Field Note 07 of 22

Aboard the Hisar–Tirupati Special, near Warangal

“He wasn't angry. He'd simply stopped expecting anyone to explain the delay.”

The train was already seven hours behind schedule by the time I boarded at Warangal. A soldier was already on board — he'd gotten on much earlier, at Hisar, carrying sweets for his children a couple of thousand kilometers away.

He sat next to me for twelve hours. We didn't talk much at first. Eventually, he mentioned this wasn't unusual — the delay, the waiting, the recalculating of when he'd actually see his family. He'd built a kind of quiet patience around it, the way people do with something they've stopped expecting to change.

He wasn't frustrated, or even particularly bothered, by the time we spoke. Just resigned, in the way of someone who has made peace with something rather than someone still hoping it will improve.

I've thought about that distinction since — between patience born of trust, and patience born of habit.

Field Note 07