Hi, This is a fresh beginning of a fresh new day (26th Oct 2008) and venue is Indian Rail sleeper coach no S1/78. Well not that bad at all, I feel so energetic and optimistic about the day at 5:00 AM in the morning. After 30 hours of non stop journey, train looks so familiar that sometimes you feel that you are here since ages. And Now after 35 hours of journey I am feeling little relaxed and comfortable and one big reason for this is not just completing 80% of journey, but also to feel like human. The feeling of being animal has just disappeared after last extra crowd of people got down on Jhansi station. And train is not very crowded now.
I still remember last night when I became freedom fighter and fought for my own democratic rights. Claiming and retaining my own seat was noting less then a freedom fight for me. It was also a struggle for finding breathing space for my sweet delicate wife who is not use to animalistic situations. But I am really proud of her today for getting slowly more partial and realistic towards life. This is real India, chaotic India, the bitter truth off course. I am using this word “animalistic” neither to abuse Indian common person not to be a white color critic. But I am using it to point out and understand very basic animal instinct that remains silent during calm situations and comes out running in chaotic situation. Transformation of civilized specie into a selfish and cunning creature. If you talk more in terms of science then you may call this phenomenon “self defense mechanism” or “struggle for survival”.
When we reached on our seat we saw 6 people well settled on our place and not quite bothered even after we claimed our right of that place. And I had to allow my Animal Instincts to take charge of myself and be aggressive to fight for my right of freedom. But the fight for freedom became little long and people didn’t let my animal go sleep during all of these hours. Either it was a smoker or encroaching crowd, I kept on fighting for all these hours. Sometimes I showed aggression more then I actually had and I had to misbehave even to people much elder to me.
This is beyond my imagination that a person settles on a seat which doesn’t belong to him. And he even resists vacating. Bangalore is well populated by educated and well qualified north Indians who are directly or indirectly associated with software industry. There are 3 trains from Bangalore to Delhi and if someone is really looking forward to celebrate Deepavali with family then he would get on board any of these trains, in spite of having any waiting list ticket or no ticket at all. In a situation like this, all that sophistication of software industry just evaporates and what lefts behind is struggle for getting on board and reaching home at any cost. During this struggle many people doesn’t really care for social etiquettes and civilized characteristic. Not really sure whom to blame for this chaos…to railways for not providing enough trains during festival season or to people for not organizing their travel dates accordingly. Whomever to blame, that doesn’t solve the problem and if I don’t want chaos then I have to work on my travel plans rater then trying to hold someone else accountable.
We had a very interesting fellow passenger with us who got on board in Pune. He was working in Indian Navy as a security personal and had served internationally as UN security staff in Indian command. Suddenly I felt so patriotic and proud for being in the company of such an extraordinary person who has represented India internationally. But this feeling didn’t last for long time, not even for few hours.
And finally came the moment which really scared me. At 5:30 AM. There were only two people awake in the whole compartment, me and the navy personal. He (Navy Personal) found an unclaimed briefcase in our compartment and triggered panic. Suddenly all of those bomb blast coverage that has been recently telecasted on TV, started revolving in my imagination. I went running in the whole compartment asking people for its owner. I was so concerned that I wake up may people and shouted very loud to locate the owner of the briefcase. There were two guys who were also in the same compartment and didn’t have a seat, were sleeping on an unclaimed berth (probably vacant). I literally shacked then and wake them up and asked if the briefcase belongs to them. They said NO!, No one else claimed it in the whole compartment and we became even more concerned and worried. Definitely none of us had bomb disposal experience to dare to open it. However the briefcase was locked. Calling TC was an obvious choice but finding him in a train twice full of its capacity was like finding water in Sahara desert. So my fellow passenger suggested alternate strategy of throwing it out. Sounds quite feasible solution to me as well and I gave my nod. Without wasting a moment he threw it out from the running train. I was expecting a big explosion (Bollywood influence) when the briefcase hit the ground but nothing happened. And if it was really bomb then my fellow passenger is really a Hero who acted on time but no one would know and remember him, off course I will.
At 9AM, I was still full of respect for my fellow passenger for his act of bravery and reacting on time to save so many lives including mine. But suddenly those two guys, who didn’t claim the briefcase in the night, wake up and came searching for it!!!... After that journey was little stress full for me…
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