Kazakhstan and India
A night train rolls across Kazakhstan. Arjun, a young traveller from India, is a long way from home, and the old woman in the seat opposite has not taken her eyes off him all night. Somewhere in the dark, her hand slides into her bag. The train roars into a tunnel.
When the lights come back, she is holding out a cloth of warm baursak. Arjun politely says no. She lowers the bundle and looks at a small photo: her grandson, far from home too. And Arjun understands. He takes one, then shows her his own grandmother on his phone. She holds her grandson’s photo up beside it, and she laughs.
At dawn her seat is empty. She has left the bundle for him, tied in her red scarf. Arjun picks up his phone and calls his Nani back home.
Every stranger is somebody’s grandchild.
