The magic of searching for a seam in the water

A stranger than fiction story

Dear Reader,

I’ve mentioned a part of this story before, but I thought I would share it in its entirety today. It’s one of those stories that makes you wonder. I should add this happened many decades ago, before the advent of cell phones and the internet.

I was 18 when I returned to India for college. At that time, my parents still lived in a different country, and I remember feeling terribly homesick that first semester. Everything felt overwhelming- adjusting to my new roommate (a sullen, older student who would just stare back and not respond when I spoke to her), getting used to both the strenuous discipline of classes and the chaos of hostel life, and wondering how I was going to go an entire year without seeing my parents. There was also sanctioned (at least, unofficially sanctioned) ragging (hazing) for the first few weeks. This usually involved being asked to do really silly things (e.g. fill a bucket with water using a coin as a scoop!), running errands for the senior students when you should be in class, giving up your dessert to someone else, loud teasing, etc. I was shy, introverted, and easily overwhelmed, and at that time, the ragging usually left me in tears.

So, when there was a sudden staff strike at the college halfway through the semester and classes were cancelled for that week, I was overjoyed. And because everyone else was going home, I decided I, too, would to take the train to visit my grandfather who lived an 8-hour train ride away. I hadn't traveled alone by train before this, and though I was nervous, the homesickness won out. 

I had made a few friends that semester. We weren’t close yet, but it was comforting to travel together as a group to the small, train station. It was lunchtime when we arrived and the station was hot and noisy, and packed with students. There was a general air of excitement, thanks to the unexpected holiday. I don’t think any of us were thinking about the reasons for the staff strike. All we could focus on was going home.

We stood in line at the crowded ticket counter. When it was my turn, the man behind the counter informed me that the only tickets available were in the Unreserved compartment of the train, a first-come, first-seated space that could get extremely crowded. I didn't care. I just wanted to go home. I paid for the ticket without really listening to what he said. Tickets in hand, my new friends and I hugged each other with sudden, unexpected fervor before dispersing in search of our respective trains.

I got on the wrong train. 

I think I might’ve misheard the platform number. I knew the train was leaving soon, so I didn't stop to check the signs on the train. I saw another student, who I thought was from the same city, getting into the train, so I assumed it was the right one. The Ticket Collector (TC) comes around to check your tickets once you get on the train, but I was traveling in the unreserved compartment and I don’t know if those get checked.

Anyway, I got on the wrong train, and I didn't find out until about eight at night, almost at the end of the journey. 

I'd found a window seat, and enjoyed spicy vegetable biryani and hot chai. I was feeling proud of myself for traveling alone and I was excited about seeing family soon. I knew the cities on the way to my grandfather's hometown, and when the train pulled into the stop just before mine, I knew I was only about an hour from home. This was a bigger city and the train would stop here for about 15-20 minutes, and then, the final stretch! I could hardly wait.

That's when the middle-aged woman in the seat opposite me spoke. "Where are you going?" she asked.

The woman hadn’t said a word in all the hours of traveling together. She'd looked away every time we made eye contact and resumed her reading.

When I answered, she looked puzzled. "This train doesn't go there."

"Yes, it does," I said, laughing, "it's the next stop, only an hour away."

"Listen,” she said, “when the train leaves this station, it turns north, away from where you want to go."

"What?" What?!

She gestured urgently towards the station outside the window. "You have to get down and take another train."

When I continued to look vacantly at her, she said, "Listen, you are on the wrong train! The next stop is north of here, and we will stop there in the middle of the night. It will be harder to get another train from there because it’s a much smaller town. You don’t want to be stranded alone at night in the middle of nowhere."

By now, the other passengers were looking at me and more heads started to nod. I was exhausted after the first few months of college and I was slow to react to this new shock.

"Look, there's the TC! You should go talk to him," said someone else, gesturing to a uniformed man with a clipboard who, at that very moment, was talking to someone just outside our window. 

I picked up my backpack and stumbled out of the train. I didn't know what I was going to do. Should I’ve just stayed on the train? What if they were wrong? I had very little money with me (I was going home and hadn't thought of anything else beyond that), and I didn't know if there was a train at this time of the night or if I would have to wait in the station overnight. Every horror story I had heard about traveling alone at night went through my head.

The TC, when I described my predicament to him, shook his head in amazement. 

"Young lady," he said incredulously, "this is your lucky day. Another train will be here in just a few minutes. It's the one you should've originally gotten on. It’s one of those limited stops train and it usually gets here earlier, but it’s delayed today. It runs only once a week, so if this happened any other day… Listen, just get yourself a ticket from the counter and get into that train."

As the train I'd arrived on left, I saw the middle-aged woman had returned to her book, though some of the other passengers waved to me. What followed were moments of sheer terror. Everything looked scary: the dim, yellow lights of the station, the departing, wrong train that nevertheless felt like it was my train, and the rapidly emptying platform as passengers who’d arrived on the train left for home. Home. How was I going to get home? Was there really another train, the right one?

I got home safely. I didn't even need to buy a ticket because of the kindness of some strangers who, overhearing my conversation with the TC, ran and bought it for me, so that I wouldn’t miss the next train.

When the correct train pulled into the station, I hesitated on the platform, checking and cross-checking that it was the right train, before mustering the courage to get in.

I didn't have to make any explanations to my family because I arrived on the train they expected me to be on.

I’ve always wondered what made the woman speak to me at precisely that moment. Was it just an extremely lucky coincidence? Probably, right? Because, really, what else can it be?

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I’m fascinated by these kind of happenings where it feels like for just a moment you are close to something that feels like a seam between worlds (e.g. rational and fantastical). The logical part of me will announce sternly that I was lucky the stranger asked me where I was going at just the right time while the older, more fanciful part, steeped as it is in ancient cultural and family legends, will wonder what magic made her do that.

Where does rational thought end and magical thinking begin? Is there a line between the two? As I type that, an image pops into my head, of a teal blue sea. The water is clear and when viewed from a distance the colors range from teal to aquamarine. I imagine myself (or you) swimming underwater and coming up just under the surface. I hover there because I’m searching for a seam in the surface of the water, a line that might divide magic and rationale.

Dear Reader, I’d love to hear what you think, and of your experiences of finding that invisible seam between worlds.

A big thank you,

Richard Kirtland

, for your paid support of Ten Thousand Journeys!

Best,

Priya

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