The Last Tram

“I have ridden on the last tram for twenty-one years, and I know every face that rides it.”

These were not Neal’s own words. They belonged to the man sitting next to him on the tram the other day.

Calcutta street cars, trams as they are known, had two cars connected together. The first one was premium—it had ceiling fans. The fare was 10 paisa more than the second car. Neal was in the city for the weekend and making the most of it, hopping bars and catching up with friends. The tram ride that night was for ticking the box, and he was travelling in the second car, as a fan was hardly necessary on this October night.

“We have a team of nightriders,” the man whispered. “The hospital nurse going home after her day shift. The press men with ink still on their fingers. The drunk man who sleeps and wakes along the journey, crying about the girls who left him.”

Neal smiled. “You seem to know them all.”

“Twenty-one years is a long time. You learn to recognise people. Some have been riding longer than I have.”

He nodded towards the back of the car.

The only other passenger in the car that night was an old woman in a white sari, a cloth bag on her lap, sitting upright on the bench by the rear door. She did not look out of the window. She looked at a spot on the floor between her feet, like someone recounting.

“She always rides this last car, sits on the rear bench, always looks at this spot on the floor.”

“How long has she been doing that?”

The man took a moment before answering. “Longer than I can remember.”

“Does she ever get off?”

“Not before I do.”

Neal looked towards her again. The tram rattled through the familiar streets, past shuttered shops and sleeping buildings. At each stop, a few passengers got off and others climbed aboard the other car. The old woman remained still.

“Does she speak to anyone?” Neal asked.

“Not anymore.”

The man got to his feet, as if he suddenly remembered something important. “Tonight is Bhoot Chaturdashi, when Bengal lights fourteen lamps for its dead.”

There was something in the man’s voice that made Neal turn towards him.

But before he could ask another question, the tram slowed and the man stepped down into the lane, beneath a lamp-post. The tram moved on.

Neal’s stop was still some distance away. He had the urge to go and sit next to the woman and speak to her.

She stood and gathered her bag. At the entrance, she held the bar, turned and looked at him properly for the first time. Hers was a face very familiar, someone he knew, though he could not have said from where.

She stepped down into the lane.

The conductor came to check tickets.

“You’re late,” Neal said. “The lady has just got off.”

“Which lady?” the conductor asked.

Neal looked back once. The lamp was already behind them, and the street was empty.

Was It Her

Diary entry

I can no longer remember when I last travelled by train. Sitting by the window, on the door side, feels like something I did decades ago. As the train began to pull out of the station. I watched a woman in a long dress of youthful colours walking past hand in hand with her friend.

As they disappeared, I was transported back to another platform, when I first met Ana.

She was checking the display board, looking anxious and not noticing the person beside her. In a hurry, she bumped into me and ran off with a half-embarrassed, half-angry “Sorry!”

As fate would have it, I found her sitting in the seat next to me.

She smiled.

That little smile stayed with me. Soon, we were finding excuses to meet, taking trains together and talking about everything and nothing. We grew close.

It was as if our souls could recognise each other from a distance. How else could I explain sensing Ana’s presence before catching a glimpse of her, even in a crowd?

“How do you always know?” she once asked.

“I suppose I know you.”

“That is not an answer, Ron.”

“It is the only one I have.”

As the train gathered speed, ponds, trees and green fields slipped past the window. In rhythm with the moving landscape, memories of happy, funny and sad moments returned, accompanied by an orchestra playing somewhere inside my mind. Rainy afternoons, shared cups of tea, promises made.

The memories blurred into one another, and I fell asleep. The dream took over where memory left off.

Ana sat beside me, just as she used to.

“You took your time,” I said.

She rested her head on my shoulder. Outside, the landscape shifted to a river I did not recognise.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Does it matter?” she whispered.

I reached for her hand, but struck the metal of the train. She faded with the melody.

I woke and checked my watch, then realised I had been smiling to myself.

