It was almost dark when the train finally creaked to a halt at the small, deserted platform. Bhaskar stepped off the train on to unknown terrain and looked around himself unsurely. Someone from the village was expected to take him from the station to the house. After ten minutes of waiting, when no one had still arrived; he tried calling the house from his cell phone but received no response. He sighed and made his way to the solitary bench that was situated in the middle of the platform; preparing himself for a long wait. Bhaskar was in India for one of his annual visits from the US, where he now resided. A few days ago, at his Kolkata home, he had received an invitation from a distant relative, to visit their ancestral house in a small village near Kolkata. The curiosity of seeing their old ancestral house and village had lured Bhaskar out of the comforts of his Kolkata home to this small, dingy railway platform that appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. The dark, angry clouds that had been gathering in the sky since earlier that evening, decided to pour down heavily at that very moment making loud, pattering sounds on the tin roof of the platform. Bhaskar pulled his coat closer around himself, rested his head on his duffel bag and dozed off. A while later he was rudely awakened by the loud sound of thunder. As he jumped up, he noticed a small figure observing him from a little distance away. Bhaskar stood up, adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose, and peered closely at the figure in the darkness, hoping that it would be someone from the village. A streak of lightning cut across the sky at that instant and bathed the platform in light for a few moments. Bhaskar gave a start, as he recognized the figure on the platform. It was his old school friend, Vivek - someone whom he hadn’t expected to see here for several reasons, the least of which was that Vivek had now been dead for fifteen years. Bhaskar rubbed his eyes, readjusted his glasses and once again looked in the direction where he had seen Vivek, to see his friend look back at him with a bemused expression on his face and his thin hands firmly planted on his hips. Several thoughts rushed through Bhaskar’s mind, one of which was to throw some sand in Vivek’s direction since he had heard stories in his childhood where ghosts were known to disappear when sand was thrown into their eyes. However, he did not act on this impulse, firstly because it was rude to throw sand at people and more importantly because he happened to be standing on a concrete platform at the moment with no sand in sight.
“Hi - how have you been Bhaskar? W-what are you doing here?” stammered Bhaskar
“Well”, shrugged the figure – “I live here...”
Bhaskar was silent for a moment, digesting this information and pondering what his next plan of action should be. The next moment he gave a start as he found that Vivek was now standing next to him. He remembered that as kids they had been about the same height. Now, Bhaskar noticed that he was taller than his friend.
“Why don’t we sit down?” asked Vivek again and Bhaskar followed the instruction hypnotically.
The last time he had seen his friend was when both of them had been in the sixth standard in school. As Bhaskar peered at Vivek once more he saw that Vivek seemed to look the same even today although Bhaskar knew that he himself was now almost unrecognizable from his childhood self.
As they sat on the bench, Bhaskar noticed that Vivek’s feet hung a good few inches above the ground, as he sat happily swinging his feet.
“So, why do you have a beard? And the glasses don’t really suit you...” chattered Vivek
Bhaskar decided to play along with his friend from yore. As a grown-up; he no longer knew how to talk to children.
“Well - I cannot see well without glasses.”
“Hmmm - you must be really old then!” the reply, making Bhaskar immediately want to smack the kid. Then common sense prevailed as he realized that smacking ghosts on a dark, deserted platform might not be in his best interest. He decided to change the topic...
“Why are you out here alone at night in this rain? Come to our house with me” offered Bhaskar, against his better judgement. Inviting ghosts back home was not necessarily a bright idea, but now the deed was done.
Vivek shrugged dismissively, “My parents have told me not to go anywhere with strangers.” He paused and then, “Well, actually since you are not a stranger so it may be okay to go with you...”
“Don’t you think that your parents will be looking for you now?” asked Bhaskar incredulously, at the mention of parents
“My parents won’t speak with me,” said Vivek, puffing out his cheeks.
“Why? What have you done?”
“Nothing much, I wanted to make a coat for Kim...”
“Who’s Kim?”
“Kim? Our dog. I wanted to make a coat for him since he is cold in the rains. I cut one of the curtains and made him one...since then no one’s been talking to me.”
Bhaskar suppressed a smile.
“I don’t want to go back home,” said Vivek. He suddenly jumped up from the bench and yanked at Bhaskar’s hand.
“Come on, take me to your house. You’ve invited me and I am very hungry.”
Bhaskar tried to pry his hand free from the grip and asked, “What do you like to eat?”
“Jalebis” the reply came promptly. He continued to pull at Bhaskar’s hand and just as Bhaskar was about to rise up a strange thing happened. The little figure gradually started to fade away, as though it were made of sand. Bhaskar peered as hard as he could through the darkness and soon enough his friend had completely disappeared. He felt another tug on his hand and looked up irritated; to find a wizened old man gaze down at him apologetically.
“Babu, I am sorry that I am late. The roads are flooded due to the rains and it took me longer than I had expected to reach the platform. Please come along with me. The car is waiting outside.”
As Bhaskar followed the driver out of the platform, he glanced back one more time to see if he could see his friend again, but the platform was deserted. He could no longer be sure whether he had really seen Vivek or if it had been a figment of his imagination but seeing his friend in this deserted railway station after years had allowed him to relive his childhood, if only for a few moments.