Sometimes, you go just to come
back. Absurdity of life cannot get more
explicit. One such meaningless journey was taken by me couple of months ago. I
was nominated for a training programme in Delhi and had to go in a day’s notice.
There was no seat on Air India’s flight to Delhi. An Air India flight got fully
booked when other private carriers on the same day had ample seats. I wondered
what the world was coming to. Incredulity seems to be the flavour of the season.
Bangladesh beat India. Twice. All we could manage was to beat a fragile kid jay
walking on the pitch. But for his country’s flannels, he could have passed off
as poster boy for sub-tropical poverty. It seems their Acche Din had arrived. I was happy because if fortunes of Air India
and Bangladesh cricket can turn around, so can mine.
I went back to the aam aadmi’s carrier. Indian Railways. If
Indian Railways had a frequent traveller programme, I would have had enough
credits to get a return ticket to moon. I contribute to five percent of the
million odd hits IRCTC website gets everyday. It too hits me back with equal verve
with its perpetual rotating circular cursor that could potentially leave you
hypnotised or disoriented or both. The cursor has been known to have induced
sleep amongst insomniacs and suicidal tendencies amongst Zen monks. Periodic
regular systematic exposure to the cursor has, however, strengthened my mental
immunity. Among the trains displayed in response to my query, I zeroed on Bangalore
Rajdhani. It left Nagpur at 15 35 hours and reached Delhi next day at 05 55
hours. It looked perfect for my training which was scheduled to commence at 10
00 hours. I have had the same luck with women and berth on trains. I never get
the one I desire. Due to the constraints of my lifelong affiliation with
misfortune, the best the portal could offer me was a ticket wait listed at 1. Thanks
to friends in railways and my pleading skills, I managed to get it confirmed.
I reached the station the next
day. The scheduled halt of the train at Nagpur station was 15 minutes. And just
one family took 14 minutes to alight. I could see the descent of an entire genealogical
tree. An infant who incessantly fluttered his hands with such intensity that if
he had wings, he could be Icarus. A teenage girl who was more interested in
fishing for her sunglasses than getting out. And a couple whose favourite
pastime was one-upmanship in assigning each other tasks. If the wife asked
husband whether he informed the driver regarding the pick-up, the husband would
reply asking her if she checked that none of the infants accessories were left
behind. Amidst their rally of questions, their old man just forgot whether they
were alighting or boarding. The rest of family exuded such leisure that made me
wonder if the train terminated at Nagpur. If the alighting of family in itself
was not a task ardous enough, what followed was even more amusing. The family
travelled with luggage of every genre. Suitcases, duffel bags, backpacks, hand
bags, cartons and even a gunny sack. Only if Kingfisher had one such family
travelling on each of its planes, Mallya would have repaid his entire debt with
fare collected from excess baggage. A swarm of lecherous porters suddenly
descended looking at their potential high value customer who could catapult
them into the Forbes list of porters.
As I was contemplating to use the
emergency exit to board the train, the last baggage got off loaded and I
managed to board the train. I was surprised to be greeted by a half-empty
coach. So what was the waiting list all about? The ways of railway reservation
system are like that of God. It is beyond the grasp of the ordinary human
intellect. Whether you get confirmed ticket or not doesn’t depend upon the time
you log into the IRCTC portal or the number of days in advance you try. It is
purely a trigonometric function of the alignment of Jupiter’s largest moon with
Saturn’s outer ring and your birthstar. Gemmologists have suggested stones
which would improve your chances at the IRCTC portal. Rings with these stones
have to be worn on a specific finger which alone must be used while keying the
captcha characters. For the best results, the finger should abstain from any
ablutionary activity for atleast three days prior to the date of booking.
I was shaken out my meditation on
the mysteries of reservation system by a jolt. The train started moving and I
began looking for the attendant for my bedroll. After a massive manhunt that
spread across four coaches on either side of my coach, I found my bestower of
comfort seriously engaged in an animated discussion with his counterparts from
other coaches. They were in midst of their Annual Bangalore Rajdhani Attendants
conference discussing what they should petition the Seventh Pay Commission. He
looked at me disapprovingly for disturbing their conference and tossed me a
packet. When I opened, I found that the hand towel was missing.
Like Oliver Twist, I went again
and I stretched my thin trembling hands asking for a hand towel. He looked at me as if I asked for one of his
kidneys. He did give me a hand towel but not before muttering the choicest curses
on the passengers who stole hand towels and how he was penalised for their
theft. The colour of hand towel matched the sheets - pale yellow. They entire
linen looked like those white cloths which appear in television commercials
before the use of the advertised detergent. He removed the blanket used by the
passengers who alighted at Nagpur and diligently folded it. While doing so,
lower end of the blanket swept the entire floor clean. Despite the blatant nauseating
act, upon folding, he handed over the blanket as if it was the robe of
coronation. Regular use of such blankets is definitely going to do wonders for
one’s immunity. In fact, travel by train must be seriously considered for
inclusion in immunization schedule.
And not just microbes, the other
ticketless travellers included lizards, cockroaches, rodents and every living
organism which perfected the art of living with you yet invisible to you. There
would be many equal opportunity employers, but Railways is equal opportunity
service provider too. It does not discriminate between the species or their
hierarchy in the evolution ladder.
It was soon dinner time. I was served
something that was christened rasam. It tasted like the left over tomato soup from
the previous journey that was organically fermented by the in-house microbes
which were cultivated on the blankets. I got two pieces in my chicken curry.
And both were necks. I always wondered why my chicken curries on trains had pieces
with maximum bone and minimal flesh. The uncanny proximity of the bone-flesh
ratio to my own body always appeared to be a cruel joke that the pantry staff
played on me. The fleshier part, which I would not name here lest I offend
feminists who could see lascivious intents in my gastronomic pursuits, never
favoured my luck.
While I was grappling with
miseries of food and bed, a greater misery was brewing elsewhere. Nine hours
before I boarded the train at Nagpur, a fire broke out at the signalling system
in Itarsi. The closer we got to Itarsi, the slower the train moved. There was a
traffic jam of trains. We woke up at the same latitude and longitude
coordinates where we went to sleep. I forgot about my training and started
worrying about existential concerns like water at the toilets, charge in the
electrical points etc. The journey that was to be completed in 14 hours
stretched to 26 hours. When the train finally chugged into Hazrat Nizamuddin
station, the training I was supposed to attend was over. I went to Delhi just
to catch a flight back home. But what remained in my memory when I alighted the
train was the way the pantry staff managed to cook two additional meals with a
smile and without adequate supplies.
Hasta la vista, Indian Railways!!!!