Here is an interesting piece which appeared in the Times of India yesterday as the third edit. As it is not a newsitem, but on railways, I thought some of you with time would enjoy it. I am sure you would have met fellow passengers like the one mentioned.
First-class foul-up
J S Raghavan, TNN Nov 8, 2011, 12.00AM IST
Tags:
Thanksgiving|Madras-Howrah...
more... mail
The Madras-Howrah mail was on its usual platform, standing as if bemoaning the human load it would have to carry. The lights in the first-class bogie i boarded were dim, the smell assuring me that the Railways had not committed the crime of cleaning the toilets. With mixed feelings, i learnt i had been allotted a coupe that would offer privacy and entered it.
He was in the corner of the lower berth as if he were a bedbug metamorphosed into human form and recoiled from me as bugs do. He soon buried his head in a fat file that perhaps held some secret code, which if broken would lead to a treasure buried in a temple vault.
"Good evening," i greeted him, dumping my bag. "Are you going up to Howrah?"
"Who told you?" he growled like a grizzly bear snapping at a man trying to tease it, and concealed his face again - which in any case deserved to remain eclipsed by the file. In the meantime the train started moving.
I sat on the long seat away from him and tried to read a Jeeves omnibus. After a few pages, i felt it was time to have dinner and so removed the packet of idlis from my bag.
Since Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar had ordained that even it be nectar, one should not partake of it without sharing with guests, i asked him, "Sir, i am going to have dinner. How about you?" I had enough idlis to feed a platoon and so was ready to give him a few in case he had come dinner-less.
"You eat if you are hungry. Why are you bothering me?" he growled. After this onslaught, i dismissed him from my thoughts and climbed to the upper berth after a frugal dinner.
A superfast that roared past woke me up. It was midnight. I peered down. Mr Grizzly Bear was having his latish dinner holding a stainless steel vessel close to his chest lest some miscreant should snatch it away. I rolled back and picked up my sleep.
When i woke up in the morning, the train was chugging over Krishna river bridge with a rhythmic, staccato clacking. Mr Grizzly Bear had gone, the door was ajar and the seat and floor were ornamented with a yellow lemon-rice-papad rangoli. Muttering under my breath, i requested the coach attendant to clean up the place and sat by the window, mercifully alone.
At Tadepalligudam, the train stopped. As i scanned the platform she came into my view; a woman of middle age sitting near the water tap, a white dog giving her and her hunger company, the sunlit tableau fit for capture by a lensman of Raghu Rai`s calibre.
"Ikkada ra ma," i called her in passable Telugu and gave her the packet that held some idlis in stock. She came unhurriedly and took it as if receiving a south Indian thali in a five-star eatery. She thanked me with a flicker of a smile and went back to her place.
As i watched curiously, she washed her hands meticulously at the railway tap. After drying her hands, she took two idlis and fed her dog, patiently watching it eating. When it had had its fill, she brought water in a coconut shell and bade her companion to slurp.
Looking at me once more by way of thanksgiving, she ate the remaining two idlis without the hurry that hunger drives people to, pausing and enjoying every morsel. She then wiped the ground around her thoroughly with paper.
As the train began to pull out, the dog scrambled up, wagging its tail and barking in my direction. She stood up politely and soon vanished from my sight. Now, which one of them should be travelling first class in the journey of life?
