A tale of two journeys

During my last visit to India, I experienced the pleasure and pain, of traveling from Chennai to Bangalore and back by train, during an extended weekend trip. Due to last minute planning, my reservation landed me a seat in the non A/C section of the Lal Bagh Express, with the word express being a clear misnomer. As it turned out, the train's departure time was about five hours after that of my H1-B visa appointment at the American Embassy in Chennai. Expectedly, I wasn't feeling particularly cheerful that morning, but by the time I was ready to embark on this journey, I was in fairly high spirits. Events panned out well at the Embassy.

Arriving well ahead of time at the station, and recalling horror stories from the past about being hounded out of a seat by ticketless travelers, I took mine and did not budge even when I felt the temptation to pick up a Dairy Milk from one of the platform vendors. Thankfully, there was no trouble with the seating, and I did have the pleasure of a window seat, albeit, not with the wind in my face. As the seats got taken, the chatter level increased beyond my comfort zone. Worse, since it wasn't in English or Tamil, it was pure, unadulterated noise to me. Thankfully, I was well prepared for such a scenario. With an iPod in my pocket and Richie Benaud's "My Spin on Cricket" in hand, I was all ready to shut out the surroundings.

Surprisingly, the headphones did not come on, and only 20 or so pages of the book were turned. Instead, my ears got used to the cacophony soon enough, and my eyes just feasted on the sights that I hadn't seen in ages. There were school grounds with multiple cricket matches going on, there were gangs hanging out with no purpose whatsoever, but most of all, there were vast expanses of cultivated and uncultivated land. To be perfectly honest, I can't claim that they were beautiful in an aesthetic sense, but they kept me engaged until it went dark, and I could see no more.

During this journey, every 15 minutes or so, a destitute would come by, stand/sit beside each seat and ask for money. Their mannerisms have changed over the years. Nowadays, they are a insistent lot, asking strongly, or at times, even demanding money. Since there were a couple of passengers sitting to my left, thus, separating me from the aisle, I was shielded from most of the pestering. But every single time a vagabond came by, I felt a pang of irritation, pity and guilt, all rolled into one. Thankfully and unfortunately, each of those emotions were fleeting and I got back to staring outside by the time they passed my row of seats.

Through the course of this journey, there were, say, twenty of them that passed by. I did not give away money to any of them. I did consider it at times, but ended up not doing so. It was a combination of factors that led me to do so. First, I was inherently uncomfortable taking out my wallet, which had a load of cash, in the crowded train, and second, I am not quite sure about giving away money to the destitute. However, I also believe that, since I don't do much about easing their situation through any constructive means, giving alms would be the only way to personally extend some help to them. So, essentially it was all about the first point.

Sitting across me was a lady, a pretty loud mouthed one at that. Needless to say, she made quite a negative first impression on me, and it was not just based on how loud she was. She entered the train at Chennai, and had a couple of guys traveling with her. She was middle aged, and the guys appeared to be at least 5 years younger than her. Further, while she was clearly not South Indian, the guys certainly were. Without getting into further details, let me state upfront that I got the distinct impression that she was a "madam". Whether it was stupid of me to have thought so, or smart of me to have deciphered that, I don't know. I still don't. But that was and is my hunch. Hence, the negative first impression.

Turned out, that out of all the people that were within my view, she was the only one who gave away money to every single destitute that walked by. She was seated directly across me, and thus cushioned from the aisle by 2 passengers, just as I was, but every single time, a destitute passed by, she took out her purse, reached into it, and gave out some money.

Towards the end, we did exchange a couple of banal comments, including something as enlightening as how cold it got as it got darker and as we neared Bangalore. Further, along with about half the crowd in our coach, both of us were getting down at the station prior to the junction. Whitefield, I think, it was. Needless to say, she left a lasting impression on me. A gray one, at that. Just the way I like it.

Bangalore was loads of fun. After a 4 day blur of sister, friends, movie, gourmet food and loads of pretty faces, it was time for the return journey. In case it wasn't clear, the journey to Bangalore had given me a high. So, I looked forward to the return leg of it. I had a book. I had the iPod. But I didn't expect to use much of either. I knew I had a window seat, and I hoped that I would be facing the wind this time. In all this positivity, and due to the lazy bum suggestions of a lazy bum friend of mine, I chose the lazy bum option of waking up 15 minutes later than what would be required if I intended to catch the train at the junction itself. Instead, I got onto the train at its first stop.

