WHEN IT WAS time for him to travel again, Horihor said, ‘Let me take the boy along. He barely gets to eat anything at home. If he travels with me, then perhaps a little milk here, a little ghee there . . . his body may heal a little.’

Opu had never left the village. Not once, since the day he was born. The canopy of the old medlar, the Goswamis’ garden, the large elephant-apple tree, the banks of the river that curved along the village . . . maybe, on an adventurous day, the sight of the cobblestoned road that led to Nawbabgonj—these were the borders of his world. The idea of distance enchanted him, but he had never had a taste of it. The closest he had come to leaving the village was when his mother took him down to the river, during the summer months of Boishakh and Joishtho. The two of them would stand on the bathing steps to enjoy the late afternoon breeze. Fields of summer hay would lie on the other side of the river like a bright, unending carpet. The acacia trees dotting the fields would be heavy with blossoms, yellow against the bright blue sky. Grazing cows would move slowly across the landscape, raising their heads every now and then to low in the quiet afternoon air. A wilderness of moonseed vine would hang from the young night jasmine tree, making it look positively ancient from a distance.

As dusk approached, the cowherds would begin to herd their charges towards the river for a wash and a drink. Okrur Majhi’s small fishing boat would appear around the bend, on its way to lay his two-pole fishing trap for the night. Beyond the bustle, the flowering shrubs that dotted the hay fields would gently undulate in the cool evening breeze. Opu would look past it all and focus on the far point where the fields met the blue sky. From his bank of the river, the emerald of the distant woods would look like a smear of colour above the lighter green of the field, blending into the sky’s darkening blue. He would stare at the majesty of the distant vastness and think . . . well, he couldn’t quite express what he thought, for he didn’t have a name for the sense of thrill and wonder that the view of the horizon filled him with. But on the days that his sister came along with them, he would grasp her arm and eagerly point the majestic view out to her.

‘Didi, Didi—look! Do you see? Behind that tree?’

‘Yes?’

‘Isn’t it so far away?’

Durga would grin affectionately at her little brother. ‘You want me to see that it’s far away? That’s what you’re excited about? Opu, you’re one nutty boy.’

That had been his life so far. Today, he was finally about to take his first step towards that magical faraway. Anticipation had kept him up for several nights in a row. Every single morning, he counted the days to see how many were left till they began their journey. That day of discovery was finally here.

Just beyond the boundary of Contentment, the main village road took a turn to the right, leaving the cobblestoned road to Nawbabgonj behind. A little ahead, it merged with the mud road leading to Asharu-Durgapur.

The moment father and son stepped on to the mud road, Opu said, ‘Baba? Where’s the road that goes to the railroad?’

‘It’s going to be on our way,’ said Horihor. ‘We’ll cross it soon. Now keep pace.’

What? The railroad was going to be on their way?

Once, a little while back, their red cow had lost its calf. They had searched the whole village for two or three days, but the calf hadn’t been found. So he and his sister had been sent to the southern fields to look for it. It was autumn, in the month of Poush. Stalks of ripe black gram had covered those fields. As they looked for the calf, he and his sister kept dipping down to pick the fruit from the stalks and pop it in their mouths. On the raised cobblestoned road further ahead, bullock carts had been trundling along, ferrying loads of date-palm jaggery to the market at Asharu.

He hadn’t noticed it at first, but his sister had stood for a while, staring at the misty horizon on the other side of the cobblestoned road. Suddenly, she had said, ‘Opu . . . want to do something? Want to go see the railroad?’

The proposal had taken Opu by surprise. ‘Railroad? But that’s really far, Didi. Can we go that far?’

‘It’s not that far! We can easily go. It’s supposed to be just on the other side of the cobblestoned road . . . right?’

‘Umm . . . if it’s that close, shouldn’t we be able to see it? Maybe if we climb on the cobblestoned road . . . Didi, let’s do that first. We can easily climb on that road. Then we’ll see.’

The two of them had spent several minutes standing on the cobblestoned road, looking around for signs of the railroad. Finally, his sister had said, ‘Yes . . . I think maybe it is too far . . . no? I suppose we won’t be seeing the railroad today.’

Opu had agreed. ‘If we can’t see it, it is too far. If we go, we mayn’t even make it back tonight. We should just go home.’

But their eyes had lingered on the horizon. A longing for far-off lands, coupled with a desire to witness the near-mythical railroads, was strong in both hearts. Finally, in a tone of desperation, his sister had said, ‘Opu . . . let’s just go. How far can it be? If we go right now, we’ll be back before afternoon. That way we can also see the afternoon train! We can tell Ma that we were