The Railway Station and my story made in heaven

The Oil Town of Digboi has a small sleepy railway station. The Intercity express from Guwahati to Ledo runs through this station besides the Ledo-Dibrugarh passenger train and the goods trains to transport coal and other raw materials out from this region.

At Digboi, life passes at its own leisurely pace and the passenger train was also no exception . In those days, no one ever knew when the driver would stop the train in between for an unscheduled water break or to meet someone important on the adjoining road. If you travel by rail in this area, similarities of the surrounding will surely make you feel nostalgic making you to hum the popular song "Mere Sopno ki Raani" from the film "Aradhana".

My friend Ranjeet was to catch a train from Tinsukia. Like me, Ranjeet also came to Digboi in 2002 and both of us  joined Indian oil together.  He came to the station to catch the local passenger train to Tinsukia. Unknown about the whims of the local train drivers of this area, he thought the hour or so available with him was enough for the train to take him to Tinsukia.

That day, my friend would have surely missed his train from Tinsukia without the timely intervention of a practical fellow he befriended at the station. The man, took Ranjeet to the train driver and told him how important it was for my friend to reach Tinsukia early. The train driver immediately understood the gravity of the situation. He drove the train nonstop without any break and reached Tinsukia much ahead of time.

I don’t know how many people ever had the luxury of such a favour from a Railway system. Perhaps, Ranjeet still remembers the incident and he will surely get back to me once he reads this post. He once told me that the drivers of the toy train to Darjeeling that passes by his home in Kurseong were as friendly as the Digboi passenger train.

I too have a story of my own at this Digboi Railway station. It’s a real life story of my life.  But to tell that story, I need to retreat a little down the path.

The first time I met her, I didn’t bring sweets  but a collection of some of the immortal classics of Kishore Kumar. I told her that if destiny wouldn’t see us together, the songs would someday remind her of our meeting.  Her family offered me enormous amount of good food and I ensured that nothing was left unattended. It was an arranged meeting by our two families to find out if we two could make a compatible couple. Long Phone calls and occasional meetings, which proceeded that evening, did prove that we were a future compatible couple.

But there were lots of twists and turns in the story and we were on the verge of closing a beautiful chapter of our lives. There are too many people involved in an arranged relationship set up that can lead to a fall off.

Those were hard days for me too. I stayed at B’low 26 Indian Oil Guest House at Digboi. The evenings suddenly became melancholic. The Patkai range mountain, visible from my room, looked gloomier. That day, I had a hurried lunch and left for the Refinery. However for some reason, I was required to come back to my room after some time. While returning, I could see a large group of students assembled in the Hall. Life always preserves some pleasant surprises for you and seeing her that day at the Digboi Indian Oil Guest House was surely one of them.

She came for a field visit to Oil India , Duliajan on the Mass Communication course she was pursuing. From Duliajan, they were taken on a day trip to Digboi on their last day of the Project. From Digboi, they were about to visit Margherita in that same day. Oil India did a wise job to host their lunch at B’low 26 which was also the address of this fugitive for some time.

She left the guesthouse after about half an hour with her friends. That evening she would go back to Guwahati from Margherita in the Inter City express. She asked whether I could come to the station on her return.

I borrowed a motorcycle from my friend great Abhijit Deuri who worked  at Engineers India Limited(EIL) and stayed at Digboi. Abhijit left EIL thereafter and now  work  in Middle East. His Yamaha bike was a special one. The brakes of the bike hardly worked and he showed me how to use both the feet for creating friction with the road to slow down the bike. By the time I reached the station that evening, I was already late. I dropped the bike and swiftly picked  a Cadbury chocolate from a nearby . As I entered the station in that November evening, it was almost dark. The train had arrived at the platform. And there I saw her, franatically searching for me amongst the small crowd in the platform.

As the train slowly moved, I gave her the Chocolate I had for her. We were together for a minute or so. That special minute was something beyond the scope of words for a lesser mortal like me.

Perhaps that Cadbury Chocolate did wonders to our lives. By next year, we got married. In the last ten years, life has enthused us with many pleasant surprises but meeting my (now) wife Arpana at B'low 26 and that November evening at Digboi Railway station remain special.

You can contact Kamaljit at kamaljitmedhi1975@gmail.com