Serendipity at railway station

It was 1983. I had gone to Nagpur to attend a conference, for which I had booked a first-class train ticket. The day before my departure from Nagpur, I went to the railway station to check if my return ticket to Mumbai had been confirmed, as it was on the waiting list.

The booking clerk asked me to check again the next day, before the departure. As I moved away from the booking window, a lean and short stranger requested me to fill his form for booking a ticket, as he was illiterate. I took the form and sat on a bench to fill it. I asked him where he intended to go. He replied, ‘Khanna in Punjab’, which made me curious because Khanna was my home-town, though I lived in Mumbai. I asked him where in Khanna he would go. He said his father was employed as a gardener in a private garden near a high school, and he was planning to visit him. I told him that the place was close to my ancestral home, and asked if his father lived in a hut near the swimming pool. He nodded.

I filled all details given by him in the form, including the date and name of the train, and his name, Chhote Lal, and went with him to the booking window to assist him to buy a ticket.

That done, I bade goodbye, but he requested me to accompany him to his hut for dinner. I was hesitant, but agreed when he persisted.

During our walk to his hutment, about half a kilometre away, I told Chhote that my nani was very fond of planting trees, and would often go to his father, whom we called ‘mali’ to procure saplings of guava, banana, pomegranate, mulberry etc., which were later laden with fruits in season. She also grew onion and garlic, and nurtured a thick hedge of mehendi (henna), used by young girls to make decorative designs on their hands and palms. Nani would ask them to pluck fresh leaves and take with them to make a paste for best results. Besides, she encouraged the girls to pluck leaves from a ber tree grown by her, and use them as a ‘green’ hair shampoo. I told Chhote that my nani could grow all those trees and plants only because of the support given by his father.

We reached his hut at about 7 pm. His wife made chapattis and vegetable curry for us. After a good meal, I departed for my hotel. On the way, I was thinking what were the chances of Chhote and I being present at the Nagpur station on the same day, the same time, and out of the dozens of passengers crowding the station, only he asked me to fill his form. Nearly nil, statistically speaking. What a coincidence!