When Train Engines put Jai !!

This was a post which started off as a parody of the Polar Express, but was reduced to shambles because I got blogger's block.

Funny, you say, considering every other post I write makes you wish I had it more, but alas, that is not to be. The irony of life in general is that, unless its a pseud book like the Alchemist, things do not usually turn out the way you want them to.

This post is probably not funny, and if you want do want some laughs, please go look in the mirror. It has also turned out to be somewhat long.

Sometimes you hit a bad patch where each day progressively becomes the worst day of your life.

You suddenly wish you had met Tyler Durden yourself, so that he could spout things that made the most sense possible, while actually just telling you what's on your mind in a brilliantly packaged manner, that can set the box-office cash registers ringing and alleviate you from your precariously miserable situation, and ensure that you monetarily benefited from it too!

Mysore, tourist destination for a whole lotta people outside Karnataka, "sleepy non-happening place without too many hangouts" to most "hep" Bangaloreans and home to me, is where I was headed after yet another week of work in Bangalore. The train from Bangalore to Mysore passes via this satellite town named Kengeri, which has a station from where I usually board the train.

Friday last, it so happened that the trains were painfully late, and so much behind schedule, that I was able to board the train that departs before the Chamundi Express (also known as the IT express by most of the junta, due to the abundance of 'techies' from Mysore who return home on it, come Friday evening), the Jaipur Express.

The Jaipur Express is a long distance train (sort of d-uh!), and for all the discerning rail travellers, has a pantry where the train staff make reasonably tasty food that I had the chance to gorge upon for the first time the day Dr.Raj died, because our office closed early and I had the chance to escape to Mysore before anything untoward happened to those around me. The only problem was the fact that the pantry was at one extreme end of the train, and I had, as luck usually has with me, boarded the train at the other end. Jai.

Walking through around fifteen sleeper coaches teeming with an entire cross section of people from all over the country was sort of unnerving. Curious people, indifferent people, people sleeping without a care in the world, people looking as you walked past sighing inwardly with relief that you chose not to disturb them and occupy the seat next to them (I get that all the time!), people dropping peanut shells on the floor, people getting major kicks out of blocking the path on purpose so that they could give you dirty looks while you tried to tunnel through with the obligatory but insignificant "excuse me", "bhaisahab, thoda side" or "Guru, swalpa sideige hogi", depending on the probable linguistic background of whomsoever you're talking to.

A whole lot of those techies who travel on that train are acquaintances from another time and another place, and unless its someone I really like talking to, and can spend a decent amount of time with, I'd rather avoid them like the plague, because "there is no such thing as tolerable small talk", just like non-existant free lunches.

I'd rather fall ill with an upset stomach, than endure queries like "So, how's life?" or "How's work?" or "How's your girlfriend?" or something like that, which is frankly, not worth answering. Anyone who asks you such questions is definitely not in the need-to-know close circle of friends that you'd have, because such details are made available to those people without them having to ask.

The pseudo-purposeful strides that one acquires while walking along a railway compartment to make it across to the pantry to eat to one's heart's content is precisely for all the above stated reasons.

After thulping hot paneer pakodas in the pantry, I made my way back towards the side from where I boarded, because the pantry wasn't exactly the cleanest of places to be at, which I have conditioned myself to turn a blind eye to, after having worked and lived in Bangalore, minus home food for most part of the time.

Just a couple of minutes after I found myself a reasonably comfortable place to sit at, the train came to a halt at some station which was about twenty km from where I'd boarded. What the passengers assumed as a routine stop turned out to be an extremely long wait. The train was pretty crowded and it had also started raining, much to everyone's discomfort. Once everyone found out that the train was going to stay put at that particular location for a substantial amount of time, everyone settled in.

The smokers heaved a sigh of relief and went outside about their business, while most of the other passengers resigned themselves to what they thought was another crossing, which happens frequently on the Mysore-Bangalore railway track, due to it being a single-line track.

After waiting for forever, someone came around to each compartment and informed us all that the engine has conked off. That was his way of acquiring good Karma for the day.

The news that the engine was not in a condition to pull the train along sent most of us who wanted to get back home soon in some sort of a tizzy, and heated conversations were overheard everywhere I turned my ear to.

The final plan of action that everyone seemed to be in general agreement of, was that they would board the Chamundi Express, the very same train they had initially planned on boarding anyway, when it arrived at this particular station. The fact that they had to board the train straight off the ground, on the space between two tracks, where all the huge jelly stones were lying, not to mention the high probability of stepping onto something unpleasant, did not seem to deter them in the least bit.

Another fifteen minutes after which the highly crowded train finally managed to arrive, there was absolute mayhem at the station. Both trains were extremely crowded, and with people wanting to get home at the earliest possible, the crowd kept on swelling, reminding you of the crowd that gathered in Bombay outside Filmistan studios when they heard that Mallika Sherawat would be shooting for a movie, fully clothed!!

As people got onto the train with the working engine, some of us had enough presence of mind to move towards the front of the train (from the outside, of course) to take shelter in the two compartments where seating space is usually available - the A/C coach and the reserved coach.

The people sitting in either coach were not readily willing to oblige and open the bolted doors to let the swelling crowd inside, and were eventually persuaded when someone politely started pelting those jelly stones that I was previously talking about at the windows. Heated exchanges between people within the train and on the outside ensued, and eventually the doors did open.

The A/C coach is usually filled with the elite people, those that can cough up a princely sum of close to Rs.200 for a short journey, that most people undertake by paying up Rs.45, or purchasing a monthly season ticket for Rs.370. They were naturally extremely disturbed to see people entering the coach and standing in their midst, interrupting their comfortable journey.

All those of us who managed to gain entry into the A/C coach had to endure the TTE's wrath, as he went about instructing us to vacate the coach. Naturally, in the battle of 40 angry people forced to board another train V/S hapless TTE, the former won, and we managed to stay put in the A/C coach, giving the guy the assurance that we'd vacate as soon as we had standing room in the general compartment.

Left with no choice, enduring dirty looks from the elite, we stood on for a substantial amount of time.

It was pretty interesting to observe the behaviour of a certain set of people who thought that they owned the compartment, for the sole reason that they coughed up more to be able to enjoy its comforts. It was not as if all those people who actually entered and stood within did so to inconvenience those inside. It was just a last resort measure.

I began wondering if I might have behaved in the same way, had I been sitting in the A/C coach, and I guess I actually would have. Its funny how human behaviour is so situationally dependant.

Eventually, the TTE did manage to unceremoniously evict people from the coach, as the crowd in the general compartments thinned down, and all of us were genuinely glad to go.

The other train got a working engine and reached Mysore thirty minutes after the Chamundi Express did.

At the end of the day, after nearly four hours for a journey that would have ideally taken two and a half hours, people got back to their homes or to wherever they wanted to get to in the first place. But I guess everyone learnt a thing or two, at least, on that journey, the day the train engine put jai.