Ever since childhood I am fascinated towards the window seat. I would run as if in Olympics, firmly grab the handles of my school bus and would throw anything; my water bottle or bag or sometimes even a friend to have the seat reserved for the next 45 minutes! Though the medium has changed as bus journeys now make me sick but the love remains unchanged. It’s now for the train seats! Here you cannot have a seat reserved even if you throw yourself up but there’s one way that at least gives you a chance to do so-a general ticket.
Travelling on a general ticket is always an experience. It has its own sides. It’s a two-way world; totally dynamic and surprising unlike the reserved AC ones where all you get is sepia inside out view. What makes me love the window seats here is the fact that it gives me a public privacy! Though one cannot ignore the swarm of people totally clumsy, crushing feet with foots, breathing sweat smells but the sights from the window can help a lot in easing the ignorance. I am taken to a natural dimension! What’s not to notice?? Distant blue hills, white hooded green grass, twig bridges, serpent like creepers, birds, animals and people…
Right from the station you board; you notice them! The major concern for people sharing your compartment is space. If you are lucky enough you can get a glimpse of an unoccupied seat then manage to run to it but that happens only in case people are not in a travel mood! For the less lucky ones; nuts and bolts are handles!
Mostly, I travel alone and hence befriend my ear-phones. A cell phone with 14 hour playback of my favourite songs but the burdened, hooting train keeps getting me from my musical trance to the midst of a forward running hell with the devils set into to and fro motion! I reluctantly plug them out and when I do, am totally ready to perceive any kind of communication! Politics is male domain, women with clinging small children are generally into house hold chats, girls into variety and the boys exchange glances; swapping their looks from the hot girls and their cool guys!
There is another set of people clad in orange; men by sex, monks by looks and perhaps the filthiest by tongue! Once in, they spit all the mother-sister words combined with “F” slangs in proper local language leading to eyes down and brows up! Those saintly looking figures crowd around July-August and when I say crowd I mean a BIG orange crowd! Platforms are orange, compartments are orange and even the luggage racks are orange! A sack for bag, triangle flags, playing cards and sometimes uttering the sacred double “B” words, most of them travel, generally, without tickets!
Every journey has its colours (orange as well) and humour never ceases to blend up. Sometimes the pedlars are funnier than passengers. With the shouts of tea, coffee, fries and chips are sometimes flavoured their tag lines.
“You buy, you pay; you smell, you pay; you look, you pay!!”
This is the funniest one that I ever heard from a snack-seller and I witnessed a bunch of people closing their eyes with laughter!
Let’s not forget those who travel on half tickets. Those little wingless angels, smiling at you, shy sometimes and sometimes trying to grab your attention with their seat number counts and nursery rhymes. Hell with the one who came up with the idea of “Rehearsing”. The rhyme was rehearsed so many times that I remembered it!
“Smile…
It’s something that you give it away
la la la la
give it away
and it comes back.”
My smile was frowns away!
Now, when they finally have the “attention”, they are changed; with the changed winds. The burning halo is extinguished to ashes and you can see small sprouts of little horns on those little heads and if you are a little more imaginative; you can also visualise them holding tridents!
Suddenly you are the new toy! Either you are car substitute or for a temporary period; a babysitter! They keep running to you with their running cars till you show them your wide red eye signal! But they won’t stop! What comes next is the mental harassment and the best weapon is questions! With their catapultic mouths they keep bombarding with what, when, whom, why, which and the worst- how’s!
Sometimes I imagine myself at their places and try to remember how I reacted when I was asked “What’s your name?” by a hundred different people a hundred different times! Or ever done something so naughty that I was made to sit on the top edge of the seat to tumble on the man behind; sleeping, drooling and totally unaware! Well, they are kids! They don’t even know what they would miss in the coming years. And with this thought I finally had my 17 facial muscles come into play…
The one who quoted “Life is a journey.” has done aptly because there’s life in each journey. And for some, this journey is survival. Blind beggars, small children; singing, dancing, middle sex, all ask for mere coins to fetch them daily meals. Some avert, some try to avert and some show pity. If life is tough; they are survivors! And when I count myself; sometimes I am a proud donor and sometimes a self-embarrassed bystander!
Every person is an unheard story. With the population of over 100 crore and the womb-learnt ability of adjustments, life here is a diversity and a general ticket sometimes gives you extraordinary glimpses of these general lives… If you have ever been to India or been here since birth but never travelled general; do try, it’s worth every penny!
Originally posted on Blogger on Aug 27, 2011.