27 hours - Part - II

(continued)

There are quite a number of travellers from Bombay to Pune who use the Mail / Express trains. My portion of the compartment emptied in Pune. Then, there was a cascade. One family with six kids and five adults jumped in for four berths. Just four berths. Two of the six kids did not look like kids even as per any lenient railway manual. The leader of the group just asked them to occupy.... Like a 'Occupy Wall Street movement'! Already in a corner, I was cornered further. The man said, 'Push and sit, uncle will adjust '!  Excuse me, but shouldn't 'uncle' be consulted? Thankfully, there was no one sitting on my lap! Some presence of mind told me to persuade them to push the kids onto the upper berth. There was some semblance of freer air.

Suddenly, most of the members of this family started in a cry fest. One had to see it to believe. I am not making it up, but yes, for a full ten minutes, they were sort of uncontrollable as they were leaving their relatives at Pune and leaving for Madras. The great Indian goodbye. Damn emotional chaps, aren't we?

I knew it was going to be tough, with so much chatter n noise. Upgrade, please? The Gods have better prayers to answer than a measly upgrade. I understand. Moreover, what can be the assurance that there is no ten member family occupying five seats in the a/c compartment and asking the 'uncle'  to adjust?

Test of endurance, patience and willpower. I can. Should I have not thought twice about the 12k plane ticket? Am I being too fussy? I have made so. Many trips like this before. Show off! Snob! OK, get me the watery coffee-less milk-less sugar less railway coffee atleast! Coffee-flavored hot water for ten bucks. Yes, there went in the third cup. And we had just crossed Pune. Close to 24 hours more!  I hoped no kid is going to share 'uncle's' bed! One of the kids had already started throwing groundnut coverings from the upper berth. Ah, where are those pretty heroines who come in 'movie' trains? Why me, every time?

And hey, to top it all, I had a weird dream... A dragon was chasing me along some ice-covered mountains! The jerks created by the train in no manner aided in reducing the impact of the 'dream run' across the mountains. That I was running alone with no heroine alongside me made the run even more daunting. May be I was fighting with the dragon for the princess! As with most dreams, the closest the dragon got to me, it broke! I did not know if the magic sword worked! Ah, Super Mario! Did he get the princess or not? Keep guessing! Surprisingly, except for the dragon and the mountains, I could manage better sleep than I get at home these nights!

 Safety is a big issue on trains. One has to be alert and watchful. Shoes, bags anything can get knocked off. It is an art, the way random people keep flitting in and out of compartments and get off richer with bags, shoes, dresses and what not. It is best to travel light if you can help it as there will be lesser luggage to watch over. Moreover, most Indians carry their home with them and generally, there is no space to place your luggage. More so, if you are getting in the train in a station in between.

During the course of my railway studies, I had extensive training as to how to function as a ticket examiner, booking clerk et al. Southern railway is generally tough on rule breakers - ticket less travel, age barred kids etc. ID cards are strictly scrutinized, particularly for senior citizens who travel on confessional fares. This family that travelled in my  portion of the compartment had to pay a penalty for under declaring the age of a couple of kids. This, after the examiner spoke to the kids and made them say which class they were in - kids don't know to lie to questions like 'Which class are you in?' unless they are tutored! But it's not easy to play tutor for questions where the examiner starts with 'What is your name?' and what subject you like  to the all important question of 'Which class do you study?'. Game over for the parents. Simple psychology in five minutes!

Once we get used to certain comforts in life, it becomes difficult to go back to more 'austere' living conditions. No big deal, but some degree of discomfort is indeed to be endured. One has to just assimilate with the crowd and the journey turns pleasant. I did that, and the rest of the journey was pleasant. There are small things that you keep noticing on trains. How people are together, how they take care of each other, things they share..The family that was in my portion bought idlis for everyone in their group. Everyone ate but the youngest of the kids did not. They noticed it only after they all had finished their Tiffin. The way they fawned over him, found that he wanted biscuits and tea and made a smile come to his lips by getting those for him was a fascinating sight.

Some read, listen to music, chat..... Sometimes completely unknown persons speak as if they are acquainted for a long time. I swapped my lower berth with an elderly couple who were booked on an upper berth. Gave my window seat to the kids - ah, the smile on their faces! 'Thank you uncle!'  - now, that felt good! I mentally reprimanded myself for being the snob that I was a few hours back. 

An elderly man sitting opposite me had just experienced his first plane travel and was recounting how it was - the take off, the air conditioning, coffee for a hundred bucks, the bumpy landing...it was interesting to listen.

I did not know whether I got used to the journey or I started liking it, but it just takes that bent of mind to live with things, circumstances and people. It is perhaps in the head.

