All in a Train's Day - 55 Fictions

"Four Different Stories - Four Different Times - Four Different Emotions - About One Character - The Train"

0600 Hours:

A moist breeze laden with wet promises of the day rushed past the speeding train. A few early risers and a few empty cabins floated past a city rising to the embers of the sun.

Littered out on the roof tops and on the window sills, a few kids alone stared at the passage mesmerized.

1200 Hours:

Nobody knew who dropped their lunch on the entrance of the carriage; Warm rice and curry, still steaming and thrumming along with the rhythm of the train; its spicy flavor and fragrance flicking the roiling appetites of the passengers.

The passengers jumped across the spilled food, their attire and their hunger neat & intact.

1800 Hours:

The train started to sweat. It’s every orifice enamored with the crowd returning from their jobs to their homes. Humans hung to each and every piece of holding and standing space available; jostling at each other; their parts and pieces hanging out of the vehicle; squirming with life;

The train plodded on.

2400 Hours:

A few beggars moved from compartment to compartment; picking up whatever hooped their fancy. A red kerchief, a bottle with some water left in it, a few news papers, a couple of ear buds. Carrying the echoes of life left behind, the train clanged hollow.

Amidst these empty ensembles, those beggars compared their today’s loots with glee.

Author's Note:

I have been wanting to start blogging again for quite a while. For that, I was looking for an idea both interesting and also challenging. A jump start of sorts. And when i was playing football today evening, I had a eureka moment about what I was going to write.

A group of 55 fictions, that would all stand alone as separate fictions but when put together can evoke a singular narrative. A single character narrative.

And hence, the story! after some deliberation, I decided to take train as the character. (Last Week, I visited Chennai by train and had an awesome weekend. Hence the inspiration.) I hope you guys like it. Also, I got a few amazing photos while searching for nice snaps of trains. Do visit again to read the stories I frame on those images. Cheers. 

If you are interested in reading my similar fictions, kindly visit use this link.

Navratri - 55 fiction:

Note - This post is dedicated to Navratri, with each story depicting one of the nine forms of Goddess Shakthi.

The Snap-

Story 1: Durga – The invincible:

They waited; hyenas relishing the anticipation of the kill. The waiting game will pay. She will get exhausted; will break; will deliver. They have the whole night.

Moments melded into minutes; minutes into hours.

The dawn broke. They ran leaving 2 of their buddies at her feet bleeding, the knife still in her hand, her eyes still burning.

Story 2: Bhadrakali – The auspicious:

The kid raced through the fields laughing at the top of her voice. The wind swiveled through her loose hair as she tumbled into her father’s open arms. He lifted her over his shoulders with a surplus smile on his lips. 

Nothing new; Nothing much; He did not really care when celebrating his daughter’s youth.

Story 3: Amba – The Mother:

Her child slipped and fell down with a tearing shriek. The pain jack sawed through his tender body. She rushed to her child, dried his tears, cajoled him, checked him for serious wounds, cleaned the mud off him and she left him alone.

Left him alone to pick himself up once again.

Story 4: Annapoorna Devi – The Provider:

She could never breast feed her baby. The doctors were kind enough to explain with patience. But all she heard in the damning silence was her own soul wailing.

Hard decisions; harder to live through them; Months passed.

She never breast fed and her kid’s still healthy. She sighed. Love cannot be breast fed.

Story 5: Sarvamangala – The joyous:

She always laughed loudly; especially after arriving there. Her voracious mirth; verbally signed; Deep and sonorous; lucid and warm guffaws; brimming with unsaid humor; listless possibilities and life in abundance; the happy echoes reverberated not just with air, sweeping through corridors of the old age home, touching and cuddling the few listening souls.

Story 6: Bhairavi – The Fierce:

The sickle in her hand moved with a practiced rhythm as they went through all the unwanted weeds. Their dry roots were torn apart from the earth without mercy. After going through the entire field, she sighed with satisfaction.

The land owner paid her in full without any questions. She still had the sickle in her hand.

