I was seven and to me he was a colourful hero. Sen was barely five-six, with graying temples and a slight slouch, but he looked resplendent in his starched indigo uniform and black-banded felt hat. He had a shy, boyish smile and a wonderful way of telling his stories. What made him heroic in my eyes was his occupation.
A guard in the Indian railways, he checked passengers’ tickets, answered their questions, helped travellers with problems, told obstreperous children not to lean out of the windows, and finally retired to the tiny last compartment of the train, his little home away from home. I imagined him traveling to exotic places, meeting new and exciting people every day, savoring unusual food at remote rail stations, and living, in short, an odd, fast-changing life very different from the humdrum existence of people I knew.
Yet, there were glimpses of a discordant note. When he came to my aunt’s house alone, as he normally did, he was lively, garrulous, ready to talk and laugh. When he came with his wife, he seemed guarded, almost taciturn, reluctant to tell us any of his many stories. If we referred to stories he had earlier recounted, his wife seemed always to find some mistake or exaggeration in the story, even if it was trivial. Sometimes she even alluded to the pedestrian monotony of a railway job. She seemed angry that life had not dealt her a more favourable hand, in the form of a more affluent or well-placed husband.
However, everybody else seemed to enjoy Sen’s company and relish his endless stream of good-natured travel stories. It was easy to discount the possibility of a shadowy undercurrent in his life and stick to the image of a happy-go-lucky wanderer.
It came as a shock the day the city accountant, another regular at my aunt’s, somberly told us that the night before Sen had hung himself from the rafter in his outhouse. It was the sharpest jolt in my young life.
Yet it took us three more days to understand the full, appalling depth of Sen’s dark and dismal crypto-life. His wife came to my aunt’s home to check if anybody knew whether Sen had a secret bank account, and angrily told us, “He thought he would punish me with his foolish act,” she said with gritted teeth, “but, live on I will. Happily!”
Young as I was, I doubted that she was set for any form of happiness.
The writer is a Washington-based international development advisor and had worked with the World Bank. He can be reached at mnandy@gmail.com