It was around 8 P.M when Harris got to the Trivandrum Central Station. He was half an hour early. The Mangalore Mail was already on the platform, making huffing noises as though eager to get going. He checked the reservations list outside the S10 compartment, confirmed his name against Berth No.6 and got in.

No one else was in the coupe yet. He shoved his travel bag under the seat and stood up. That is when he saw the suitcase on the upper berth.

An ordinary brown suitcase, slightly worse for wear. He barely gave it a second thought before he settled down in the window seat. A vendor carrying a big cylinder came in, shouting “Kaapi! Kaapi kaapi kaapi!” in a raucous monotone. Mainly to make the guy stop, he bought a cup of coffee and sipped at it, watching the crowd milling outside and idly leafing through his copy of Outlook.

The woman who got on with the child on her hip, husband in tow, seemed somehow familiar. The husband busied himself stowing their luggage away. He saw them exchanging a look, glancing at him and then looking away.

An elderly couple got on next. They perched on the edge of the seat, looking strangely ill at ease.

“Excuse me”

Harris looked up. It was the male half of the younger couple.

“Which is your berth, sir?”

So that is what they wanted from him, Harris thought to himself. The lower berth, so that the woman and kid could sleep there. Oh well, it didn’t matter to him. He told them he was willing to shift to the top berth, it was no problem. There, his good deed for the day. He felt strangely pleased at their evident gratitude.

“Excuse me”

The lady this time. She was smiling at him.

“Didn’t you study in MCC?”

Sudden total recall. She was his junior in college. They talked sometime about old times and mutual friends. She introduced her husband, who didn’t look all that happy about this unexpected stranger from the past. He had recently taken VRS from the Navy and was now on a cruise liner, he said, making the best of it and shaking hands.

“Excuse me”

The elderly man was tapping him on the shoulder.

“Look, we are used to sleeping early. Do you mind putting up the middle berths?”

The train hadn’t even started. Harris felt slightly irritated at the request, but couldn’t do much else but murmur assent and help them with the chains and clasps. They unpacked their sheets and blankets and got ready to curl up. His lady friend also started arranging his former lower berth. The kid had already dozed off.

Well, might as well turn in. He retrieved his bag from underneath the seat and lifted it up to the upper berth.

That is when he saw the brown suitcase again on the opposite side.

“Whose suitcase is this?” He asked the Navy man, who was getting his own cramped sleeping quarters ready across the aisle from his wife. Even as he asked it, he knew it was not the guy’s. It had already been there when he got on.

Within minutes, it was evident that the suitcase had no owner to its name in the immediate vicinity. The Navy man was beginning to look flustered. His wife peered up from below, concerned. The elderly couple were also up, all thoughts of sleep gone.

The repeated warnings in the media about not touching strange luggage were playing on all their minds.

The Navy man went around to the other coupes, but no one came forward to claim the offending article. Other passengers were crowding around, looking anxious.

“Get the TTE” someone said.

Easier said than done. The man was nowhere to be found. They managed to locate a policeman, sitting bored near the door of the adjoining compartment.

He hurried to the scene, made them all move back, questioned everyone present and was not satisfied. Harris was given a long pregnant look of suspicion. After all, he was the first person to see the suitcase.

“Why don’t you open it and see if there is any address for the owner?” Harris asked, much to the policeman’s consternation. That was exactly why he asked the question.

“No, no…that wouldn’t do, it is not right to open anyone’s luggage without any proper proof’ the policeman stammered and scooted off. When the going gets tough, the tough get going,  Harris thought.

“Look, the TTE!” the Navy man said, blocking off that hapless official as he tried to slink away. He made a big show of checking the charts, but was too shaken to say whether anyone had made a booking of that berth or not.

Harris had seen a young man passing to and fro a couple of times and couldn’t resist making a wisecrack to his lady friend “I think that must be the terrorist. His remote must be malfunctioning and he must be checking things out.” The look of sheer fear on her face made him wish he had kept his mouth shut. This was no laughing matter.

The train began to move. Now all avenues of escape were shut off, save pulling the emergency chain. The TTE kept saying that there was no danger, the owner would turn up soon, but no one looked convinced.

The chain was on the verge of being pulled when the policeman came back, a middle aged man with him, protesting vehemently. He turned out to be the owner of the suitcase and the berth, he had just gone to the A/C compartment to talk to a friend. The policeman had rounded him up from there, given him a solid tongue lashing and hustled him back to his abandoned property.

The TTE, looking relieved, also vented his rage on the man, telling him off for being so irresponsible. He gave all the passengers accusing looks too, especially Harris, for jumping the gun. After pompously checking everyone’s ticket, he swaggered out of the bogey, shaking his head at the follies of ordinary mortals.

“Just because someone leaves his luggage alone on his berth for some time, there is no reason to call the police!” the indignant suitcase owner was beginning now. He kept up his tirade for quite a long time. Harris knew the verbal barbs were meant largely for him, he was considered the perpetrator of the whole sorry incident. He kept absolutely mum. The other occupants followed suit. But he had this feeling that everyone thought it was his fault.

He became absolutely sure of this when his lady friend got off the train with her husband and child the next morning, without even a goodbye.

So much for good deeds.