So I've been travelling a lot over the past couple of months. Well, not the past couple of months - the past couple of months when I first starting writing this, way back in the 1st week of this year. Or the last week of last year. So anyway, back then I was travelling a lot. And thinking - you know, taking stock of life, the universe and everything. And 42. But those things are not what blogs are meant for. So I was saying about the travelling.
I left Delhi for Bombay by the Rajdhani on Friday evening. Had to, actually - I had an exam this Saturday afternoon. Now, Rajdhanis in general, and the ones between Delhi and Bombay in particular, are full of pot-bellied sethjis and snooty corporate types, for whom the only thing that counts more than money is more money. So I was pleasantly surprised to have as co-passengers in my bay, a family of four - mom, dad, a 7 or 8 year old boy and a sub-5 year old girl going on a vacation to Bombay, Pune and Shirdi. Only, it was not so pleasant after a point of time since the girl kept throwing up while the boy seemed to be suffering from some attention-deficit disorder which I'm told is typical of boys whose age is in single digits. Anyway, the best part about them was the fact that they were carrying food - not because of any special dietary requirements, but simply because they were unaware of the fact that the high prices of a Rajdhani ticket isn't just some super superfast surcharge but includes the cost of meals as well.
Such co-passengers are an obvious exception. The typical Rajdhani passenger (I won't get into the demographics here) get up in the middle of the night and demand that the AC be adjusted to such a level so as to suit him and inconvenience, in a typically packed AC 3-tier compartment, 63 others. He also picks on an obvious misprint on the packaging of the soup sticks and gets them changed since, due to the misprint, it says it's been manufactured on the 7th not 17th, and today is the 25th, so how can he consume something which is more than 15 days old? He also, after getting his meals served, call the waiter, crib about the cold rotis, send them away to be changed, and when the fresh, warm rotis arrive, complain that by now, the remaining food has become cold, forcing the waiter to change the entire thali this time.
But the ones in the AC 2-tier compartment of a Rajdhani take the cake - they are so snooty they won't share a berth with anyone, not even during the day part of the journey. In effect, if you have a lower berth, you get to lie down, look out the window and do your reading/listening to music/doing timepass on your laptop/whatever, all at the same time! For best results, opt for a side lower berth.
Thank God, then, for the select few tolerable co-passengers, with whom I don't mind exchanging berths if they request me to. It goes without saying that the best or at least the most memorable experiences are always in the crowded non-AC classes. I particularly remember a journey in the jam-packed Swaraj Express, where I should've had the side upper berth all to myself, but had to share it with the luggage of 2 Kashmiris, one of whom had an RAC for the berth below mine (the other technically shouldn't have been there). Those two and a third one, Jalandhar-bound, had a good laugh when I put on a woolen cap and muffler, less than an hour before the three of them begged me to pull down the window because it was too cold. I was probed about my liaisons (telling them that all the B'bay girls seem to have a special affinity for Kashmiri hunks worked wonders), my long hair and my iPod (which, as is natural in such "lower" classes of travel was mistaken for a cellphone). Totally worth the price of the ticket, and more.
Of course, it gets cumbersome at times - especially if it happens to be the beginning of a long weekend and the Delhi-bound Poorva Express via Patna, as was the case with me in Jan. From Jasidih to Buxar, rest assured that there won't be a TTE in sight. Also rest assured that if you get up to empty your bladder, you'll spend be waiting for your turn to sit till Mughalsarai. Of course, solace is in the form of rampyari chai - a delicious brew that's a thousand times better than the literal dipshit that the official caterers serve. Not that I don't like dipshit when nothing else's available - far from it. On most journeys esp. between North and West, I consume approx. 1 very hour. Nevermind the fact that it causes acidity and can hardly be called a laxative except maybe early in the morning.
On one of those excessive tea-drinking trips, I remember coming across 2 students returning from BITS Goa, a seemingly frequent train traveller and a UP-wallah who had a connecting train to catch from Delhi to Gorakhpur - we, for the record, were on a Goa Sampark Kranti Special. The conversations veered from the quality of oranges at Bhawani Mandi to the tendency of special trains to slow down especially between Mathura and Delhi. Old UP-wallah, at first inquisitive about everything, later got really worried when the train starting getting majorly delayed - it took 2 of us to assure him that he'll easily make it to his connecting train.
And thank God for the entertaining railway staff. The Airtel Trivandrum Rajdhani staff once insisted that I have some booze - they get it on board cheap at Madgaon station. Then there was the coach attendant on the Delhi-bound Sealdah Rajdhani who couldn't help but smirk everytime a particularly obnoxious passenger came cribbing about the AC levels. Or the ones on Geetanjali Express, on my way from Bombay to Calcutta - be it the pantry guy who convinced me to buy the chicken cutlets for breakfast (which by the way were pretty decent) or the TTE for the AC compartments who guided me while getting an extension, or the sleeper TTEs, who actually got me the required extension. One TTE on a special train didn't bother to see my ticket when I met him outside - he simply asked me my seat number and ticked it off on his chart.
Personally, talking to people with whom you're in constant contact is usually a painful chore, but these one-off conversations with strangers you'll only ever encounter once is what life is all about. But hold on. What if you meet the same person twice? And what if it's not one but two persons? Sample this - on my way to Medinipur from Howrah by the daily Rupashi Bangla Express, I met these two gentlemen who, after the usual exchanges, wished me luck for my impending national quiz. In the evening, I caught the same train back - and no prizes for guessing who I met. The two of them asked me about my result, and then demanded sweets. When one of them suggested that there was no way I would've known, the other replied that one must carry sweets as an emergency on all occasions esp. after such victories. Astounding!
