Excerpt from Amma

Weak sunlight is beginning to penetrate the early morning mist as you step from the auto-rickshaw.  Through the hazy chill, the train station, with its paved plaza and white stone pillars presides, with unyielding conviction, over a chaotic jumble of market stalls and already thronged roads. Car horns blare and the air is thick with exhaust fumes, as well as the more acrid stench of human excrement. 

Even after the short walk to the station steps, your skin feels grimy and your eyes sting.  Once inside the relative calm of the echoing entrance hall, you buy a ticket then settle on a cold, stone bench on the platform.  Other travellers mill about or somehow manage to doze on the rock-hard seating. 

‘From where are you coming?’

It is a query you respond to at least 20 times a day.  On this occasion, the question breaks into a longing for the cosy familiarity of home that has you wondering again what you’re doing here. You’re on the verge of snapping a curt retort – but one glance at the questioner causes the sharp words to remain unspoken.