The enthusiasm drained, the second I got in. A quick scan showed that all window seats were taken. To my utter dismay, I noticed that my seat was taken up by a lady, who was accompanied by a couple of other ladies in that row. Against all hope, I proceeded to show her my ticket, informing her that she was in my seat. Waving her hand in disdain, she pointed me to the seat that had been assigned to her. It was an aisle seat, right next to the entrance/exit row of the coach. I don't think I had a choice. I took one last look at the lady in my seat and indeed, she had the wind in her face!

Now, let me tell you what I quickly realized about these three seaters this time around. Something that I did not realize during my journey to Bangalore. Well, they aren't three seaters. Not when the three are me, bigger and biggest. Before actually sitting, I was thankful that I wasn't in the middle seat, but as soon as some of my butt hit wood and the rest, air, I realized the perils of the aisle seat, the one I always prefer on an aircraft. Thus, in order to ensure that I remained in my seat, I had to position one of my legs in the aisle. My shoulder too was extending beyond the seat. Leaning back offered no comfort, so, I bent forward and tried to read "Three Men in a Boat".

Note the usage of the word "tried" in the previous sentence. Because, it is only possible to try to read, when every minute, there is someone passing by either carrying food, looking for alms or just walking up and down for the kicks of it. Each one of these people, brushed past my leg and then did the same to my shoulder. I couldn't blame them for it. I was taking up about one third of the aisle.

Right across the aisle was a seat that was vacated during the course of the journey. I longingly glanced at it, since it seemed to offer a lot more room than what was available in my current location. But before I could make a decision, a lady took it up. She had male company. Seemed like husband and wife. Now, with the lady taking up the seat, and the couple keen to make conversation, she turned towards the aisle. The man took up a position where, his butt was resting on the back rest of my row of seats. This would have been fine, except that, if you remember, my shoulder wasn't contained within the seat. Thus, his butt was resting mostly on the back rest of the seat, and slightly on my shoulder. Also, with him taking up more space from the aisle, the traffic distinctly slowed down around me, and the 'brushing past' became a distinct 'scraping past' situation. For the next 3 hours or so.

To compound my troubles further, we were entering the outskirts of Chennai, bang around noon time. The pleasant breeze of a 7am Bangalore morning and the harsh blare of a noon time Chennai gust, offer the kind of contrasting experiences that a man should never be made to face within a five hour period. Except that, thousands of men, women and children do so on a fairly regular basis. And most of them aren't even on vacation. Getting back to my story, as you might have come to expect, the fan above me did not work. To be honest, most of the fans did not work. Only some did, but none of the some was above me. At this point, music could not help me. The humorous literature of Jerome K. Jerome could not heal me. I was plain and simple miserable. I couldn't wait to get out.

The one saving grace of the journey was that, I did not have to go to the Chennai Central station. I could cut short the journey by about thirty minutes, by getting off at Perumbur, from where, my place is a quick auto ride away. As we passed a Perumbur-X station, I felt a relief that the bad times were about to end. We then passed a Perumbur-Y station. I was not familiar with the location of these stations. All I knew was the exact name of the station where the train would stop and I could get off at. It turned out that my destination was less than a kilometer from Perumbur-Y station. We arrived there an hour later.

By the time the train passed Perumbur-Y station, the speed had dwindled to a crawl. Soon enough, it came to a complete stop. I could see a road right past the tracks. I should have gotten the hell out of there right then, but I did not. I don't know why. For the first 15 minutes, I stayed fairly optimistic. Well, as optimistic as a person could be after enduring 4 odd hours of the aforementioned. I tried to focus on the book, but I could not. I was dripping with sweat. And there were too many people around me, everyone getting restless.

Reading this post, if at all anyone is, could have killed off some. So, I am not about to kill the rest by explaining how I felt and what I did for the next thirty minutes. The train did not budge. I did. I got off my seat, walked up and down a bit, one eye on the luggage at all time. I also looked out the door, hoping to figure out something. I could not. Anyway, about 45 minutes after the train stopped, it started again. It crawled. 2 minutes later, it stopped at the station where I had planned to disembark.

I felt that this was as good a time as any to kill myself. Or at least test if a Shriya would come by to save me, if I tried to kill myself on the track. Like a lot of unexplainable things during these two journeys, I did not do that either. Instead, I got off the train and crossed over to the same road that I had been staring at for the past 1 hour. Autos were readily available. 10 mins later, I was home. In absolute contrast to everything else that had happened earlier, my parents were home, food was ready and best of all, the A/C was working. I chatted, I ate and then I continued reading.

Would I take the train next time if I could help it? Yes. I think I am sure about that.