Night Train at Deoli

Romanticism is defined by S.T. Coleridge “as an addition of strangeness to beauty” and Ruskin Bond has wonderfully analysed the term of illusive romanticism in “The Night Train at Deoli”.The story begins from infatuations but finally it leads to an ardent love of the narrator towards the basket seller. It cannot be denied that adolescence is a period of storm, turbulence and finally it leads to conclusion. A period of psychological and physical transit.

Deoli is a silent and desolate station and the author is very much sympathetic towards the lonely station when he used to go to meet his grandmother at Dehradun. The station is surrounded by canopy of trees, sparsely populated. He doesn’t know specifically that why on such a desolate station the train used to stop for ten minutes. Generally all the passengers used to sleep at that time “nobody got off the train and nobody got in”. He is in love with the silent beauty of the atmosphere, seemed that as if the town is a human being passing through a solitary life. He has decided to get down from the train so that he could be able to fulfil his satisfaction.

On such a visit to his grandmother, one fine cold morning he is having the privilege to meet a basket seller, gorgeous and dignified; “she was a young girl walking gracefully and with dignity”. Abruptly she stops in front of the narrator while he is sipping a hot cup of tea to sell her basket. The narrator behaves initially in such a manner as if he is hypnotised.

Unconsciously, he left his seat, following her. The girl wonders what the narrator is up to. Dramatic end to the climax took place as the basket seller understands something in her own language. In the authors mind there is an unexpected thrill with expectations. His expectation is fulfilled very shortly when she offers him a basket. Initially there is a pretention but there is a silent fulfilment. The narrator in order to keep her dignity he purchased one .The narrator doesn’t have that much audacity to touch her fingers, “hardly daring to touch her fingers”. Impulse is a negation of imagination and therefore the writer is having a subtle soft corner for her.

Time plays a very significant role in shaping the destiny of human relationship and in this particular episode of this unfulfilled love we find that the adolescent narrator is having the privilege to meet her once again. The unexpected meeting between the two forms the thematic coherence as far as “The Night Train at Deoli” is concerned.

There is an anti-climax because suddenly the guard blew his whistle. Nothing is expressed and also nothing is achieved. The narrator assures her that he would definitely do something so that the relationship could be mature. He felt drastic to put her on the train then and there and take her away with him. He doesn’t want that she should “recede into the distance of Deoli station”. The final meeting is romantic as well as tragic because they will be separated for ever in the due course of time. It is very much painful that when the relationship matures, anti-climax nemesis intervenes and disrupts the spontaneity of human aspirations and love.

She remains in his memory which the narrator considers to be the source of his sustenance. Relationship doesn’t change with the change in circumstances but here feelings remain the same. But the misfortune looms large and shatters the aspirations of the narrator’s expectation to meet the basket seller seems to be a mirage for the narrator because to his utter dismay he finds her nowhere. His impulse revolts but there is nothing can be done. She is lost forever. The narrator seems to be bewildered because he wants to confess his silent desolation to the basket seller but his dream remain unfulfilled. Unfulfillment and the disappointment are the crux of human life and the narrator has to accept that.

Utterly broken, he enquired of the basket seller from the station master but the station master didn’t know her specifically because he was new to the station and “she was nothing to me”. She is also nothing to the narrator but she has created a long lasting impression upon his mind which cannot be erased at any circumstances. Consolation is the only way to survive and hope never dies.

The narrator does feel that one day definitely he would surely meet her. But the definition of life is something different, hard core truth because life is not a fiction for a movie. The narrator doesn’t want to leave her at Deoli because he doesn’t want that the world of love which she has created would be shattered. The meeting with the basket seller was unprecedented and he couldn’t master up his courage as reality and truths are much bitter than the world of dreams. Then when he became matured still he have some expectations. The station still becomes a replica of her, a feeling of closeness. It gave him a pleasure which cannot be described in words. It was nothing but a platonic love.