Encounter at Mahim Creek

The train pulled into Bandra Station. At Bandra girls in low slung hipsters blended in with the women in sarees, modern nose rings blended in with the traditional ones, trampstamps blended in with traditional tattoos, in a mixture that would be a visual delight to a compulsive etnologist. Voices mixed with each other as did languages to create a comfortable din. Ariana stood by the door holding on to the yellow door handle with her left hand, facing the direction in which the train was moving, hair flying in the wind. She listened to the conversations around her, putting together the words to learn about the lives of people, who perhaps she would never see again. The girls discussed classes and tests, crushes and clothes. The women discussed jobs, mother-in-laws, recipes and children. The children were the only ones who did not talk. They looked outside the windows, their keen eyes taking everything in. Once in a while they looked around the compartment, unwittingly staring at anybody who caught their attention. They handed out shy smiles to anybody who smiled at them. Then there were the handkerchief sellers selling handkerchiefs for prices everybody thought were a steal, but tried to bargain anyway. Then there were the earring sellers, who sold shiny glass earrings to college girls who tried them on and asked their friends how they looked. Then there was the eight year old girl playing a harmonium too heavy for her, strapped around her neck. Dhara was her name, and she played her brother's harmonium to make some money to go to school.

The train took a bridge over a creek, there was a distinct change in the rhythm of the trains - the metallic click-clack sounds the train made began to sound hollow. The horizon opened up to reveal a creek with mangroves, a pipeline running parallel to the tracks on one side and Bandra West on the other. An unmistakable stench overtook the compartment. Where it came from, nobody knew, except that it arose from the waters the train was going over. The water in the creek itself was of an indistinguishable color, murky and dangerous looking. What lay under it, nobody knew. In the train, conversations become hushed and smiles nearly disppeared.

And then people started dumping their secrets into the creek. Hands snaked out of the windows and the doors of the train to drop mysterious parcels into the creek. Flowers for a God they worshipped but had lost faith in, letters with words of love that were no longer true, finely printed prayers that had never been said, old shoes, anything that they did not need, they threw into the creek. The objects fell on the surface of the thick water and sank. The train moved on, conversations were resumed.

Invisible to the human eyes, from the murky depths of the water arose Arcana - a damned creature. It survived on those very secrets people dropped into the water, and it's power grew as people continued to lose faith. It raised it's slime-coated arms skywards, and opened it's mouth in a silent scream that would freeze the heart of anybody who heard it. Only Ariana turned and looked at it and it looked back at her with bright red eyes that receeded as the train picked up speed. She could sense that beyond the superficial fabric of normalacy, people were shaken on the inside by what their souls heard but they did not. She looked at Dhara who smiled a serendipitous smile. Dhara then began to play a strange tune and sang a song of love and happiness that put people's hearts at peace. The train slowly pulled into Mahim Station.