Nupur Chaturvedi

Metro

33234564

3-3-2-3-4-5-6-4

I don’t know why I was memorising the number. It could be because I had nothing else to do. I could barely stand, the Metro was so packed. Somehow, there was a straphanger free for me to hang my hand on. It was the rush hour and I was part of it. Another half an hour would go like this.

I was done with ignoring body odours, watching Monday morning faces resembling Munch’s The Scream, making eye contact with the one pretty girl I could spot through the sea of heads. I was just standing, hanging, passing my time in this shared purgatory.

That is when I saw this number scratched on the wall. Yes, the Metro has scratch-proof metal walls—this was etched on a poster. For some reason, my eyes zeroed in on it, and for some reason, I started memorising it.

There is a game I play during my commute. I pick any one person and make a story about them, a story of their life, where they come from, where they are on the way to, who is there at home. Sometimes it’s a simple story—mother and child on the way to her parents’ home or on the way from her parents’ to her in-laws. At other times, I put all the knowledge acquired from watching various versions of Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett will always be my favourite, though Benedict Cumberbatch comes close) and cook up a fancier story.

Today, I was bored. I didn’t want to play the game. So I started memorising the number. Today, my story would be about the number. In all likelihood, it was a phone number. It was probably a Delhi number. Who had etched it? A lovelorn Romeo who couldn’t afford to forget the hard-fought phone number of his beloved. Nah, too simple. A job-seeker jotting down the number of the company he (or she) wants to get into while speaking to the placement agent. Not exciting.

Let’s work a little more with it. What if it wasn’t a phone number? What if it’s a lottery ticket number? Or the locker number where that reformed gangster, fearing for his life, has stashed away the names of all those rich clients he has bumped off people for? Or maybe it is an exam roll number. Or a code? Let’s see: 3-3-2-3-4-5-6-4. C-C-B-C-D-E-F-D. That makes no sense. It couldn’t be that simple anyway. Coordinates? 33.23’45.64” Where would that be?

“The next station is Green Park. Doors will open on the right.”

Just a couple more stations to go. I start memorising it. When I get off at the station, I can’t wait to run up the stairs. As soon as I get a couple of bars of signal, I dial—011-33234564.

“This number does not exist. Please check the number you have dialed.”

I didn’t know I had banked so much on it being a phone number. I catch an auto to get to office. Monday stretched out like a lazy dog on an afternoon nap. Meetings, submissions, more meetings, and before I knew it, it was seven thirty.

I packed my laptop and got up to leave. My extension rang—probably my boss giving me one more thing to do as soon as I reach home.

“Hello”

“Is that Rajiv?” said a non-descript voice.

“Yes?”

“Don’t take the Metro on your way back.”

“Excuse me?”

I reach the Metro station. There is a crowd that doesn’t seem to be moving. I ask people around. Nobody seems to know what the matter is. I come out and see a colleague passing by in his car. He takes me in. He doesn’t live close to where I have to go, but at least I’ll get somewhere.

I reach home and switch on the television. Bizarre short circuit in a Metro train electrocutes three. Burnt coach visuals show the coach number: 33-23-4564.