The cold drizzle outside Rishi's flat in London painted the city in hues of silver and grey, as it often did this time of year. The sky was draped in a melancholy veil, mirroring the emptiness he felt inside. He sat in silence, curled on the corner of his modest living room couch, fingers absentmindedly scratching the ears of his loyal feline companion, Oggy, who purred softly on his lap. The hum of the central heating system filled the silence, offering a strange comfort.
Rishi was a man of routines and quiet corners. At thirty, his life was a disciplined balance of engineering work at a fast-growing tech firm and his private, peaceful existence shared only with Oggy and occasional conversations with Olivia, his cheerful co-worker. Reserved and introspective, Rishi had mastered the art of staying unnoticed—both by choice and by nature.
It was Olivia who brought the news. She had come by his desk that morning, a rare seriousness painted across her normally smiling face.
"Rishi… I'm sorry," she said gently, placing a hand on his desk. "There's been news from home. Your grandfather—he passed away."
The words struck like thunder in a summer sky—sudden, jarring, and entirely unprepared for. His grandfather, Appa Thatha, had always been a distant but towering figure in his memory. As a child, Rishi had spent two precious summers in Sriperumbudur, a village nestled in Tamil Nadu, full of dusty lanes, jasmine-scented air, and the unrelenting sun. His grandfather had been a pillar of that place—respected, quiet, and deeply spiritual.
Rishi booked his ticket to New Delhi the same evening. There was no time for long reflections; mourning came second to duty. By the time he landed in India two days later, the rituals were already underway. His relatives, a kaleidoscope of accents and personalities, had assembled at their ancestral home. The air was thick with incense, camphor, and the murmur of prayers. But amidst the religious rites, one detail stood out—Appa Thatha's final wish.
"He wanted everyone to spend at least one day in the village," Rishi's uncle declared, holding out a weathered notebook in which his grandfather had written his last thoughts. "Not just for the rituals, but to reconnect. To remember."
A decision was made quickly. The entire family would fly to Tamil Nadu—except, there was a problem. At the airport, under the glaring fluorescent lights and amidst the baggage chaos, it was discovered that only ten tickets had been booked. There were eleven of them.
A tense silence followed. Whispers swirled, brows furrowed. And then someone looked at Rishi.
"He's young," one cousin said.
"He's been abroad—he can manage," said another.
Rishi didn't argue. He had never been one to fight for his place in a crowd. Instead, he gave a small, resigned nod. "I'll take the train."
And just like that, while the others ascended into the sky on their swift flight south, Rishi stood outside the Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station with a small rucksack and a second-class sleeper ticket in hand for the Tamil Nadu Express. He was to travel 1 day and 9 hours, across a country he hadn't truly explored in years, headed toward a village whose dust still clung to fragments of his childhood dreams.
The train stood tall and humming on the platform, blue coaches stretched endlessly like a metal serpent. Rishi climbed aboard, navigating the narrow corridor of the sleeper coach, brushing past men in dhotis, women balancing tiffin boxes, and children chasing each other with uncontained glee. He found his berth—lower side—and placed his rucksack carefully under the seat. The smell of steel, diesel, and old upholstery greeted him.
At precisely 3:35 PM, the whistle blew. A low rumble passed through the train as it began to move. Rishi pulled his phone out of his pocket, opened Spotify, and inserted his earphones. The muffled sounds of Tamil melodies filled his ears, and he leaned back, staring at the passing cityscape—Delhi retreating behind a veil of dust and haze.
The rhythmic clatter of wheels on tracks was oddly comforting. As the train gained speed, Rishi opened a downloaded film on his phone. For the moment, his mind drifted from grief. He immersed himself in the world behind the screen, a fleeting escape.
When the film ended, dusk had already crept in. The landscape outside had shifted to fields and scattered villages, cloaked in the golden afterglow of the setting sun. A chaiwala passed by, his metal kettle clinking, steam rising from tiny paper cups. Rishi took one, sipped, and let the warmth settle in his chest.
As night approached and the coach's lights flickered on, Rishi lay back on his berth, Oggy's photo as his phone's wallpaper the last thing he saw before closing his eyes. The familiar pang of loneliness hit him, but there was something more—a sense of anticipation. Something told him that this train journey was going to be far more than just a means to an end.
It was only the beginning.