one last glimpse

based off an excerpt from Ruskin Bond's "The Night Train at Deoli"

The sharp crows of the rooster pierced Deoli's morning silence and alerted a young girl that it was time for her day to begin. In a small house with gradually crumbling walls, lived young Amrutha with her aging mother and younger brother. With her father having passed away, Amrutha had been burdened with being the sole breadwinner of the family from the tender age of 11. She took up a number of odd jobs and the peanuts made from these tasks, would be just enough to make ends meet. Her family was barely satisfied with this arrangement since they had been so used to going to bed hungry most days they accept anything that silences their grumbling stomachs. But Amrutha wasn't so easily satiated. Amrutha yearned for something beyond the mundane jobs and believed that life was so much more than what her poverty stricken reality offered her. Her only escape was the little art projects she would make with items from around the house, much to her mother’s disproval. “At least if you could sell these and earn something for the house it would be of some use!” she’d sneer.

One morning Amrutha woke up ready to scrounge for the day’s labour. As she walked out of her house and onto the road, she noticed a middle-aged woman sitting on the cracked sidewalk with several peels of bamboo in front of her. Amrutha gazed in awe as the woman’s tan and wrinkled hands masterfully wrapped each strip around the other, weaving baskets after baskets in no time. Amrutha wanted to learn this artform simply for the joy of creating something with her own hands. Amrutha hesitated to interrupt the weaver’s focus but she was determined. She crouched beside her and asked, "Hello. Could I help you weave these baskets?" The lady gave her a confused look and then smiled "Do you want to buy one?" Amrutha shook her head and tried again "Will you teach me how to make the baskets?" As she said this the woman flashed a toothless grin and nodded. She handed her the strips of bamboo and began demonstrating how a sturdy cane basket is made out of spineless strips of bamboo.

“Ahhh!” Amrutha squealed. After about an hour of learning how to weave the pieces together she finally made a decent looking basket. It was a lopsided and far from perfect but to Amrutha it was the most beautiful basket in the world. “Aunty, these are lovely! Why don’t you sell them?” Amrutha asked, imagining how much her own basket could be worth. For a second it appeared as though the weaver had drifted away in her own thoughts. She snapped back to reality and motioned for Amrutha to come closer. “Can I tell you a little story?” she whispered.

Within the next 30 minutes, Amrutha was transported to the Deoli train station in the summer of ’88. The old woman seemed to appear more rejuvenated as she recounted her memory of the silent connection she had when she first locked eyes with him. What a strange boy. Out of all the times she spent wandering the station platforms, this interaction was one that always stood out to her. To every other person she was just another urchin, trying to swindle flustered passengers for her dirty cane baskets. But not to him. In front of this boy, she felt seen. When they locked eyes for the first time, she no longer felt invisible. She did not know what to do but ask him what she asked everybody else—‘Do you want to buy a basket?’ In that moment however, she wanted nothing more than to drop her cane baskets and run to him but she knew that was impossible. The train pulled him away from her just as he reached out for a basket and she couldn’t help but regret her decision of doing nothing.

For the next two months, she ran to the station and stayed there every day till dusk hoping for a mere glimpse of those piercing blue eyes. Despite every day proving to be futile, she never gave up hope which was just as well because there he was one fine day, leaping off the footboard to meet her. She distinctly remembered the last thing he asked her. ‘Will you be here?’ She nodded coyly knowing she was only all too excited to meet him again.

That evening however, she was met with her father’s wrath upon her arrival home. Her infatuation with the blue-eyed boy had distracted her from bringing home her stipulated amount of wages from selling the cane baskets. “I’ve found a boy for you.”, her father thundered that very evening. “He has studied till the 10^th grade and has a government job as well. You are to marry him next week.” The horror these words brought to her face then, reflected in her eyes as a nervous glimmer as she recalled the memory now. Her protests fell on deaf ears and within a week, the 16-year old girl, adorned in her mother’s saree and jewellery was shipped off to her 24-year old husband’s home. She was never allowed to leave the house without his permission so she had learnt to lose any hope of seeing her blue-eyed boy. “Not a day went by where I didn’t think of him” she said. Amrutha asked with concern, “Did you ever get to see him again?” The woman smirked. “Yes I did.” One day when her husband went out for a work-related matter, she snuck out to the station half-expecting disappointment. Just then she spotted among the crowd, a skinny young boy frantically searching for someone.

Amrutha gasped. “You really found him? Why didn’t you go to him then?”

“That question brought me several sleepless nights until one day the answer revealed itself to me”, the woman chuckled as she wrapped two bamboo strips around each other. “Why should I have to go to him at all? One last glimpse. That was all I wanted and that was everything I got.”

this was an assigment i had for my advanced english course with the prompt being to write a second part to the original story by Ruskin Bond from the perspective of the girl mentioned it. ‘The Night Train at Deoli’ is a short story but a very beautiful one so read that as well for a little more context!

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