He did not tell her all at once. He told her in pieces, over many afternoons, the way you share something that is large and requires care in the handling.
First he told her about the job. He had come to Allahabad Junction in 1973, twenty-two years old, with a certificate from a communications training programme in Lucknow and the voice — the voice that his mother had always said was too big for a house and needed a bigger space to live in. The railway had agreed. They had put him at a microphone and told him to announce the arrival of the Howrah Express and he had done it in the voice that was his natural one, the one that filled rooms and corridors and platforms, and the Station Superintendent had come down from his office to see who was making the announcement because he thought there must be new equipment.
There was no new equipment. There was only Ram Prasad Mishra, twenty-two years old, sitting at a microphone with his spine straight and his shoulders back and his voice going out through the speakers of Allahabad Junction like water filling all the spaces of a vessel.
"Aapko darr nahi laga?" Kavya asked. "Itni badi jagah mein, itne logon ke liye?"
"Meri aawaaz hamesha se badi rahi hai mujhse," he said. "Usse darr nahi lagta. Mujhe darr lagta tha, magar aawaaz nahi sunta tha."
Kavya thought this was one of the most interesting things anyone had ever told her.
He told her about the thirty-eight years. The way each train had its own character — the Howrah Mail was always punctual and the passengers were businesslike; the Varanasi Express had families, always families, women with children and tiffin boxes and the kind of organised chaos that came from people who travelled in groups; the overnight trains from Delhi had a different quality of passenger entirely, people who had been sitting for hours and wanted only to arrive. He had announced them all. He had said their names so many times that they were part of him — the way a musician knows a piece of music not just in the brain but in the hands, the body.
"Kya aapko kabhi galti hui?" Kavya asked.
"Haan. Ek baar maine Platform 3 ke bajaye Platform 13 bola. Lekin Platform 13 tha hi nahi yahan — teen tak hi platforms the us part mein. To sab samajh gaye. Magar mujhe teen din tak Station Superintendent se darne ki zaroorat thi."
She laughed. He allowed himself a small smile.
He told her about the changes — the new computerised systems that came in the nineties, the recorded announcements, the bilingual requirements. He told her about the way the station had grown and the way some things never changed — the pigeons in the rafters, the chai stall with different owners but the same position, the quality of the afternoon light on the tracks in October.
"Aap retire kyun hue?" she asked one day. "Agar itna pasand tha toh?"
He was quiet for a moment. "Umar," he said. "Aur ek aur cheez."
"Kaunsi cheez?"
