As I lay stretched on my tummy, in the lower berth of the train, with my head propped up and my eyes starring at the distant, invious hillocks, I see the mist and fog that has shrouded the peaks. They remind me of the words that had shrouded your emotions, as you spoke them, a seemingly endless diatribe of words, hitting me from all possible directions. The words had put up a translucent blanket over the emotions, blocking almost everything, but a bare necessary, leaving my mind free to search for meanings- hidden or scattered, like pepper over bread crumb, letting my brain run amuck.

As I had grappled to comprehend the meaning of the word, there was another paragraph in the queue to be taken in. The mist that covers the beauty, the dangers, the serenity and the purpose….so were your words, hiding everything from my view. Words, that are like mist- suspended in thin air, without an attributable source or a destiny – words, whose source one would never know, whose purpose one never can comprehend, but can only feel the impact.

As I see the pair of railway tracks that run along parallel to our track, I am yet again reminded of your words- words that would run parallel throughout, without converging, never meeting anywhere, taking others for a ride. Words, that were once spoken, that got etched in the memory, like a railway track across the landscape- words that are so aloof from the reality, just like the raised platform of the track.

I lift my eyes, smiling at myself, for untangling the intricate mystery of the relation between so many things and words, for discovering the meaning in inanimate, inconsequential stuff, I see the electric poles and I immediately search for reasons to connect them to words. I force myself to see them as words, that stand tall, like the skeletons of long forgotten Ravanas and Ramas of the last Dusshera- separate, alone, abandoned....The cables that run through the poles, seem to be like the thread that runs through all your words, connecting seemingly isolated thoughts into a web, piecing together a collage.

The train speeds past name boards, passengers waiting for some passenger, railway stations that cater only to the station master and the guard, bridges, mountaines, plains, sunflower fields, coconut groves...every thing I see, I relate them to your words...I exhaust my imagination to relate...The flow dries up...I feel tired of thinking....I look at the book in front...The page begins as," With the words still ringing in her ears,..........."