Embarrassed, I turned towards the window. For the first time in years, I felt that old, familiar presence of hers.

I caught the faint impression of a face in the reflection.

Was it her?

I felt the sweat gather as I turned around.

Written to the Prompt by Rommy: Friday Writings #250: Memories and Dreams

The AI Boom: When Money Goes Around in Circles

I recently read about the financial relationships developing within the AI industry and thought of spreading awareness of why this boom resembles a bubble.

AI companies are increasingly involved in what is known as circular financing. Chipmakers such as Nvidia invest in AI companies and data-centre builders, who then use that money to buy Nvidia chips. In some cases, these companies also rent computing capacity back to Nvidia or its partners. The result is a cycle in which investment helps generate sales, while those sales, in turn, support further growth and investment.

This arrangement helps accelerate AI development, but it also raises an important question: how much of this growth comes from genuine customer demand, and how much comes from money circulating within the same group of companies?

Nvidia's deals involving OpenAI, Anthropic, CoreWeave and Australia's Firmus illustrate how deeply it is involved in the AI ecosystem, acting as a supplier, investor and, in some cases, customer too.

The danger lies in how interconnected these relationships have become. If one major AI company runs into financial trouble, the consequences could spread to its suppliers, investors and business partners. When companies depend on one another to sustain their growth, a setback in one part of the network can affect the others.

Australia's Reserve Bank has also raised concerns about opaque financing arrangements creating pockets of higher financial risk in the AI boom.

The excitement surrounding AI is understandable, and its potential is enormous. I am not questioning the technology or the possibilities it offers. What concerns me is the financial structure supporting some of the growth we see today. When companies invest in one another and the money flows back to the same suppliers, reported growth alone does not tell us the whole story.

A boom driven by genuine demand is one thing. A cycle in which money keeps circulating within the same ecosystem is another. The two can look remarkably similar—until the money stops flowing.

Whispers

Responding to today's prompt Friday Writings #248: Noisy!, my initial thoughts were to write about the bangs that are happening above our skies these days—missiles and the interceptors. But then decided to stay with whispers

“This is about shadows and spirits of dead people, I am guessing,” Ana said, keenly.

“Somewhat, but not exactly,” Ron continued.

“And then?” Ana said, impatient.

A few years back I had an assignment in a city close to where my sister Anita had relocated, and I grabbed the first long weekend.

“Let’s move to the sofa,” Ana suggested, grabbing a bottle of water.

I reached Anita’s on a Thursday but had to spend the evening alone, as she and her husband were unable to cancel a prearranged engagement.

I took to the couch, multi-tasking between watching TV, reading and dozing off, an art I have mastered over time. By 10:05 I was very hungry.

Anita had left my dinner on the table arranged in bowls, with detailed instructions on how long to warm each in the microwave.

Once the television was off, silence descended on the apartment except for the mild humming of the air conditioner. Sitting at the table, I wondered if I missed the noise of constantly moving vehicles and their sporadic honking back home.

Then I had an uncanny feeling that someone else was sitting at the table. Even thinking of it makes my hair stand on end.

I tried to ignore it and concentrated on the delicious food.

It sounded like a man and a woman were talking at the far end, whispering in a language I could not recognise. Every time I looked in their direction, it stopped. I resumed dinner and so did the whispering, until an irritated “argh” came, followed by an extended pause.

Trying not to panic, I kept gulping the food, planning to wander outside till Anita returned. Then I heard them faintly from the sofa. They had moved to avoid my stare.

I was on the verge of collapse when Anita walked in.

Laughing, she said, “I should have told you about the non-intrusive couple living with us since we moved here. A very peaceful coexistence, and no need to be scared. You know, here people bury their dead, and many a soul hangs around, unable to detach from the body they cared for so long!”

Fortunately, the station chief called the next morning, asking me to return immediately because of an emergency. Never in my life was I so happy to get the holiday curtailed.

