Houston, Texas
The Train and a Time
The timing couldn’t be more precise. Running alongside our meeting room is this railway line; a train goes by periodically with a routine whistle blowing off. It seems to strike at a critical moment, just when something profound is being said or a major item is being voted on, there blows the whistle.
I got somewhat familiar with those tracks of the train at predawn when I was ambling on the trail right next to it.
I’ve always liked trains. Since knowing that our guru, Srila Prabhupada, spent ample time on this mode of transportation in his years as a family man (prior to being a monk), the locomotive reminds me of him. India, where he did his travels, mainly to earn his family’s keep, have the most complex and active passenger train system in the world.
For me the sound of a train represents optimism in a certain way. They are ancient relics of the past. They are powerful. Of course, there is a dark side – products of a residual industrial revolution. They made a major change in the culture of our indigenous people. Their construction killed many labourers . In Hope, British Columbia, I recalled through my travels through there, a plaque reads that for every mile of constructed track, three Chinese labourers fell to their death.
When my colleagues and I have our meetings in India, a small lizard, what they call a tik-tik, crawls along the walls and often makes a sound at a point of affirmation. Here, in Houston, we hear the toot of a choo-choo, at a moment when it’s so on queue. It just appears to be such perfect timing. It is beyond declaring that it’s a coincidence.
May the Source be with you!
3 KM
No comments:
Post a Comment