It is 9AM last Saturday and I am just a few stations & around 30 mins away from reaching
the railway station where I have to disembark. Since my wife had to catch a train to work
today, she has left her bike behind at the station. I have a key to the bike and will ride it
home, thereby saving my Dad a trip to the station to pick me up.
The guy sitting opposite me got off at Tiruvalla station and left behind the newspaper he
was reading. I pick it up & glance at the headlines of the day. There are quite some people
in the compartment. Diagonally opposite me is a lady with a small baby girl in her arms.
Sitting beside her is an elderly man, who I guess must be in his late seventies. He looks
very lean, with sunken cheeks (due to smoking?).
I ignore the surroundings and go back to the newspaper and in a few seconds am immersed
in news about the new Cabinet formation and also about the death of V.Prabhakaran, leader
of the L.T.T.E. Out of the corner of my left eye, I can see the elderly man get up from his
seat and stand in the walkway near my seat.
With one hand, he is holding on to the steel framework provided for people to climb to the
upper berths. He stands there for a moment and even while holding on to the frame, he
lowers his body slowly. I assume that he is either stretching his back or doing an exercise
to relieve a stiff back. After a couple of seconds, he lowers himself a wee bit more and then
again a bit more. Now, he is just a feet or so from the floor of the compartment.
If it was a young man, I would have not even bothered to look, believing it to be eccentric behaviour. But since the person in question is old, I am now a bit concerned. I look at the
other passengers and they also seem concerned. It hits me that the man is not doing any stretching exercises, but is just losing control over himself and if I don't step in atleast now,
he will hit the floor.
I get up and hold him, while another passenger also helps me. We ask him if he is OK. He
is kind of breathless and what he says is incoherent. I notice that his body has gone cold
and he is sweating profusely. Which is odd, given that it is raining outside and is kinda cold.
We seat him on my seat and ask him if there is anyone accompanying him, to which he
mentions that his son Sherry is in the next coupe.
A passenger calls out the name and Sherry comes over - a guy in his late twenties. We tell
him what happened & fold down both the side berths so that the man can lie down. He is
still sweating.
We understand that father and son are going to Kollam which is another hour away. I am
no expert with things medical, but it looks like a stroke to me and to others. So we advice
them to detrain at the next station and get medical help. At Chengannur station,we help
the man detrain and as the train leaves, we see them walking out of the station.
For all our bravado, it takes just a slight malfunction in our body to render us powerless
and to remind us that we are mortal.
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