 But yes, all said and done, one day plus three more hours on a train is tiring indeed. Very. 1200-plus kms in 27 hours throws an average speed of 45 kmph.... Awfully slow, even if you take into account the number of stops and signal halts. In such crowded compartments, one cannot stretch legs, loosen one's body... Feels claustrophobic at times. Having studied for a railway job I shouldn't be harsh on them, but it's like what some American baseballer defined cricket as - 'baseball on valium!' (That quote was pre 20-20, though!) Sometimes waiting in the train when it stops during a hot hot afternoon in the middle of nowhere could be like watching paint dry.

 Andhra is a cauldron. Food is spicy (who does not like 'Andhra meals'?) , climate is hot. We say in Madras that we have three seasons - hot, hotter, hottest. Parts of Andhra (Telangana included) are no better. Wading through the state on a May afternoon in a train sets you up for a roast fest. Jennifer Lopez be damned, everyone gets a hot butt!

Answering nature's call in trains is a really tough thing to do if you are a cleanliness freak. Even when it comes to a/c compartments, the cleanliness levels of the toilets leaves a lot to be desired. The best way to keep off is, as I said before, schedule your fast while on such journeys!

This train journey was uneventful - Thank God! - but interesting and endurable given that I was travelling in the hottest of months.

27 hours later, after waiting outside Madras Central for a good 30 minutes for a platform, my train chugged in. I came out of the station and there she was ...weather beaten.......sun kissed......rain swept........ resplendent than the reddish of reds.....with the familiar friendly face and that question on her lips......"What do you want?" Ah Madras, my dearest Madras!

I am strangely looking forward to my next long distance train journey. Even more strangely, I am thinking of booking second class and  not planning to request for an upgrade! 

27 hours - Part I

After eight years, I embarked on a journey..... by train. What was so special about it? Well it was from Bombay to Madras and the journey was to be 27 hours long. Yes, 27 hours! Nothing bewildering about it -  I have done that before and so many Indians do this every other day. But when you are used to the 'comforts' of air travel - time, ambience, upkeep etc - a sudden change to the Indian railways is something. I wanted to go to Madras on an impulse and a couple of helpful colleagues booked this ticket on Tatkal (emergency last minute booking). This was necessitated after I found that my impulse came quite late -  same day Friday air tickets to Madras from Bombay were selling at 12k upwards. With second and third ac tickets sold out, only the common man's sleeper tickets were available.

The only motto being to head to Madras, I decided to take the plunge. The Indian railways is the greatest support for the budget Indian traveller.. I remember, when my son was born in October 2005, I had booked a wait listed ticket a day having not got it confirmed, got to the general compartment only to find it teeming with people. I just couldn't think of getting into it. I had then come to the airport, taken a red eye flight to Bangalore and then a morning train to Madras. I shudder to think as to how people travel by General compartments.

So here I was, in the train, which chugged out at 2 pm. The familiar sounds of vendors selling about anything from hot/soft drinks to food to knickknacks and trinkets trickled in every now and then.

 Food is a great leveller on trains. Everyone around you seems to be eating something all the time. It ends up in constant pricking of your gastronomic senses. So after a point of time, you give in to temptation and end up buying something - samosas, vadas, cutlets et al - which you wouldn't have otherwise bought.The trains and the travellers do generate livelihood across the rural and semi urban towns and a range of mobile water sellers, magazine and food vendors is common.

Many movies show really cute heroines suddenly popping out of nowhere when the train is about to start and plonking themselves next to the hero. Yes, I am no hero, but well, there was no luck... No heroines to give company either! A patient who was constantly coughing, an elderly couple engaged in loud chat, three little kids whose reactions ranged from bratty to sublime...

Back to reality.  The sleeper class often sees a steady stream of beggars of all kinds, women, kids, men, old folk and the sick ones. 'Sir'  'ma'  'bhaiya'  'saab'  'ayya'  'anna'  'babu'.... The epithets for the 'dolers out' are endless.

Beggars have area restrictions -  so you won't find a beggar travelling with you throughout your journey. They beg during the course of their earmarked areas in different trains. So if you are a constant traveller,  you know whom you will run into -  additionally, if you are a 'doler', then you would get advance blessings too, in anticipation... Ironically, everyone in India who begs, plays God!

Then there are cleaners who push trash from one side of the compartment to the other. After a point of time the same trash will be swept from the other side.

And yes, kids! They start from being 'cute' to downright bratty. The bratty ones are the ones whose parents would be thanked profusely if they got off at earlier stations. Gosh, how people bring up kids! My little boy is an angel in comparison!

