She asked him again on the following Tuesday. "Masterji, aap roz yahan kyon aate ho?"
She had started calling him Masterji on the third day, having decided that it suited him better than just baba, which was what you called any random old man, and that Masterji implied a specific kind of respectful familiarity she felt was appropriate to their situation. He had not objected.
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said: "Aadat hai."
"Aadat?"
"Haan. Aath saal yahan kaam kiya hai. Aane ki aadat ho gayi thi. Retire hone ke baad bhi — paon wahi chalte hain jahan hamesha chalte the."
Kavya thought about how her feet automatically turned toward the school canteen when the bell rang even on days when she wasn't hungry. She supposed this was the same kind of thing but for forty years instead of two.
"Aur ghar mein kya karte ho?" she asked.
"Ghar mein?" He seemed to consider the question as if it were about a country he had visited once and was trying to remember accurately. "Subah chai banata hoon. Akhbaar padhta hoon thoda. Phir lunch banata hoon. Phir yahan aata hoon."
"Akele?"
"Haan."
She accepted this. "Aapke bacche hain?"
"Ek beta hai. Pune mein rehta hai. Engineer hai."
"Aata hai kabhi?"
"Holi mein aaya tha. Diwali mein bhi aaya tha."
"Aur beech mein?"
He looked at the tracks. "Uska kaam hai. Busy rehta hai."
Kavya made a private assessment of this situation that she did not share. She sat quietly for a moment and watched a goods train pass on the far track, long flat cars carrying something covered in blue tarpaulin.
"Masterji," she said.
"Hm?"
"Aadat wala jawab sach nahi hai pura."
He turned to look at her. She was watching him steadily with her large dark eyes, with the expression of someone who has listened to an answer and found it satisfactory on the surface and insufficient underneath.
"Kya matlab?" he said.
"Main bhi aadat se yahan aati hoon. Lekin main different bench par baithi thi pehle — bench number teen par, platform chhe par, wahan cool rehta tha. Phir main yahan aane lagi. To aadat toh badal sakti hai. Magar aap hamesha bench number saat par hi baithte ho. Is bench par. Isi track ko dekhte ho." She paused. "Aap kisi cheez ka intezaar kar rahe ho."
Silence. The slow fan. The pigeons. The old man looked at her for a very long time — the way people look when someone has said something true that they were not ready to have said out loud, and they are deciding how to respond to the truth now that it is out in the air between them.
Then he said: "Bahut tez ho."
"Meri teacher bhi yahi kehti hain. Magar woh isse compliment ki tarah nahi boltin."
He made a small sound — not quite a laugh, but its near cousin. "Thheek hai," he said. "Haan. Main intezaar karta hoon."
"Kiska?"
"Ek train ka."
"Kaunsi train?"
