The Railway Trip Memoir
I saw a movie named as “Before Sunrise “. It is a movie which shows how two random people meet on a train to Vienna. They talk with each other and hit it off instantly to the limit that they end up spending a day in Vienna, all by themselves.
For a more Desi example, consider the railway traveling scene from Yeh Jawani Hey Diwani. It shows how all the friends manage to get one entire coach on the train and end up playing a game and having fun. I haven’t seen such a coach yet. *winks*
I wish, train rides in India were the same. They are just either too comfortable for sleeping or too boring. I made my first train journey all by myself from the city, I live in currently, to my hometown. As I had all the time in the world, I ended up observing people. The first deduction I made was that, you’ll always find two extremes of the human form in the aspect of age. A 65year old Uncle and a 8 Year old kid. They both offer you the chance to think about how life changes you with age. While the 8 year old is all pumped up with excitement for the journey, the old uncle just sits solemnly. He does not utter a word, unless required. But the kid is the life of the compartment. Everyone is charmed by the kid, but the uncle is oblivious to his surroundings.
Then there is that one mandatory annoying individual in every compartment, who either lacks manners or is loud, talkative and over the top. Just like in my trip, I had the pleasure to witness one such epic person. He was such a prick, that he was asking the 8 year old questions to determine his knowledge. One specific question, which he asked was,
“Which two states in India have the same capital?”
To be honest, even being 19 years old, it took me a minute to figure out the answer. Although the kid was just 8 years old, he somehow changed the topic while that oldie said the answer. And then, that peculiar man continued to bitch about Politics, IPL and Bollywood.
Another thought was to make a boogie, dedicated solely to dining purposes. The ground floor in the train is usually so filled up with luggage that you hardly manage to walk. So if you are tall and have got the upper seat, then there will be a good amount of trouble that you will experience while having your food. You’ll make it out of the trip alive though, but with a very good amount of back pain.
I guess it’s a good thing our trains don’t give us a Wi-Fi connection. If it did, everyone will be on their phones the whole time and the insignificantly significant stranger interactions which we have with people will be lost. Then the dream of you, my friend, of meeting an intriguing girl/boy in the train and having a good time won’t ever be true. And you will end up like me, who is writing this line while sitting in a moving train.
P.S. — Don’t have an Iron Man back cover on your laptop while travelling by a train. Because then everyone, who passes by can’t walk away without having a stare at it.