Derailed

Two days ago I made room for a new book in the glass cabinet at my studio; a collection of haiku death poems I recently finished reading. I had to nudge one of my own, handmade books further down the shelf to make room. The thread-bound book is such an unusual shape that it lies lengthwise along the shelf. Then last night I was tucking away some handwritten journal pages from the other side of the cabinet and noticed from this new angle that I had pushed my own book too far, and it had buckled from the pressure of being squeezed in too tight. The bird feather I usually keep on top of that book had fallen down near the gliders of this sliding door as well. I straightened my book back out, giving it the space it deserved, and placed the feather back on top.

When I woke up this morning, I thought of the book again, but now in a completely different context. The first news of the day was India’s most catastrophic train disaster this millennium. Sanjoy and I turned on the television watching live news updates where, in the span of minutes, they showed at least five bodies carried out of the wreckage, draped with a white sheet and laid out in a line of nearly two dozen other bodies (at the time I write, the official death count is 261 and climbing).

Just a few minutes ago, Sanjoy heard from a friend that his nephew was one of the deceased. He called from the morgue where he was collecting the nephew’s body, describing unfathomable conditions. It turns out, the young man was a tailor who had been offered the promise of a better life in Dubai. He was traveling by overnight train to get his final visa documents in order before setting out to begin this new chapter.
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It’s been quite some time since I’ve been so affected by a news story. Both trains moved in/out from Howrah Station where I’ve probably boarded or disembarked a hundred times. I don’t only ache for the countless individuals searching or mourning for their loved ones, but in response to the callous comments littering news coverage on social media. One troll went so far as to spew his belief that these deaths don’t matter in a country so populated. It was a sentiment far too familiar to me. The same, in fact, that drove me to make this book a few years ago; the one that just got straightened out on my shelf last night…