I left Delhi for Bombay by the Rajdhani on Friday evening. Had to, actually - I had an exam this Saturday afternoon. Now, Rajdhanis in general, and the ones between Delhi and Bombay in particular, are full of pot-bellied sethjis and snooty corporate types, for whom the only thing that counts more than money is more money. So I was pleasantly surprised to have as co-passengers in my bay, a family of four - mom, dad, a 7 or 8 year old boy and a sub-5 year old girl going on a vacation to Bombay, Pune and Shirdi. Only, it was not so pleasant after a point of time since the girl kept throwing up while the boy seemed to be suffering from some attention-deficit disorder which I'm told is typical of boys whose age is in single digits. Anyway, the best part about them was the fact that they were carrying food - not because of any special dietary requirements, but simply because they were unaware of the fact that the high prices of a Rajdhani ticket isn't just some super superfast surcharge but includes the cost of meals as well.
Such co-passengers are an obvious exception. The typical Rajdhani passenger (I won't get into the demographics here) get up in the middle of the night and demand that the AC be adjusted to such a level so as to suit him and inconvenience, in a typically packed AC 3-tier compartment, 63 others. He also picks on an obvious misprint on the packaging of the soup sticks and gets them changed since, due to the misprint, it says it's been manufactured on the 7th not 17th, and today is the 25th, so how can he consume something which is more than 15 days old? He also, after getting his meals served, call the waiter, crib about the cold rotis, send them away to be changed, and when the fresh, warm rotis arrive, complain that by now, the remaining food has become cold, forcing the waiter to change the entire thali this time.
But the ones in the AC 2-tier compartment of a Rajdhani take the cake - they are so snooty they won't share a berth with anyone, not even during the day part of the journey. In effect, if you have a lower berth, you get to lie down, look out the window and do your reading/listening to music/doing timepass on your laptop/whatever, all at the same time! For best results, opt for a side lower berth.
Thank God, then, for the select few tolerable co-passengers, with whom I don't mind exchanging berths if they request me to. It goes without saying that the best or at least the most memorable experiences are always in the crowded non-AC classes. I particularly remember a journey in the jam-packed Swaraj Express, where I should've had the side upper berth all to myself, but had to share it with the luggage of 2 Kashmiris, one of whom had an RAC for the berth below mine (the other technically shouldn't have been there). Those two and a third one, Jalandhar-bound, had a good laugh when I put on a woolen cap and muffler, less than an hour before the three of them begged me to pull down the window because it was too cold. I was probed about my liaisons (telling them that all the B'bay girls seem to have a special affinity for Kashmiri hunks worked wonders), my long hair and my iPod (which, as is natural in such "lower" classes of travel was mistaken for a cellphone). Totally worth the price of the ticket, and more.
Of course, it gets cumbersome at times - especially if it happens to be the beginning of a long weekend and the Delhi-bound Poorva Express via Patna, as was the case with me in Jan. From Jasidih to Buxar, rest assured that there won't be a TTE in sight. Also rest assured that if you get up to empty your bladder, you'll spend be waiting for your turn to sit till Mughalsarai. Of course, solace is in the form of rampyari chai - a delicious brew that's a thousand times better than the literal dipshit that the official caterers serve. Not that I don't like dipshit when nothing else's available - far from it. On most journeys esp. between North and West, I consume approx. 1 very hour. Nevermind the fact that it causes acidity and can hardly be called a laxative except maybe early in the morning.
On one of those excessive tea-drinking trips, I remember coming across 2 students returning from BITS Goa, a seemingly frequent train traveller and a UP-wallah who had a connecting train to catch from Delhi to Gorakhpur - we, for the record, were on a Goa Sampark Kranti Special. The conversations veered from the quality of oranges at Bhawani Mandi to the tendency of special trains to slow down especially between Mathura and Delhi. Old UP-wallah, at first inquisitive about everything, later got really worried when the train starting getting majorly delayed - it took 2 of us to assure him that he'll easily make it to his connecting train.
And thank God for the entertaining railway staff. The Airtel Trivandrum Rajdhani staff once insisted that I have some booze - they get it on board cheap at Madgaon station. Then there was the coach attendant on the Delhi-bound Sealdah Rajdhani who couldn't help but smirk everytime a particularly obnoxious passenger came cribbing about the AC levels. Or the ones on Geetanjali Express, on my way from Bombay to Calcutta - be it the pantry guy who convinced me to buy the chicken cutlets for breakfast (which by the way were pretty decent) or the TTE for the AC compartments who guided me while getting an extension, or the sleeper TTEs, who actually got me the required extension. One TTE on a special train didn't bother to see my ticket when I met him outside - he simply asked me my seat number and ticked it off on his chart.
Personally, talking to people with whom you're in constant contact is usually a painful chore, but these one-off conversations with strangers you'll only ever encounter once is what life is all about. But hold on. What if you meet the same person twice? And what if it's not one but two persons? Sample this - on my way to Medinipur from Howrah by the daily Rupashi Bangla Express, I met these two gentlemen who, after the usual exchanges, wished me luck for my impending national quiz. In the evening, I caught the same train back - and no prizes for guessing who I met. The two of them asked me about my result, and then demanded sweets. When one of them suggested that there was no way I would've known, the other replied that one must carry sweets as an emergency on all occasions esp. after such victories. Astounding!
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