Saturday | 11 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
বাংলা
   
Saturday | 11 January 2025 | Epaper

A Journey by Train

Published : Saturday, 9 January, 2021 at 12:00 AM  Count : 1105
Moinul Abedin
Abdul Alim accomplished fame in the locality for predicting future in fine precision. He would closely study any face and reveal the forthcoming events. Host of villagers got real proof and they used to visit him before initiating any salient task. One day he told his wife Sobura Begam by briefly gazing at Hafiz, "I don't think any journey by train would be safe for the child."
Sobura Begum had a real premonition since she knew and trusted her husband's power of clairvoyance.
Hafiz was reared up by his grandparents as his father had been absconding for long just after independence in fear of being caught for abetting the Pakistani forces. During his childhood Abdul Alim and Sobura Begum took meticulous care for his overall wellbeing and safety. Obviously they never let him board any train.
Soon Hafiz became a university graduate and he started making mockery of dadajan's so called psychic powers. He scoffed, "Life is a journey, how can I skip it dada?"
Abdul Alim laughed, "You need to explore your good time and bad time."
 Hafiz remained unperturbed. He continued, "Why do you think some people follow the right way while others ended up being doomed?"
"Most of the time people commit blunder for ignorance." Abdul Alim opined. "Yet something is inexplicable."
"How do you figure out the future dadajan?"
"Through my extraordinary senses, of course I can't suggest how."
Hafiz boasted, "I will prove that this is just a coincidence."
Abdul Alim beamed instead of replying.
Time passed like lightening moulding manifold changes on its way. After Sobura Begum's death Abdul Alim turned into a virtual recluse and permanently settled in the village. By this time Hafiz's marriage got dysfunctional and broke.
 For the last couple of days Abdul Alim had been calling Hafiz to meet him urgently. His voice was palpitating over the phone, "See me as soon as possible."
Hafiz did not show any real or initial interest but finally one evening got on the inter city train like many other times before defying Dadajan's admonition. The train with enough swaying and shuddering was under its way.
Hafiz took a trip down memory lane. Dadajan foretold about Hafiz's wife Raihana who left him just after two years in marriage. Devastated, Hafiz had to endure the worst episode of his life and his agony reached to the crescendo. Although he didn't have any remorse yet for disregarding Dadajan's objection before the marriage, he literally took it as a coincidence.
How did Raihana abandon him so viciously? Had he not been cuckolded as he unearthed Raihana's furtive and adulterous venture towards her boss. Hafiz who had been planning to migrate to Canada with her, thus missed her way in the most crestfallen and repugnant manner. He apprehended the precise echo of his mental state at that time while flipping through the literary page of a newspaper:
"I innocuously trusted a face
Insanely oblivious of
What was lurking
Under the surface!"
On another occasion Dadajan's prophesy miraculously came true which of course Hafiz did not believe either. Once during Eid ul Adha, his father Abdul Halim who returned to Bangladesh after the brutal political changeover, got stumbled over a round lot of thick ropes which was kept there to tie the cow during slaughtering. Dadajan suddenly seemed distant and dejected. Upon enquiring he yelled at Abdul Halim for being so careless while walking and warned him not to go so close to any ropes.
 Later as the new government sworn in, he got arrested in connection with crime against humanity during the liberation war. Following a long trial, for raping and murdering a hindu widow, he was hanged only few days before another Eid ul Adha.
Hafiz termed it as his father's deserved nemesis.
 As the train was crossing a big junction with a prolonged whistle the sky got flashed in neon lights and Hafiz had a quick glance of his wrist watch. Over phone dadajan in a shaky ninety eight years old voice urged him to meet him immediately to share certain property related issues with him. Also from the tone and breath of his voice he telepathically perceived that a forecast related to him was on the offing.
Clickety-clack, clickety-clack whooshed the train in its full vigour coupled with intermittent screeching whistle, and Hafiz got flummoxed on what would his bedridden nonagenarian dadajan disclose in advance about him this time.
Hafiz reminisced, once Abdul Alim shared with him after his shattered marriage and brooded over, "How could I cleanse the curse of butchery, treason and treachery from the very blood of my family?"
In a month, dadajan made him settle his oscillating psyche to marry the daughter of a deceased freedom fighter and vaticinated, Shirin Ara would surely mend his broken faith reviving verve and vigour within him.
Yet Hafiz found it quite preposterous, even though he wanted to turn over a new leaf of his life. He must solidify his consent by asking Shirin Ara the following questions:
"Why did you agree to marry a broken man of around fifty?"
"Why did you agree to marry the son of a collaborator being the daughter of a freedom fighter?"
"You recently lost your father and your family is going through financial hardship, is it the reason?"
 Shirin Ara might seek her time. Is she broken as well? He must get clarified by Dadajan. By then he could rehearse how to get head over heels with her:
 "Shirin Ara, my dove, this time I will not fall in you, rather I will rise in you, exalt in you, proceed in you, progress in you, for God's sake, hold your tongue! I will never fall in you."
Is Dadazan rethinking about this marriage proposal? Why is Dada so frantically and repeatedly calling him? Hafiz mused on and for how long he was uncertain. Suddenly he got reclaimed from his snooze by another ear splitting whistle. He explored eight missed calls of Dadajan with languid eyes. The train halted with a sudden screech and he prepared to get off.
While Abdul Alim was getting ready to pray his fajar prayer with all his fragility, he received a call back from Hafiz. An unknown voice in the backdrop of huge hue and cry informed him that the owner of the mobile got crashed under the wheel of a train few minutes ago.
As the onlookers gave testimony later, after disembarking the train, without taking the platform, quite unusually, the person was ambling along the rail track as if he forgot his destination or he had another terminus to reach. A train was lumbering from his back at a steady pace. Mysteriously the driver did not blow any whistle to alert the man or they supposed either the driver was dozing or the whistle of the train somehow went off.

The writer is an English Teacher, DPS STS School, Dhaka















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