The comfort, certainty and security of a confirmed train ticket during Diwali peak rush for a journey of 30+ hours ! Wow ! Ofcourse, I preferred this to the uncertainty , discomfort and insecurity of the unreserved travel. Who would want to face the troubles and hardship that 60% of our fellow countrymen face ?
I'd better live in my own small bubble of S7-63, garuda mall, sunday movie, mocachilo at CCD, fav dum biriyani, TED videos for feeling better, few friends with relationship of mutual appreciation and a world view that makes me feel good about myself and my beliefs !
Finally, i kept hopping train in hope for a spacious train and I kept missing trains in front of my eyes. At this point I started reading the book "Indigo Spirit" by Marti. It talked about the crisis our planet is in and how our indigo spirit can save us. It was a book full of positivism and interesting statements. One of the statement that still remains with me after finishing the book was a comment by a child - " Wings have birds". It stayed with me for a long time and still is with me. It just opened a new way of looking at life.
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| Where I slept the first night ! |
Thanks to Indian Railways ! my seat didn't confirm and I had to come out of my bubble, my comfort zone, my plan for my life ! Now, here I was on a journey that was beyond my control with no idea of what was going to come my way.
In hope of a better seat, I reached station 1 hours earlier, only to find myself behind the folks who were sitting in the train holding onto their seats since last 2 hours ! There was no space, I thought ! just then, I saw more than 30 people making their way into the already full compartment with children in hand, buckets, bags. What to me was over crowded, was an empty train for those workers from Rajasthan. I wondered what they were doing down south ?
But I knew, that till Bangalore I can just get into sleeper and so I did and found an empty coupe streched myself and took out the book I've been reading since few weeks - Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi and started reading it. I wonder if there could have been a better companion on this journey than this book. As I prepared to enter the third class in the train to Hyderabad, coincidently I was reading a chapter of Gandhi Ji's journey in third class. I could related to each word he said, so much in real time !
I'd skip the details of trains and locations and come to few things that touched me.
There was a child I saw with a smile of angel and smartness of a prodigy. He was son of a beggar, perhaps unless he gets unrealistically lucky, destined to be poor, unknown. In a moment, I was ashamed of all the sucesses I've had. It all appeared so unfair and trivial in a moment. I wondered if only each of such child was given an equal oppurtunity to grow- most of them will perhaps make us look silly mistakes. I am successful perhaps only because such children have been forced to fail.
In AP express, I saw people fighting for every inch of space. I somehow got onto the general compartment and was soon pushed inside the toilet to accommodate the people who were hanging from the gate. I shared the toilet with 4 others. I wondered when 60% of Indians are still poor why Indian railway has only 10% of boggies allocated to the poor ? There are usually 2-4 general compartments while at least 12 sleeper, 4-8 AC. Not to mention so many only AC trains like Rajadhani, Shatabdi, Duronto ! Gandhi Ji has just mentioned in his autobiography, how Indians of this sections are rather considered Sheep and treated like animals. He said it in 1916, I observed exactly the same almost a 100 years later !
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| Sharing the toilet. |
At Nagpur, while reading this book I suddenly heard a very sweet voice singing "Phir mohhabbat" , it was much more soothing than the original song. I followed the voice and found a young man without any legs crawling to beg and singing along with lovely smile on his face. It was time for Rajadhani and he was hoping some business and there he got one coin (looked either 1 or 2) from the man in three fourth and headphones who got down from rajadhani to grab a pepsi. How will I ever be able to appreciate Indian idol or any other singer favorite of mine now ?
Finally, sleeping next to footwears, next to washrooms, paying a bribe and penalty - I somehow reached home in 46 hours. Although this wasn't the first time I traveled like this but perhaps, I've never really looked at things so closely before. The feeling I am left with is "what an unfair world we have created ! " . My heart is heavy with tears waiting to be shed. My bubble grew bigger. My mind is shocked with my inability to change the world to my wish. What can I do ? I've no clue. But this dent in my heart will stay for a long time for sure and hopefully won't stop at just being a feeling or an emotional blog post ! I've perhaps got my light for this Diwali.
