The Empty Seat

As I sped through the underpass to catch the last metro I looked at the luminescent dial of my Citizen wristwatch, noting amidst several huffs and puffs that I still had more than a minute to complete the 100 metre stretch of staircase ahead of me before the train huffed and puffed into the station. I leapt up the stairs devouring them two, sometimes three at a time and finally catapulted myself to the platform as the last metro entered the station. To my immense satisfaction, the digital watch cum alert system hanging above my sweating head read “10:10”.Few saw the smirk that lingered over my face momentarily as the victory of one battle gave way to the preparation for another – this time the objective being the capture of a seat before the multitude of obese middle-aged, experienced men grabbed onto theirs. I waited with anticipation, sweat dripping of my arched brow and my tensed sinews, body arched forward ready to pounce at the slightest sight of an empty seat, as the train shuddered to a halt. The second’s wait before the electronic doors opened and all hell broke loose was the most important – this is the time when one has to look for a relatively empty door and stand in front of it in such a manner so as to guard other potential competitors and at the same time accord the requisite bit of courtesy to the alighting passengers and at the same time , twist one’s body in such a manner so as to find the tiniest gap to squeeze oneself in without shoving others hence protecting oneself from an otherwise  expected barrage of colourful Bengali abuses . Combining the skills of many wild animals into one, I successfully maneuvered myself and managed to secure a seat for myself as the last metro chugged out of Mahanayak Uttam Kumar station. As I looked around triumphantly, the obese man on my right accorded me a slight smile before proceeding to take out his cellphone. I sighed and smiled back.

The obese man beside me punched in some keys on his cellphone’s keypad before assuming the stoic position perfected by the Buddha. A familiar pinging noise informed me that he had sent a text message. The man proceeded to repeat this action as the train stopped at Rabindra Sarovar and then at Kalighat and again at Jatin Das Park. Intrigued, I peered into the screen of his cellphone as the next station approached hoping to decode the cause for this man’s incessant texting. As Netaji Bhavan approached, I maintained a constant stare at his cellphone screen and as the train shuddered to a halt and the lady over the PA system announced our arrival at Netaji Bhavan station, my eyes watched as his fingers punched in “Netaji Bhavan” into his phone and then as the same few stubby fingers proceeded to type in a 10 digit cellphone number and hit “Send”. My eyes were quickly diverted as my ears picked up the sound of a sardonic cough emanating from my right side. I looked up apologetically at the man’s face, expecting an angry face and a barrage of choicest Bengali abuses but instead as I looked into his face, my eyes were greeted by a warm smile. I smiled back uncertainly.

The man continued his periodic action at every station and finally as Chandni Chowk approached I couldn’t control myself any longer.

“Newly married huh?” I asked rather bluntly.

“No. I’m just 37”, came the quick reply as if he was expecting a question sooner or later.

“Not your wife then, I presume?” I continued unabashedly.

“No. Actually the texts are for my father”, he confided.

Trying my best to suppress the waves of condescending laughter that ascended from my stomach, I looked away, laughing away internally at the 37-year old man’s lack of freedom.

My internal peals of laughter must have reverberated across to my right because the obese man continued “It’s not what you think.” Too shocked and more embarrassed to react, I continued to look away as he continued his monologue.

At some point during the conversation I must have looked up because as the train chugged into Girish Park station, I remember looking into misty eyes. Thinking back, I might have looked through and not into misty eyes.

As I put down the newspaper that had sparked my trip down the streets of Nostalgia, my thoughts circled back to the events of that day, which had started to end so much like any other day but had ended up ending quite differently. The news report was nothing new to the average Calcuttan. It was regarding an accident that had happened on the previous day at Girish Park metro station when a fat, obese man waiting to alight had been pushed and shoved by an onrushing crowd in such a manner that his feet had got stuck in the small space between the bogey and the platform and the train as it moved out of the platform, unknowingly chopped off a part of the man’s leg. I had recognized him from the file picture that accompanied the report. I had scoured through the report again and again trying to find a particular word and when I had found it I had slumped back onto the sofa distressed and shaken. One minor line in the report read “The inconsolable man’s cellphone could not be recovered as the train had crushed it after it had fallen out of his pocket onto the tracks.”

The more crushing news report came in the next day’s paper. Few across the metropolis could perhaps connect the two reports but I did and with a sinking feeling, I realized that atleast one other person will. The report was a small one. Infact if one did not look out for it, one could easily miss it out. For all practical purposes, it could be labeled as insignificant. The 10 line report spoke of the discovery of the dead body of an elderly man in a dilapidated house near Girish Park metro station. The man , the report stated , had been under medication and terminally ill, crippled by complete body paralysis with only his auditory and olfactory senses still working. The time of death had been placed somewhere between 10:30 pm and 11:00 pm on the day preceding the previous day .The report concluded by saying that death had possibly been a painful affair with the man suffering multiple cardiac arrests and multiple organ failure in a matter of minutes, with the investigating doctor suggesting that the cause of such an adverse reaction had been sudden shock.

As I put down a newspaper with a sigh for the second time in two days , I thought of the many things that the report did not specify – how it did not mention that the full body paralysis was due to a metro accident 15 years ago , that the man lived in constant fear of his son falling prey to the “Hell-train” and that his son , to pacify his father had come up with a unique way to keep his worried father informed without him having to move a muscle .It did not mention  how every day  the man received 13 texts – one for each station that his son crossed and the how 13 pinging sounds had become the sounds that dictated his life , that made him wait in anticipation , in morbid fear and on hearing which his soul lay embalmed and cooled .

I am not a doctor but I am sure that the sudden shock which caused the loss of a life was due to the one missing ping, because on that fateful day the inbox contained only 12 unopened messages.

I don’t rush to catch a metro anymore. An empty seat for me hardly justifies the emptiness that fills up another life.