After a train journey I was just remembering the train journeys and was meditating on the Indian Railways( You can imagine how jobless I am). What has the Indian Railway done to us? How much has it changed? The most visible change I see since the time I have been travelling is, from sometime on Railways discarded the invention of Edison, the bulb in favour of the tube lights( tube light also happens to be a name my friends thought went well with my temperament. I am that rare breed that laughs after a week a joke is cracked. Well I am not the subject here). The next change came in the exteriors. With the sad brown colour that epitomized the trains gave way to the blue n white shades. Well rest all is timeless. There are some rituals that still hold relevant. I remember my dad inserting his pocket comb inside the frame of the fan to give a push to the blades of the fan and magic, the fan is on. I continue the great tradition that my father handed over to me. I remember that in my standard 8, we had a lesson in Hindi eulogizing the great merits of Indian Railways. One stupendous point it had was “Train is one of the biggest factors of national integration where people of different language, caste, religion, class n what not travel together.” Whenever I travel I feel so noble n pompous when I realize I am part of national integration. Wow. Well my mother checks the toilet and if it is supposedly neat (which is also matter of perspective) she concludes that the train is good. With that I feel, if not national integration, railways have taught us or atleast taught me toleration. Tolerate any mediocrity , to accept things the way they are, and help us delude that things are getting better. Railways prepare us for life in general. Wow. Toilets are clean, life is good, like the trains we move on.
There are some train journeys that stay forever even though it is mundane. In the year 2001 I decided to travel to my native land Kerala like I did every summer. I was travelling with one of our family friends in a train called Poorna which is a very innovative coinage that clubs Pune and Ernakulam, which is the starting and end point of the train. Creative indeed. The plus point of travelling this is to enjoy the benefits of Konkan railway and reach your destination in 24 hours. To my great delight I found out that my rapper friend Sudip Nair is also travelling by the same train. Sudip is the guy who lived and thrived in the world of rap, r n b and hip hop. He mouthed the lyrics with rhythm and style. I have said this before, and I say again it is thanks to him that I started listening to different genres of rap. Tupac became the group icon and Snoop Dog a close second.’ Hit em up’ by Tupac was our group anthem. I actually took out a print out of this song and learnt the lyrics and mouthed it next to perfection. Today all I can remember is “ 5 shots could not kill me, I took it and smiled” and rest all is “na..na..na..na ??”. I was majoring in Psychology doing my B.A. and theoretically was aware of peer pressure and what all it does to one. But thankfully I never integrated my studies into my life or else I would have fallen into depression. Well let’s get back to the train journey where Sudip was travelling with his family in 2nd A/C compartment. That was when I realized that the Indian Railways has such a sophisticated touch to it. But the joy of discovery was short lived. The T.T.E. came and hearing my explanation that I am from the sleeper class, and his reaction made me remember the scene of film ‘Gandhi’ and he being kicked out at Petermatizburg.(too much of dramatics I agree). The bottom line is I could not cross some boundaries. A lesson well learnt thanks to railways. Always educating. So the choice left was for Sudip to come over to my compartment and so we did. We stood next to the door and did what we did best, started to talk about rap and its history. He explained me the dynamics of West Coast and East Coast and the terrible rivalry between the two. He narrated the eventual murder of Tupac and I was deeply moved. And then the train at around 7 p.m. reached Udupi station. (Yes there is a place like that I discovered and then connected the dots why some Hotels like Savera that I haunted regularly were called Udupi hotel). We both got down and thought it was cool to have a Pepsi. I tried to search for my wallet hoping that he would find his faster and my hope stood vindicated. We bought a 500 ml pepsi bottle and its cost was Rs 20 then. Sudip gave a Rs 100 note and we were waiting for the change and there you go the train started moving. We ran forsaking the balance of Rs 80. For some strange reason the compartments we tried to get into, the doors were locked. Finally there was an open door and we got on to it. I was satisfied we made it but Sudip was brooding over the lost 80 bucks. He said “ I could have filled two liters of petrol” (remember petrol was that cheap then). Out of exhaustion I started to gulp down the Pepsi and of course we shared it. when the Pepsi got over reality struck. He went back to the comforts of A/C and I went into the toilet and thankfully was not asphyxiated by a very obedient citizen who just smoked before I entered the loo. How kind of him. I think the sign ‘Thank you for not smoking’ should be fixed in the railway toilets. And Sudip and I met finally the next day at the Ernakulam station, I thumped my fist on my chest twice and he did likewise (if u wondering what it is, it is supposedly how rappers greet each other, well).
After a month I travelled back by the same train and same route with the family of my friend whose name is Sherin. Well Sherin was the first one to notice the wannabe attitude of the so called rapper in the making. We preferred to talk about life and detailed discussion about our common friends, their dressing sense and our evaluation about them. We both were travelling in the same sleeper compartment but we preferred to stand at the door and chat endlessly. And then came Udupi sation. I had narrated the story of what happened in the last travel to Sherin. He said “let’s get the money”. I could not stop laughing as it was a month ago this happened and why would the shopkeeper at the Udupi station remember this. But before I could reason out Sherin went and asked the shopkeeper to return the 80 bucks and I looked at the shopkeeper very sheepishly. And to my utter surprise the man took out Rs 80 and handed it over to me. And there again the train started to move. This time we were in no rush. We were rich. We bought a 2 litre bottle of Pepsi and we feasted all at the cost of Sudip’s ‘2 litre petrol’.
Well if you were looking for a moral of the story I am very sorry to disappoint you. There is none per se. Just a mundane journey that had a very interesting twist thanks to the return journey. I narrated the story to Sudip when I got back and I guess he knew me very well. Thankfully he never asked me the money back. Every train journey when I get down at a station to buy something this story keeps coming back to me with a smile. This time at Salem Railway station I bought two coffees and handed over Rs 20 waiting for my Rs 8 change. But the train started to move. This story gives me hope to get back to Salem Station one day to reclaim my 8 bucks. ‘There is always hope’ could be the moral of the story if you like it. Just like that.
