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A Day in a Suburban Train

© Meenakshi Subramaniam

We will join Mrs.Krishnaveni on her daily ride to and back from work. The story is set in Chennai, one of the four major metros of the country. Chennai, at the best of times, is sweltering, sticky and a place where God himself has given up on the weather.

Mrs. Krishnaveni is a clerk at the Government Health Center, and her office is smack in the middle of the city. Summer has just started and boy, is she glad that today is the last day of school. The annual exams will be over today and her son and daughter, aged 12 and 7, can be packed off to their Granny's place in the country. But until then, she has to somehow get through this day.

She has woken up at 5 in the morning and stood for nearly half an hour at the milk booth, to get a litre of milk, Life without her morning cuppa is not something to be even imagined, much less thought about. If she can prepare the coffee and breakfast, wake up her kids, get them ready for school, get her husband's lunch ready, take a bath herself- if she can do all this by 7:30, then the day will be off to a good start. Some days, she beats the recod, but on some others, she is not so lucky. Today seems to be one of her luckier ones.

She has rushed the children to school and her husband has given her a lift to the nearest subway station. Mrs.Krishnaveni lives at Tambaram, which is a good 20 kms form the office. She takes the 8:20 from Tambaram to Egmore. The station is crowded, as always...In a crazy cross between running and walking, she gets to her platform just at the last moment, the train is pulling out.

What a bother.. Now she has lost her favorite seat by the window. And to top it all, she has to stand. The compartment is crowded, and the summer has come with a vengeance. The sweat and heat all combine to give a bitter-sweet nauseating feeling. She quells it with a sip from her water-bottle and perches on one foot to look out of the window. All around her, the women are busy going about their unfinished tasks- chores that have been left hanging and unattended to in the early morning rush. One woman straightens her hair, while another cleans her handbag. Yet another is catching up on her reading, while another is catching forty winks.

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