Story 7: Chandika – The Supreme:

Chaos reigned. Chairs were thrown. Curses exchanged. Parties formed. Favors fished. Violence sought. Bullies brought. Politics played. Nobody was listening to nobody; Bedlam on riot.

She came into the room with a brisk walk. A deep hush was followed by a warm greeting of the kindergarten kids wishing their teacher Good morning.

Story 8: Lalita – The Beautiful:

She sat on her bed, staring at the mirror. A frail old woman stared at her back with drooping breasts, generous age lines, white wisps of hair, pale pallor, wrinkled skin, over her bent body. She sighed to herself.

“The years had been kind”. Her husband whispered to her “you still have the brightest smile”

Story 9: Bhavani – The merciful:

Her chubby ten year old eyes looked at him with a sad glint.

“I am not able to break the chocolate into two.”

“Oh” his squeaky voice responded, his eyes caught between her and the small spherical candy.

“Shall we wait” she asked thinking for a while. “For another same chocolate,... then share.... eat??”

Author’s Note-

I wanted to bring out the different faces of Goddess Shakthi - with simple everyday women. I took the help of Wikipedia to get to know all the forms of Shakthi and then, wrote stories that best suited the various shades of their nature. I wish all of my friends, reading this post- a Subh Navratri. 

For people, interested to know more about Navratri - a prominent Indian festival, kindly follow the link here. I have avoided putting many pictures, so as not to disturb the flow of the fiction and also, no to disrupt the respect for the Goddess that the festival and the idea of the fiction is based on. 

Poems tweeted-

The snap-



Her smile-

The curve of her smile- The crescent moon's isle; The sound of her laugh- a few flowers broke, bloomed & coughed- love is bliss.


My love-

In the silence of the night, I am in bliss. The symphony of her voice - thy music. My love - the crescendo of thy orchestra.


The rant-

No I am not a poet. It's just that my heart overflows with so much love seeing her smile that it cant help but rant a bit.





The soul music-

The curve of her rainbow earlobes jingling with the dance of the dew drop earrings is music,life,reason & treason to my soul.


The difference-

My love is a solitary lass. Wither it will not; Tethered with hopes; I will wait; a few seconds or a few centuries makes no difference.


The dawn-

Dew drops few; on the green leaves new; grinned to yew; with sun shine skew; Just born dawn sparkled & smiled.


Art-

It drizzled & then drenched- rainbows rained- She blushed & brushed spectra amok. Picasso's & Van Gogh's failed miserably in vain.


Author's note-

Guys, these are a few poems that I tweeted a while ago. & no these do not form any rhyming patterns. They are just a few wild thoughts put together. Hope U guys like them.


Cheers.. :)

Defining divinity

I was just watching Anjolina Jolie fully pregnant, glowing with all the beauty in the world at the premiere of the movie “the kungfu panda” (in which she voices the tigress) on the channel U TV world movies. Moving across the aisle in all her brilliance and loveliness, the gorgeous evening clouds would have been put to shame seeing her floating by, carried by the graciousness of her self.


Well of course Jolie is the heart throb of nearly all the guys on the planet and I am not talking about that. There was something more than a famous actress in her, when I saw her on the television. She is expecting her child. She is a mother to be.
For the people who are thinking “okay now what’s so special about it”, I want to ask what else can be more special than a girl bearing a child.


I try and fail to imagine the magnitude of sheer happiness a girl can feel when she is carrying her child. (Lack of first hand experience, I presume.) The bliss she feels with every kick of her child, the sensation of all her hopes and dreams growing inside her, the feeling of total connection to the unborn, savoring every single move that the baby makes inside her, I can try to imagine and go on and on. But in fact the real list must be endless.


Motherly love has no boundaries and inhibitions. Not always you can see people in absolute pain that’s tearing apart their nerves and so much in eternal happiness, completely satisfied like a mother who has just given birth to her child and is about to pass out. Total love in every sense is divine. Motherly love is in that aspect I think is more than divine. It is incessant.


Nature must have had a really good reason for picking out women to carry the essence of our generation inside her. Whatever may be the reason, I think that she has decided it well.