“The child has grown
The dream is gone,
I HAVE BECOME COMFORTABLY NUMB!!!”
These lines from the genius of PINK FLOYD crystallize how exactly I feel. (For good or for bad I might add hahaha).
My dream when I was 7 was to become an Engine-driver. Need I say more about my love for trains…not to mention, train journeys?!! The former having now been consigned to part of the ‘
Floydian dream’, the latter still remains.
At the onset of any journey by train, I’m struck by the most intriguing thought- There are so many people leaving. Some leaving home, some leaving for home, some on a holiday, on an assignment, in search of love, for revenge and some… they just travel.
-
“What are they all thinking???”
And it’s never for too long that I’m allowed this luxury of contemplating on the profound. You’re at once greeted by the call of hawkers, vendors and the like- making for one of the most unique and amusing auditory experiences.
“People are strange when you’re a stranger
Faces look ugly when you’re alone.”
It’s a work of art really from the late Jim Morrison to have the captured the inherent xenophobic in us in such simple poetic beauty. Strangers come aplenty on trains and interactions with them are more the norm than the exception.
Friendly smiles, inviting glances, polite postures, reassuring gestures, pleasant perfumes, inclusive offers, understanding silences- they’re the stuff of enjoyable train journeys.
However, there is the proverbial ‘
other side of the coin’. As they say, there must be “
spaces” between friends…even in intimacy. It applies quite literally to this context. As fighting over luggage space is not the most unusual first exchange with a fellow passenger. That’s why I believe…As for bonhomie with strangers on trains, the farther you sit from them, the better your chances.
Discomfiting eyes, grouchy faces, caustic tongues, obtruding elbows, intruding knees, protruding bums, insecure (& ultra-defensive) ways- they’re as much part of these journeys as anything (or anyone) else. Then, there are some of them…-vacant faces, lost in thought, too caught up with themselves to seem friendly, or, otherwise. They look like lonely tracks…ones that lead to nowhere.
Still knowing, I am driven sooner at times by these infinitely quirky dynamics with fellow passengers to something I love doing even otherwise…
I’ve always been fascinated with standing at the door of the carriage- an experience decidedly superior to peering out the window. And one you’re most likely to miss if you’re traveling by AC (first class). As I gaze out aimlessly, mountains and lakes slip quietly into the past. Trees and shrubs jostling against each other in the wilderness are left behind in a hurry. Lonely wells, huts that look like rectangular faces wearing drooping hats, small and proud houses, smoking factories- all leading an existence of their own…a world of their own. Minarets and gopurams of little mosques and temples jump out of obscurity- as reminders of things that exist beyond our line of sight…and return to their positions in space and time as the ENGINE chugs along- a sight to behold indeed. You can catch him at curves in all his fiery grace, pulling along with him the weight of the entire train…and the rest following in obedient precision.
Trains in India have never been known much for their speed. Even the fastest ones (or the ones known to be so) are only what I call-
“the Earliest ones”- they have the right of way at most signals and check points- and are not necessarily faster than their counterparts, much less match their western counterparts on grounds of speed. Nonetheless, if this is all you’ve seen, it’s quite an experience when the train’s hurtling down at around a 100 km/hr— standing at the door, fists clenched tightly around the yellow vertical supports, wind and dust beating against the face. It’s amazing how conscious one feels of
LIFE when in risk of losing it (Higher the risk, the higher the consciousness.), when the present is so markedly short-lived (that) you can comprehend its beauty only in retrospect…
…Until you’re jolted by the burnt smell emanating from wheels grating against the tracks under the duress of brakes.
Apart form the hordes of huts you find at the edges of a city- like sores on neglected feet- huts appear only sporadically en route; in pockets- as clusters. A little wave of my hand….and the spontaneous joy-filled reciprocation form children and adults alike, along the tracks makes me wonder… wonder if it’s the safety of distance that allows for those smiles…If these faces would still continue to wear those warm, beatific smiles if I were to walk up to them and…
And to add to one more delightful illusion of the eye is the sight of birds flying in the sky. As the ones flying along the direction of the train are left behind, they happily create the illusion of the birds flying backwards, while the tension in their bodies unmistakably indicates forward motion. On the other hand, the ones traveling against the direction of motion of the train could easily lead one to believe they’re in a race powered by either love, whisky or drugs (or a combination of these or anything else… but intoxicated by something wild for sure).
Just when my legs remind me (that) it’s not too bad an idea to warm my seat a bit (I’ve paid to sit in any case), I happily remember (that) I could resume with reading the newspaper (MY newspaper) from where I’d left off. But on returning, I’m greeted by the sight of this portly gentleman who fought valiantly with me for some ‘space’ for his water bottle, so completely lost into the newspaper- MINE- the paper which I painstakingly and thoughtfully bought myself at the station before we departed. And SUDDENLY!!!—He’s courteous enough to make way for me to enter the cube and why??---even rest my butt!!! He’s so polite (that) he knows he has to exert a bit to make way (but that’s fine by him of course for the darling he is) but is tooooo engrossed in the paper to realize he has to return it….or even offer to do so. And he’s the gentleman who sat there in the coach for close to three quarters an hour before the train departed from the station…the same gentleman who wouldn’t bat an eyelid when the vendor came selling, screaming—“Papaar…papaar….Hindu, Indian express, Deccan chronicle, Dinna malar……..”. But responded promptly to the subsequent calls- “Coffee”, “Tea”, “Idli vada”, “Pongal”, “Tomato soup”……and finally “Briyani”. Everyone remembers Newton’s third law. And this unfettered eating didn’t go without its effects. Only I wonder if he suffered quite as much as some of us others did form the effects of the gradual but definite breakdown of carbohydrates, fats, minerals and I wonder what else. (Don’t think it had much of proteins though, what he ate.)
During such times, you’re really hoping it’s not a
'Dry Day'. There HAVE to be at least a few pretty faces along the length of the train. But one never knows…how chance sometimes conspires to produce the most extraordinary days…-when it’s raining beauty on the train.
Once you’re in it, you never know how it goes by…unless you make time to tell yourself every now and then. When the signal glows a final red, the wheels screech one last time, …there are new sounds,…new smells,….a different landscape… An end!!! A beginning….
I see faces again.
And I’m thinkin’…………………………………..
P.S.
1) This one's for Kabali and Me.
2)One of my best train journeys was on our tour to the north of the Vindhyas (Delhi, Agra, Amritsar, Kulu, Manali) with Kabali, Kaaakaa and friends. Kabali (Karthik Gopal)and Kaakaa (Vikram) get a special mention as i spent 80% of my time with them.
