Chapter 1

I’d missed the train.

That seemed to be the lone thought ravaging my head when I fished out the brand-new hundred rupee bill from my wallet and thrust it at the driver’s face. He squinted at the money insouciantly, hardly registering any surprise at my decision to cut the trip short, if only by meters.

“I’ll get down here,” I said irritably, one of my legs already sticking outside the auto rickshaw.

“We’re not there yet. You getting down already?” crooned the b*****d, as if he was unwilling to let me go. “Yes,” I barked, making two insistent, chopping motions with the bill, urging him to take it and be gone. Yes, you damn dimwit, I thought. Had you not trundled your cart as if it were a hearse on its death march, we’d have been there ages ago.

He seemed unperturbed by my urgency, and took the money with the same calculated slowness he had displayed in driving his vehicle. I tried to spring out of the auto, but was faced, quite violently, with another of the hardships of courting excess flab, a new addition to my recently growing stack of ‘weight problems’. My frame was too large to fit the exit head on. My hasty attempt at stepping out only managed to rock the whole frame of the auto and flop me back on the seat. The driver let out a noise; the man had come alive, at last. I was too high-strung to care. Without any conscious effort, I wore my backpack off and flexed myself sideways out of the auto. I whirled around, flung the backpack to hook my hands in, and surveyed the scene.

At the front, the lineup of automobiles appeared to spread out for as far as I could see. On the other side, headlights were floating in from the freeway and joining the congestion. I gave myself a mental appreciation for deciding to end the trip, though I was not sure if it served anything anymore. Chennai Express was scheduled to leave at five past nine. My mobile screen glowed with the turn of that exact minute when I made my mind up to abandon the auto rickshaw, after waiting for about ten crucial minutes for it to gain only a few meters in the traffic. An unbidden image of the train starting to inch away was running in recurring loops inside my head. I’d most definitely missed my train. But I had not wasted a hundred and fifty bucks and a considerable amount of exertion to just let it go here. I looped around the back of the auto and threaded my way between the revving vehicles.

As I zigzagged between the cars and motorbikes, my anxiety seemed to loosen a little. Keeping in motion tended to do that, I noticed. It was much better than fidgeting in that cubbyhole, willing it to move forward, and fighting the implacable urge to peek into the time slipping away. I beat an old ambassador to a gap that materialized after the forward surge of a bike, and hopped over to the sidewalk. An angry horn rang out for nobody to care.

The sidewalk was deserted, thank god for small favors. I slowed down a bit, taking in the towering figure that marked my destination. Royal Court hotel appeared quite close by now, its proud ‘RC’ logo gleaming against the night sky, beckoning me. I should not be more than some hundred meters away. I sped along the sidewalk, picking my way by the headlights of waiting vehicles. I had grasped the straps of my backpack as securely as I could against my shoulders to prevent it from rattling as I ran, but my belly had no such harness; I was painfully aware of it bobbing and rolling with every pump. I was too busy admonishing myself for all the time I had piddled away earlier today to mull over my growing weight now. It had to wait.

“Why couldn’t you have started earlier?” I heard myself mutter between laborious huffing and puffing. My pace had slackened a bit now. Weaving around an occasional pedestrian and scanning the walkway for surprise potholes and skewed blocks, I felt my mind wander back to the endless train of what-ifs that had so haunted me through the past half hour. What if I had wrapped up PUBG and set out a few minutes earlier? What if I had been able to summon a taxi to my doorstep with a lazy swipe of my finger, the way I usually do it in Chennai? What if I had the sense to move my a*s a bit faster so that I could have reached the bus stop seconds earlier to catch the bus rather than to find it turn around the corner? And, by god, what if I had happened on an auto driver who could drive faster than a bullock cart?

The lighted entrance of the railway junction awaited me around a curve. I felt a sudden rush of gratitude for whichever noble being that had come up with the idea of this side entrance. It was just a thing of convenience when I headed out of it three days back. Now, it was a lifesaver and no less. It was going to spare me the trouble of running another mile to the main entrance, a feat I was in no shape to perform, and jostling through the sea of people between the entrance and my train.

I heard the familiar dingdong issuing from inside as I insinuated myself into the crowd bustling in. My ears were primed to take in the sequence of numbers as I filed in, 22624, but the announcement was for some other train, and my despair deepened. I broke free of the stream and hurried into the junction, stealing a quick look inside. A blue-painted train stood in the distance, across two trenches of tracks from where I now stood. I felt my heart beating against my chest, stooped and braced my hands against my knees. I was panting like a dog; sweating like a pig.

I took a second to ponder over the situation. I had checked out on the Internet that Chennai Express departed from the fourth platform �"the very same spot where the only train I could see now stood. Was it possible my train had left on time and the next one in line had trailed in? It could not have been more than three minutes since I last saw the clock tick to high time. Could my train have sped away so soon? No way. I felt an effusive wave of relief wash over me as I realized I was starting right at the Chennai Express. And it was at rest.

Now, the next problem bubbled up. I looked around to find myself standing in the middle of nowhere. Fourth platform, and my train, stood past two wells of tracks. I needed to find a staircase, scramble up, slalom around the ever-present swarm of people, and descend to the platform. I doubted the train would wait for me to perform all the stunt work. The side entrance had led me into a removed section of the first platform where I could not even find one of the goods stores that showed up every ten steps or so as you walked along the path. The lack of a staircase came as no surprise to me. I squinted to locate one far to my left, squeezed with distance. It was my only hope. I cast a forlorn glance at the train, making sure it had not started its humble roll already, before turning away to dash to the staircase when something caught the corner of my eye. I took a double take, and realized with instant certainty that I would be on the train no matter what.