The Woman on Platform No. 3

It was a cold winter morning. The last day of a very happening and interesting year 2009. My semester exams had just ended and I was excited..very excited..coz it was the beginning of a new year, new thoughts and new life.


My journey began as I boarded the train to my home. The intermittent breaks it took at every station, the very same boarding and deboarding people made the journey lively and broke the monotony. Then I reached the New Delhi railway station where it was scheduled to stop for half an hour. Did I tell you that the train was from Bandra to Amritsar and that the very mention of a journey by train used to pound my heart with fond memories, which though were not there but were yet to be forged. In short, I was very excited. The station was under face lifting in full swing and the amalgamation of people from all the corners of India an even abroad presented a beautiful pageant. Coolies draped in red, pulled luggage from one platform to another. In the middle of this hullabaloo, I discovered a woman and immediately enquired about the platform number.


She carried beautiful, black long hair, wore a pair of big spectacles, a scarf ran around her neck and she was talking to a man standing besides her, both surrounded by luggage and talking comfortably. She was tall, she was fair, more appropriately, she was a pretty woman. “She’s in her early 40s”, I told myself and then compared her to my mom. “Yes, she looks the same age as my mom”, I reassured myself..!! if the man was her husband or her brother didn’t bother me as the center of attraction was she. She seemed to be a professor at the IITD or the DU and the long, black blazer she wore substantiated the hypothesis. She was laughing and conversing in English, for sure, making use of hand postures to give details. I could not help myself but observe her uninterrupted coz the aura she had about herself and the way she carried herself made me a fan of hers. Then rang a phone, which that man received. He passed it to her and, “Han Maa..Dwi Ghonto..” were the only words I could hear. All my efforts to hear clearly went in vain with her fading pitch. She was a professor from Bengal and had been staying in Delhi and was off to her maternal home for the new year, was what I could comprehend and suddenly a coolie appeared in the scene which that man had called. ‘La Opala’ glassware, ‘Philips’ hand blender, 2 suitcases, and a big bag were all they carried and not to forget the brown leather handbag she held in her hand. “O Jesus, she’s wearing a blue denim jeans, she belongs to an effluent family”. And she disappeared in a blink of an eye. She became a memory in my mind. I continued looking at that couple from the North East who were sitting there from the past 15 minutes and she reappeared but this time walking briskly in the opposite direction she went earlier. I bade her goodbye and a prosperous new year and kept the memory with me. The train hooted for a start and my journey resumed. The woman on platform no. 3 remains a thing of beauty which shall give me joy forever…