Prelude
 Sachin Saagar Singh  
8/5/25



     There are few feelings—internalizing a piece of wisdom, or discovering a new dimension of a loved one, perhaps—that compare to the feeling of stepping into an empty train platform in the cold, clear morning, when the fog hangs over the station and the hiss of the train engine gives way to dewy silence. We were a day into our journey and the train had made one of its customary stops by a hill-station, where the drivers swapped posts and the conductors and porters stepped off to smoke and drink chai in little circles down by the trees. My father had instilled in me the habit of jumping off the train every time it made one of those refueling stops with the intention of finding a good hot breakfast and exploring the platform. This time, however, and increasingly as he grew older, I was left to my own devices and so thus I ventured out into the mist alone. I walked down to the end of the platform where the concrete sloped gently downwards until it disappeared into the ferns and twines growing out of the rusted tracks, and the dark graphite pylons supporting the overhanging veranda came to an abrupt halt. In the distance I could see rows of oblong hillocks framed awkwardly against the horizon peppered with grey-green trees whose crowns disappeared into the clouds. 

     Suddenly, I felt a light touch on the small of my back and swung around, expecting it to be Ray, but it was Meera aunty.

     “Go ask them for a lighter,” she said, nodding towards the porters huddled further down the tracks. I considered this command a test of my mettle and was not disinclined to comply, even though I was also perfectly cognizant of its humiliative aspect and did reflect on whether that knowledge, which we both possessed, revealed on her part any sort of malice. Nonetheless, I trudged through the fog with my hands in my trouser-pockets and asked sheepishly, in Hindi that no doubt de-aged me by at least one developmental phase in their eyes, whether they would be willing to spare a light for the madam. I think they acquiesced out of respect for her rather than approval of me, but I still savored the feeling of triumph as I walked back up the slope alongside the tracks with the shiny trophy clenched, magpie-like, within my fist. An expression almost like satisfaction played about her lips as she raised her cigarette and bestowed on me the honor of lighting up. 

     “In America they do not smoke,” she said. “But in Europe they start you young. You should be less like the Americans and more like—well, me.”

excerpted from ongoing project