I was about eighteen when I had to go to Delhi on the way to
Kurukshetra. It was my first train journey to the north of the country. I left
Kollam in the afternoon and arrived at Madras the next morning. I booked my
ticket to Delhi and boarded the next train. I was travelling in a first class
cabin. There was only one other passenger in the cabin. She was a middle aged
white woman. She had a small dog with her. I asked her where she was from and
she told me she was from Australia. I thought she was a tourist but she said
she worked in India. Later on, I would come to know that she was a doctor
working in a missionary hospital in Nagpur.
The train started moving. At one stop, she asked me to keep
an eye on the dog and left the cabin. The dog ran out of the cabin and was near
the door by the time I got hold of it. I brought it back to the cabin and put
it on the leash which was attached to her bag. When she returned she released
the dog from the leash. I think she preferred it to be free.
After dinner that night we went to sleep. In the middle of
the night I woke up to find the dog sleeping next to me. It was her dog. It
should be sleeping next to her. I looked at her and realized that there was no
place for the dog to sleep next to her. She was a large person. I was thin and
there was a lot of space next to me. There was nothing I could do. I went back
to sleep.
