Is this the same t-shirt and cotton trouser I use every time I travel? I make sure my slippers are always new. I can bet, my look on the face is the same whenever I travel, thinking of catching the train on time, number of pages I will read, kind of passengers I am bound to be with, and praying that there no new born babies !
Travelling, without fail brings you all those memories, good and bad, and one of the rarest of times when you are completely with your inner self, away from the routine life. It is just very peaceful.
This time too the destination is Howrah in Kolkata, but I have never travelled in this train before, geared with color often used by soldiers to fight in jungles. My stomach is churning and I feel low on blood pressure, this time I don’t have to fight with the vendor for the change to buy a mineral water and banana juice. Sugar makes you firm on your legs. I never quite understand the reason behind formals and cosmetics especially when you have to spend next 48 hours with the same set of people.
I find my berth after some memory lapse on how to read the seat numbers on a train. The lady beside me could not clearly pronounce words that she spoke, it sounded cute though. She was short, fat, with layers of cheeks. Her husband sat opposite to her, no different than how she looked. They could be misunderstood as siblings to an unknown. Her brother in mid 30’s with short trimmed hair wore a half sleeve shirt, comfortable cotton trouser and looked confident and concerned. His missing tooth in the front reminded me of that character from the movie Hangover. He laughed to glory without any hesitation of displaying the missing tooth. I was still observing my co-passengers, and a young lady accompanied with another young lady and a guy enters trying to settle down. The elder one guides her younger sister that her berth is at the top, and the guy pitches in with, “that is for sleeping, and she can sit down.” This was followed by that silent stare which echoed, “Why don’t you just shut up or I will kick you out of my life, my house, and you will die alone.” He obliged and kept shut, just trying his best to arrange her luggage, recharge the battery of younger ones mobile and wish her the best for the journey. She was yet to celebrate her 20th birthday. She had a dusky look, wore a red t shirt, a gold chain, red nail polish, maroon color handbag.
As we all settled down, I was happy to find that meals were included in the ticket fare, what kicked me was two litre of mineral water also a part of the fare. A Bengali co-passenger was quick in reminding me that I have paid Rs 500 more than the
usual rate of the ticket, he looked unsure if this excess cost was value driven.
I doubt if cancer inside her mouth was the reason behind those bulging cheeks. But, cancer was purely a case of ill luck for her. She was treated for a minor lump with a surgery, and a year later it developed into something gruesome. This time she was diagnosed with cancer. Her brother argued “I told you so,” and the famous doctor’s son was at fault. They were happy that the reports indicated her being normal and it was just a matter of time that she found peace in her mind. We all agreed to keep doctors at arms length and have a healthy lifestyle to avoid diseases.
Food served did not resemble with the lifestyle we agreed earlier. It was cold, and minutes away from being stale. Though we expressed our disappointment, we all relished gulab jamuns, silently waiting for it in another meal.
Young lady was a professional dancer, with limited interest in academics. She argued, fashion designing is her field, and since she did not fetch good score in her 12th, she was in the right path. Fashion designing was more to do with what you wear than what you read, she said. Peer pressure was evident in how she replied to all those calls, and was tired of explaining people to stop intruding in her life of fashion designing and low scores. I wonder what she thought before glancing through the chapter named ‘haraami’ from the book of short stories I was reading.
He was currently not working; he felt over worked after spending 25 years in United States and largely worked with Indian giant Tata’s. He sounded one of those caring person, a family man every girl somewhere dreams of. He did not allow her to eat spicy food, as it might affect the wound inside her mouth, also requested for less spicy vegetarian food. He was pensive relating one year average salary for a java developer in Bangalore to just three months salary in States, he hoped her daughter would do something meaningful before she was married. Since he lived in one of the tier-II cities, he planned to venture in real estate business, supplying raw materials to builders.
This was the first time I experienced flush working in the toilets of train. Defecating was less concerning this time; I knew I don’t have to sit on the heaps of dry waste stuck on the sides of the platform. This one had a lid at the bottom of the structure, which was supported by push buttons operated with and without electricity. The lid made way for all the waste cleaned with the pressure of the water, and closed after running for around 30 seconds. The noise created by the pressure of the water hitting the metal surface sounded like an alarm for the next passenger ready to occupy. I was also impressed with the huge mirror, and no hand made arts of cheap sex and sentences on the walls of the bathroom.
You will always find Bengali’s very loud in their ideas on politics and policies, most of them learn the art during their academic years in colleges. Though it took more than 30 years to allow a new Bengali woman and a new party to govern them, the change came, and everybody said, “We should give others a chance.” Time will say if it is right, but the moment just seems right for the change. Here we were discussing on how intelligence agencies have vested interest in online giants like Google and others. It’s an open platform of millions of database, and you can track possibly everything that sits inside those invisible wires like you can physically navigate in one of your libraries. Developing countries like India meant that many mistakes in the process of becoming developed leaving a good section of society to play the catch up game.
Here she was, trying to smell fresh at the odd hours of the day. Her maroon color bag surely had deodorants which I can smell even now. It is so much easy to take bath, and change your dress. But, all what matters is how when smells. She wanted to be lenient on those feedback forms on food and service, but she did write 100 words on what she wants to eat.
I could not complete my book of short stories on Mumbai, and I was approaching my destination, only to catch another train at ten past midnight. I bet I still had the same look on the face; I was getting ready to wait and travel. I was enjoying my time, the only time when I had not spent a single penny inside the train on food items. But, the young lady, with fashion and no tension on her head firstly gave Rs 20 to the food attendant; I too had to pay the same. This was followed by Rs 100 to the cleaning staff; I savored my moment by giving Rs 10. I did not have the courage to look at them, I think they waited. But I had to travel for another 12 hours.
