The Evening Ritual

The setting sun casts a golden glow, turning the child’s brown hair a glimmering copper. Shadows on the faintly yellow walls of the balcony have a life of their own. The view from their balcony on the eleventh floor is what postcards are made of, that is if people still make postcards.

The mother strains a little to hear the chirping of birds as they return to their nests. The languid calm of the boats floating on the gentle waves of the backwaters signal the close of a hot, humid day. The channel splits into two, one arm snakes away ahead of them and disappears from view behind a thick cover of mangroves while the other flows along their right, and curves gently, far away right under a metal bridge.

They hear the train a few seconds before they see it. Both turn their eyes to the bridge in the distance, and wait to catch a glimpse of a speeding train – they know not which end of the bridge the train will spring from. A gentle breeze cools the sweat on their skin, and makes it easy to focus on the beauty of the scene that lays before them. Swaying coconut trees, birds diving into the water to catch their morsels, a fiery pink-orange sky and the silhouettes of boatmen in their crescent-shaped, traditional boats. The faint sound of a prayer call from a mosque across the island adds another layer of charm - a touch of human gratitude. The scene is picturesque and soulful.

And then they see it. Loud clattering accompanies the arrival of the train on the metal bridge. The trusses vibrate, adding to the din the wheels make as the train speeds towards its destination. The boy and his mother hear the bellowing horn, and then the fast paced rhythm of a train on the tracks – chachuk – chachuk – chachuk. It is the fourth or fifth train since afternoon, and every time the little one had rushed to the balcony to catch a glimpse of a retreating metal caterpillar. This time it is a train with a red engine and blue carriages, the dark boxes of the windows move along and create the illusion of a moving filmstrip. The mother sips her ginger tea, she prepares it with as much love as she does the chocolate milk for the child.

The boy dips his glucose biscuit into his tumbler and quickly pulls it out, after hundreds of such biscuits he has mastered the fine art of having the biscuit soak just enough milk before it turns to a soggy blob that will plop into his milk. If some biscuit does make its way into the milk, the boy grimaces, he doesn’t enjoy the altered taste of his beloved chocolate milk, the biscuit adds a pasty taste that just isn’t right. He takes a bite, careful not to topple the balance of a moist biscuit lest it fall onto his shirt. He continues to gaze at the passing train, spying a bit of silver lining the windows of the deep blue carriages. The curved sides of the bridge look just like the ones he builds in his game of Lego. His toy train doesn’t have as many carriages though.

The train chugs off, it only jumps into view for a few seconds before it disappears into the thick urban landscape. The mother brushes the hair out of her son’s left eye, pats him on the head and looks across at the now-empty bridge. There will be one more train soon.