Living With What Cannot Be Changed

Our society wishes us to believe that, given enough time, everything eventually heals. Pain is expected to soften, memories are supposed to lose their sharpness, and the scars left by difficult experiences are expected to fade away as life moves forward. 

But this is not how our universe shaped us over the millennia.

There are experiences from which we can never completely recover. The grief of losing someone we deeply loved may remain with us as long as we remain conscious. 

A betrayal may permanently alter the way we look at a relationship, while a failure or humiliation may continue to occupy a small corner of our memory long after the event itself has lost its relevance.

Yet the permanence of a wound does not necessarily mean that our life has to remain defined by it.

Accepting that it has become part of our story is perhaps a more difficult form of healing than making the pain disappear. We can never return to being the person we were before a particular loss or disappointment, and trying to do so may simply keep us looking backwards when life has already moved forward.

Life has moved on, and so have we.

Acceptance does not mean giving in or simply putting the experience out of our mind. Rather, it means refusing to let the event—or the person involved—continue to control or affect our lives. Something can remain important without remaining in control of our lives.

Some things are simply painful, unfair or irreversible. Accepting that reality can nevertheless free us from the exhausting expectation that we must somehow repair what cannot be repaired.

In that sense, acceptance can become a form of moksha: a kind of liberation, a breaking free from the cycle of pain and attachment.

An authentic life is not one in which everything has been healed. It is one in which we recognise what cannot be changed.

This is in response to the prompt: Friday Writings #247: Reframing Negative Concepts

1,000 Days of Showing Up

Last month, my phone buzzed with a small celebration.

“1,000 Move Goals — You earned this award for reaching your daily Move goal 1,000 times.”

On the screen, it was just another badge in the Fitness app. But I found myself looking at it for a little longer than usual.

One thousand.

That number represents 1,000 separate days when I managed to show up and move enough to close my Move ring. It represents 1,000 decisions—some big, many very small—made over a period of more than three years.

My first closed Move ring was on 7 June 2023, after a few half-complete and semi-complete days. The 1,000th came on 28 September 2026.

That is 1,209 days in between.

So, clearly, there is still room for improvement. There were 209 days when I did not reach the target. Some were travel days, busy days, tired days, bad-weather days, or simply days when exercise was not on my mind.

There were days when I could complete my walking routine, and days when I just didn't feel like starting.

The Move ring does not ask whether we ran a personal best or completed an impressive workout. It asks a much simpler question:

Did we move enough today?

Over time, I realised that the answer does not always have to come from something dramatic.

Taking the stairs counts. A short workout counts. So does deciding to walk a little farther instead of stopping where we normally would.

And somehow, all those ordinary decisions accumulated into 1,000.

Across those 1,209 days, I have consistently completed the Move ring at least five times a week.

It is not a record of perfection. There were plenty of days when I didn't make it. What it represents instead is something much more ordinary, and perhaps more important: the habit of returning to the effort.

Because that is how real life works.

The real challenge is not in never missing a day. It is starting again when you do.

The achievement, if there is one, is not really the number 1,000. It is the 1,000th time I made the choice to show up.

And tomorrow, there is another ring waiting.

A Rather Strange Walk

A Rather Strange Walk

Sometimes words have more than one personality. Look closely, and they may surprise you.

I walked the forest, green and grand,
The most jovial soul in the land.

Singing my tender, brand-new song,

Smiling in my favourite beer hat. 

I searched for weeds beneath the trees,

Gathering herbs with greater ease, 

For nothing gives me more delight

Than an afternoon cup of herb tea.

I am brave enough to face them all,

Though I must admit, I fear the call

Of someone lurking among the trees—

Something rather grisly: the bear.

I mailed and paused beneath those trees,

And felt the freshness of the breeze.

"To stay alive and be happy,

I need to fill my lungs and ... breathe"

This post is in response to prompt  Friday Writings #246-light-hearted-words