind. As I stepped inside the house, I saw a reservoir of tears bursting out of my father; certainly he had kept his emotions unto him until then.

Two hands out of nowhere, suddenly, pushed themselves beneath my both armpits from behind, lifted me up and forced me sit on the cot adjacent to the door. For a kid like me, I could not have dared to climb that Everest. On the top of the mountain of a cot, I met fellow companions who had also been airlifted. None of us had inkling as to what was happening at the ground beneath.

The hall of the house was as big as a cricket stadium for me and I always thought we could play inside rather than in that outside forest. I saw, through my binocular eyes, Ajja sitting at a distance diagonally opposite from where I and my mates were launched. His silent eyes glared at my grandma’s face constantly. He wanted to speak but with whom? His dearest lay before him, cold and unmoved. He did not bother to console his son who had just arrived at the scene. Or, his mind wanted to comfort his son but his body did not give him strength to even look at him.

The doctor walked in to the house and sat next to Ajja and consoled him. He then touched his hand and wrapped a black piece of cloth around his arm and started pumping from something that looked similar to a rickshaw horn. My successful graduation of 1st standard had not taught me that it was a BP checking instrument. Ajja was unmoved.

Cot top mates, Raju, Prashant and Shirish shook me and smiled to say Hi. I smiled back at them. It looked like we all wanted to go out and play cricket or climb a guava tree in that mini forest. But we dared not to climb down as the cot was surrounded by people who were standing still. The doctor was offered tea but he refused and bid farewell to Ajja. Ajja just nodded his head, a reaction that was taken by the doctor as all is well.

The next couple of hours we were stranded on the top of the cot as scores of people came in and walked out of the house. Hours later, people lifted my grandma out of the house as Ajja looked on in despair. He had no strength to weep. Tear drops had misted his thick glasses. Maybe he wanted to say, “Wait I will also come. Don’t leave me alone”.

As people cleared out of the house, I and my companions were let loose in that open forest. I had not realized why people had gathered and where they are taking my grandma. But that did not matter to me. I had just started my holiday to Dharwad.