 I never buy food on trains -  the ones they cook in the pantry cars. A chance visit to a pantry car during one of those journeys made me go off food for two days -  such was the cleanliness of that environment. Don't be taken in by the cries of 'Idli vada sambar!'  'Veg biryani, Veg pulav'  et al. Just try to peep into the pantry once. You will be sure to undertake that  health / religious fast next time you are on a train. Or, buy from outside..... these trains stop at so many stations, each MLA or MP having proved his point. In fact, I was surprised to see vendors from outside selling stuff on the train with the cries of 'Private chai' 'Station biryani'  - such is the infamy that the pantry cars and railway food have acquired. To think that at a point of time, the 'railway chutney' used to be famous!

 The May heat roasts you in the compartment. I was secretly hoping that the ticket examiner would come and tell me 'Sir you have got an upgrade as requested... You may move to....'. Well, dreams... If dreams be the flavour of life, then dream on! Last week, on a flight to Delhi, two flyers in the queue before me got executive class upgrades. Thinking that I was next, I expectantly presented my ticket only to see it MICR scanned and returned. I should have known. Some people just don't get freebies. Put me on top of the list!

There are some people on these trains who can just sleep throughout the day, night, any time. How do they do it? They are unfazed by the beggar, the vendor, the baby and the chatter around. Blessed. Truly blessed.

(To continue)

Sleepless in the city

''Destiny is something we've invented because we can't stand the fact that everything happens is accidental.'' -Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

“Sleep is such a luxury, which I can't afford.” ― Robin Sikarwar

“The creak of bed springs suffering under the weight of a restless man is as lonely a sound as I know.” ― Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers

“In troubled times, one wishes for a sound sleep more than usual, but on the contrary, realizing its amplified importance, sleep smugly impedes all attempts to woo it.” ― Pawan Mishra, Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy

As I had said in one of my earlier posts, one can get the best of beds, but sleep is something you have to be blessed with. Being an early to bed, early to rise person, I find it difficult to get sleep late into the morning, unless I am very tired. The past ten days have seen a consistent pattern where I lose sleep in the middle of the night. 

Yesterday was no different, only that it was worse. Have you read the book 'The Amityville Horror' or seen its movie adaptations? In this story, the head of the family is woken up regularly by some noise or unfathomable spirit in the dead of the night.... Around  2 am every single night. I seem to have the same problem with my sleep the past ten days. Yesterday was 12:45 am. Only that there were no spirits to be afraid of! 

So what do you do when you get up in the middle of the night? I don't have TV. I tried to watch a movie on my computer. A 1998 Hollywood A/B grade cross, 'Wild Things'- a favorite of mine - Don't get ideas, just because of the consistent topsy turvy plot. But 15 minutes into the movie, I realized that if I have to sleep, then watching Denise Richards on screen is not going to help! I switched it off and decided that I will read some random part of a book. I pulled out Chetan Bhagat 's Five Point Someone and opened somewhere in the middle. As luck would have it, it was the part where the one of the characters kisses his girlfriend the first time on a terrace. No, not the perfect advertisement for getting sleep.

When u get up in the middle of the night, strangely, hunger pangs arise from nowhere. The stomach acts as if you have not had food for ages! One 200 ml pack of buttermilk, a pack of lassi and portions of the new-in-the-market bournvita biscuits. Some more nights like this and my Bhageeratha  like penance in reducing my weight is going to take a hard knock!

Then I started doing something wild. I have weights at home. 'Doing weights can make me tired and consequently, could aid me in getting the much needed sleep', I decided. I pumped rubber (again, don't get ideas, the weights I have are made of rubber!) for about thirty minutes. At one point, it became so frustrating that I thought of knocking myself senseless with one of those! Walked inside the house for about thirty - Yes, thirty- minutes!

I browsed, shared something on gplus, and decided to read an e-book on the kindle app on my phone. 'You can do it'  by Andrew Boskugel. One of the lines in a chapter on the law of attraction said thus:

'God has created a rule. And this rule says that you always get what you concentrate on! Paying attention to something, strengthens it!'

Is it? I decided to concentrate on sleep, hoping there was this law of attraction thing between me and sleep. No luck... We seem to be the same sides of a magnet! I looked like I was exploring all possible ways to construct a sequel to the Hollywood movie 'Clueless'! Moreover, when your nights end up sleepless, your thoughts gain ground and overpower their way. The heart and mind then get into a slanging match over who is right.

At around 4 am, slight semblances of sleep and I hit the sack. In just five minutes, the fan stopped - the electricity Board had decided to pull the plug. No, God, no! Not me! Why me Lord, why? I pray to you, I am a good boy and all that... You can't do this to me!

Then, on reflex action, I got up, groped around a switch in the hall and lo, there was power in the hall!  You are awesome, God dude!!

I switched my 4:30 am alarm off and.. Crashed! At 6 am, the conditioned body refused to continue any further and it was time for.... Coffee!

I am dreading today's night. But I have decided one thing... If this happens today, Wild Things in on.. Full!

Yawn!