Railways Always

One of the beauties of student life is traveling back home alone. The fun increases when the carrier is Indian Railways (My father made it very clear that he cannot afford my monthly trips home by air).
So, no matter how much you enjoy your privacy, like to read when traveling or are a strict follower of mamma’s pointers (“Don’t talk to strangers!!”) since the age of four - The cosmos conspires against your abstinence and you find yourself making lousy conversations with people whom you’ve never met before and might never gonna meet again. As a matter of fact, the designing is done in such a manner that the compartment resembles a typical indian drawing-room. If you don’t wanna talk, jump to the berth on the top and sleep (we don’t care if you snore), If you wanna stay here…listen to us…Listen to what my sons do…where they work….what my sister-in-law’s daughter pay package is…hear me today like there’s n tomorrow..

13th December, Mumbai-Jaipur Express
Coach AS 3, Seat Number : 35

Aunty 1: Dhokla?
Parul: No thanks aunty.
Aunty1: What do you do? Why are you going home?
Parul: MBA, Placements over, Break, blah blah ….
Aunty1: Oh good. By the way my sister-in-laws daughter also did MBA…her package is in crores.
Parul: Where does she work?
Aunty1: York…New York
Parul: York or New York?
Aunty1: Somewhere there.

Zoooperb! York’s close to London and NY in the US…
Just note the level of know-how of a far off relative she’s so proud of!

Uncle 2 jumps in the conversation with slightly more articulate facts.
Uncle 2: I also have a cousin who earns in crores. She works in California and is above 35. We can’t find a groom for her.
Aunty 1: Ya…ya… you are right. These girls these days, aiesi hi hain yeh ladkiyaan… na ghar basana chahhtee hain na ghar basega..
Parul: hmmmmmm..

Unable to make any kind of contribution to such a conversation, I shifted my attention to a four year old who started screaming as soon as I put some music on my laptop.

“KhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiKKKKKKKKKKeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee”

Everyone started staring at me in the compartment as if they had seen me snatching a chocolate from the child. Not knowing what to do I gave my typical I-haven’t-done-anything-god-save-me-look to the kid’s mum. The unforthcoming mother then requested me to play the inscrutable request of her son– ‘Khaike paan banaraswala’ from Don.
The child went into hibernation half an hour later… Phew!!

Another funny sight was two boys who had brought stuff from home to make sandwiches!! Raw tomatoes, potatoes, cucumber, butter and a packet of bread!!!

These are few of the many encounters I’ve had in my trips to and from home to Pune. