Seven years ago, a warm Sunday
"Chai chai! Garam chai..... Coffee coffeee! coffee.........."
Adam slowly opened his eyes as these voices rang into his ears from around him. He rubbed his eyes, and suddenly a small head popped through his hands! It was little Diya, his first friend from the journey. She was giving out her cutest, funny smile as she saw her big friend dozing like a baby boy, with his head thrown left and right as the train took a turn every now and then. Adam suddenly woke up, as if being teleported from some other world, and couldn't come back to figure out where he was until Diya tugged Adam's hair and pointed at the Station Name Board outside the train. The train was gently slowing down as it reached the station, and people outside had already started their 'Who enters the train first, goes to Heaven' game.
"OH!!! I must get down, thank you Diya boo!" Adam came back from sleep and all of a sudden prepared to get off the train.
While Adam stuffed his earphones back into his pocket, Diya started writing something down into Adam's hands along with hand gestures. It was her sign language to say 'I love you brother' to her new big friend. They were travel buddies who got to know each other about nine hours ago, the little girl Diya and the big boy Adam. Diya was mute since birth, a ten-year-old little fairy who didn't need words to steal your heart. They became friends when Diya was crying as she felt hungry, and Adam bought her chocolates and a lollipop when the train paused at some station. After that, throughout the trip, the whole coach started talking about each other like a chain reaction while Adam and Diya were playing games on Adam's phone until its battery got drained, and Adam was forced to take part in the conversations too.
The random station where Adam had decided to get off had arrived. Adam bid his greetings to the nearby passengers and the whole coach, as they had already started to feel like a family, and he took his travel bag from the berth and stood up to get off the train. The nine-hour journey felt like nine days with Diya and all the other uncles and aunties and their never-ending stories. All faces turned a little dull as they saw Adam leaving. Adam had already left a part of him with them, with his funny stories. Adam always had poor social skills, but once he found someone good enough to talk with, he wouldn't just shut his mouth! Now they knew about Adam, pretty more than a lot of other people who spent more than enough time monitoring him. Adam gave a fist bump to Diya, gave a warm smile to all others, and got off the train.
As he walked on the platform, little Diya craned her neck and pressed her face against the bars of the window and waved her hands. Adam walked towards her, pinched her chubby cheeks, and whispered to her, "Hope we meet again, little one!" Gazing at her face, Adam asked himself, "Will she remember me again after this day? Have I left something with her that is worth remembering? Maybe like always, after years, one day I'll again cross her paths. That is how it always has been, right, God?" he chuckled to himself.
The guard's whistle went off, and the train slowly started to move. All the passengers boarded, and now all that was left on this platform were sad faces of people who waved their hands and sent off their loved ones to faraway places. As the train left, Adam was looking at the opposite platform. There was chaos ensuing there. A train had just arrived, and people scrambled to the coaches to check the lists posted on them for their seat/berth numbers. And on the other side, a hustle to get on the train and to locate their seats. Adam now turned and looked around him. Once again surrounded by porters, unloaded luggage, along with giggles, hugs, tears, anxiety, happiness, grief, all fuming in the air. The tea and coffee sellers, and vendors selling breakfast items like idlis, wadas, and upmavs were shouting out loud, searching for hungry tummies.
Everything around felt nostalgic to Adam. Those days when he had to finally return to the coaching centre after just two holidays in a month and how the whole two-day vacation and the one train journey back felt like they took the exact same time. How he would wake up in the morning, took the bus from home to the town and would run from the bus stand to the railway station so that he wouldn't miss his train. He remembered how he used to curiously notice everything around him, how much he enjoyed the chaos, the aroma of the coffee, the different kinds of passengers, the children, the old grandpas and grandmas, the crowd; it was all really a warm, pleasant, exhausting experience for him.
