Ramzan Mubarak!

A rattling train coughed up a bunch of dead leaves as it drew into an old railway station. A tape-recorder croaked an announcement for passengers, just as the station master reached out for a dusty old switch, to turn on the yellow bulbs that perched like birds which lived sewn together with cobwebs. Up ahead in the distance, the mint green tiles of a mosque watched a naked boy in dusty brown shorts climb up a mango tree, pregnant with sour mangoes, waiting to ripen into the flavours of summer in my small town, Allahabad.

Twilight. Well, almost.

It was the 30th night of the lunar calendar. Women, young and old climbed up the terrace, curiously peeking into the empty skies. The station-master had switched off the burning sun but the heat still lingered, making the back of their necks sweat into the flimsy georgette that they settled and resettled, their heads raised up, like poor peasants opening up their helpless palms, their gaze fixed on a lone cloud, begging and praying.

A sacred lamb let out a faint cry that flowed into the mosque as the learned Imam switched on his microphone. The rivers and the seas, the lakes and the oceans were silenced in a serene reflection of the purple sky. A single holy bell tinkled as a solitary cow walked away towards its herd, grazing deeply at the soft grass near a lake. Azaan raised his fragile voice into a prayer that melted into the twilight, making people smile at one another, curving their happy lips upwards, lowering their eyes in gratitude for a day that in fact, begins with a night.

A branch of the mango tree cracked under pressure from the boy’s hardened foot as he announced “Look there it is! I can see the moon from up here!” His elder cousin bent down to light a country-made sutli-bomb, the one that he had saved from bursting during Diwali.

‘Ramazan Mubarak!’

Excited squeals echoed in the by-lanes laid out with warm sandstone. Chandini fidgeted with a ring of silver as she searched the skies for a crescent that signalled her to silently say Surah Fateh to her restless heart. Elders had told her to wish for desires that she kept buried in four different graveyards of her chest. A tongue in her mind spoke each and every word with the Azaan, the one in her mouth retained its silence — much like a speaker at the railway platform that spoke to the passengers, but did not move. At all.

Twilight was drawing to a close. Men and women had started to touch the holy walls and wells before they bowed in praise to express ‘shukr’ and gratitude to the one that makes the sun and moon twirl around in the darkness of the open sky. The station master looked at the series of bulbs and wondered about how to get them cleaned up. In within 30 days, he would be retiring, having someone newer take his place. The trains, the announcements, the passengers wouldn’t miss a thing about him. They might not even come to know of his absence. “It’s just a matter of a month”, he told an open pen lying in his drawer. I’d be home with my children for Eid — the blessed day when all will be bright.

He smiled as he looked up at the waning moon — her show was done, and she was almost ready to take her exit. The young boy had plucked some young mangoes to take home, his mouth, watering at the thought of his mother’s old iftar chutney recipe. Chandini glanced at her ring of silver, poised against the TV with a remote control. The Imam started getting the mosque ready for a round of night prayers that would leave sacred marks on men’s foreheads, as they bowed down in worship. Alone in themselves and together as one.

The old train had started to rattle away from the city of Allahabad, into the west, towards Howrah.