A mysterious train journey from Cooch Behar to Delhi leaves Shristi Biswas, Class 4, Epic Public School, haunted by an unexplained event. Flying packets and eerie silence—what really happened that day on the Rajdhani Express?
“What are these? How are they flying ? And more importantly why are they flying?” These were my questions that day while I was travelling by train. And believe me since then I am scared to travel by train. Let me narrate the story to you. It was from the time when I was going to Delhi.
It was around 10 in the morning when we reached the fifty eight years old railway station in Cooch Behar. The looks of the station showed the past glory of the land. However we were more concerned to see if the train was coming to the platform as the stoppage was for 2 minutes only. And to add to our worries we found that our boggy was right at the front, unlike what we presumed and waited at the back.
Somehow with great effort we boarded the train and walked right through it. Rajdhani Express does not wait you see, after all it was THE RAJDHANI. All this trouble was to meet my friend in Delhi. And what made it more fascinating is the fact that my cousin, Ishika joined me in the trip.
Well I haven’t told you my name, I am Shristi.
The train rolled through the tracks of the Eastern horizon and reached Kanpur finally. While, the train was standing at Kanpur station, when I saw Ishika getting up. “Where are you going?” I asked. But, to my surprise, she did not utter a single word. When, she returned I asked again, but this time too she bothered not to answer anything.
I decided not to ask her anymore and concentrate on playing with Rubik’s cube. Everything was smooth but then something drastic happened. I saw things were coming out from underneath the seat of our coach. I looked again and found it was nothing more than a large amount of dust, packets of chips, packets of cakes, and packets of other food items jumping and coming towards the seat. We boarded from Cooch Behar while our co-passenger boarded from some other location who disembarked from train in Bihar. To my surprise none of us or them were consuming such products. To add to my surprise even the windows where all closed, so why were the packets flying? Can you answer? I couldn’t solve this mystery even today and since then I am very scared of travelling anywhere by train without my parents. How would you feel if you experience such an incident?
Days have passed since that incident, however with all my efforts I still have not been able to forget the incident of that day. So the other day when my father came in and declared that we are going for a trip to Shimla, all my senses reacted at once. I kept quite the entire evening and then in the morning I woke up and with all my courage I went to my father and said, “Baba, how are we going?”
“Well, my dear we are flying to Delhi.” My father said providing me relief, but then he added “from Delhi we will take a train to Shimla.”
So I am in a mixed state of mind, in one way I am happy that we are going to Shimla, however the train journey from Delhi to Shimla is something that is bothering me. So let me make a promise to you my readers, I will share the story of that journey once I am back to Cooch Behar.
To be continued….
