The halt

A bottle, almost half-filled with mineral water rolled off the edge of the tray with a noise that was just enough to wake him up. Water spilled over onto the floor.

“Ah, Rashi, didn’t you cap it properly after drinking?”, the fifty-something man admonished his daughter, as he stooped to pick up the bottle with his left hand while using his right foot to shove the shoes away from the mess.

The man was not more than five-and-a-half feet tall. He wore an old-fashioned pair of glasses that concealed his mischievous eyes with an air of intelligentsia. Half-bald by the combined forces of age and heredity, this stout man had the appearance of a typical small-town businessman. His daughter, in her early twenties, was certainly not very beautiful but was pretty enough to exact lengthy glances from young passers-by.

The train journey hadn’t so far been very memorable. Nested in one corner of the compartment was the daughter. Just next to her was her father.  A nap between two stations ensured that time flew faster than usual, as they attempted to fight the ennui ensuing with every passing minute. But a sudden jolt had woken them up. The train had come to a halt. But there wasn’t a platform in sight.

“No signal yet again? The railways must be shut down! It’s already running so late”, complained a middle-aged gentleman to the left of this man, wiping sweat off his forehead by the stroke of his forefinger.

The daughter hadn’t paid much attention to the world outside her iPod. She was mindlessly tapping her feet to the beats of a song she played so loud that it almost got the boy opposite her tapping his feet as well! With the train now standstill, the breeze had stopped blowing. The girl removed the earplugs with a sigh of discontent.

A tall man with a mustache came running down the aisle. Startled by his panicky movements, the passengers exchanged confused glances. One of them couldn’t resist asking, “What’s the matter? Is everything alright?”

Paying no heed to the question, he walked past briskly, only to stop again at the same question by an old bespectacled man. This time again, he paid no attention but cared to reply more out of annoyance than courtesy-

“Someone pulled the chain.”

In a moment, all eyes turned towards the window. Men hanging from the door were shouting fiercely at a short young man running with a grey suitcase towards a village. Green pastures disappeared into the horizon. And apparently so did he plan to! Chasing the man would be a futile exercise, considering the fate of the thousand stranded travelers. The railway officials had given up.

Rashi was quick to recognize the suitcase the man was fleeing with. She quickly caught hold of her father’s arm, “Look, it’s that suitcase!”

In no time, the father realized that the suitcase that was carefully perched on the upper berth was no longer at its place.

The suitcase wasn’t theirs. Nor did it belong to any of the passengers in that bogie. They had lived in constant discomfort ever since they had discovered it after boarding the train.

“Let’s open and see if there’s an address of the owner”, a tall man who acted like a detective, had advised.

But before he could execute his plan, one lady had disclosed her concern. She'd complained to her husband, “Haven’t you seen those advertisements they show on TV? This might be a bomb. No place in this world is safe. There are terrorists everywhere!”

The husband had dutifully complied by engaging the fellow passengers in a discussion.

“Let’s throw it away”, proposed one. But he dared not bell the cat. In fact, no one would touch it. Some tried to get hold of a policeman in the train but to no avail.

“Okay, we should wait for the next station and inform the police”, suggested an aged gentleman. Everyone had agreed to the only seemingly feasible solution. The next station was an hour away.

“So, we’ll have to wait”, sighed a worried passenger, who embraced his kid, promising safety.

While they waited, the long journey coupled with the May heat had taken its toll on their body, inducing sleep from time to time, despite the cause of worry. The wait had come to a premature halt with the thief running away with the suitcase. The passengers did not know whether to thank him or not.

The father looked at his daughter, smiled at her and caressed her hair. Rashi reciprocated and soon went back to listening to her little device.