Midnight sandwiches

RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE

Forget about other midnights—'Midnight Cowboy', 'Midnight’s Children', 'Before Midnight' and the like. This is about midnight sandwiches, a title coined by a born humourist from Mysuru. No, not R.K. Narayan.

It was January 1, 2015. I had just drained my first cup of 2015 coffee to the last drop. ‘It’s about our trip tonight,’ she said, ‘I’ll pick you up at 7 pm. Our train is at 8 and we reach Mysuru at 9:30pm. Are you bringing any food for the train?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘Some aloo parathas for our dinner. It’ll keep us going till we reach Mangalore next morning.’ ‘Don’t you bother,’ she said quickly. ‘My cousin Sundar insisted on bringing some food for us. He’ll meet us at the station platform in Mysuru.’ All the same, I decided to pack some parathas in case Sundar hit some roadblock and was unable to deliver.

As it happened Mangalore Express started half an hour late. Once we got going the Express, for no earthly reason was stopping after every couple of kilometres. It was about 10:30 and no sign of Mysuru. I wanted to unpack the parathas but Raji would not hear of it. ‘Poor Sundar will be waiting for us with the sandwiches. Let’s hold out till we reach Mysuru.’

Ah, sandwiches, I thought lightly. Raji called Sundar on her mobile and exchanged a few sentences with him. She turned to me and smiled. ‘Yeah, he’s there with the snack. And his wife Andal too. Good old chap!’

I offered her the parathas again at 11 pm but she refused it politely. I was hungry. The man in the side berth was snoring under his blanket and we were still up, Raji and I, dinnerless. At last, the train chugged into the dimly-lit Mysuru station. Raji put her head out and scanned the platform. The next moment she’d caught sight of Sundar and Andal rushing like a pair of tornados towards our compartment window.

‘Well, well it’s rather late, almost midnight. Have you guys had your dinner?’ queried Sundar adjusting his scarf, while Andal brought out the food package. ‘Noooo,’ we cried out in unison. ‘We were waiting for the sandwiches.’ ‘Oh, oh, I’m extremely sorry, ‘apologised Raji’s cousin. ‘You should have finished your dinner, by now. It’ so late. After all these are just by the way...just some midnight sandwiches to munch.’

In a trice, Sundar’s ‘by the way sandwiches’ were gone; we were that hungry. The Express was about to resume its journey rather reluctantly. Raji and I waved to the two figures on the platform who had braved the cold on a January night to meet their relatives with food and drink. It was sweet of them and the sandwiches had tasted heavenly.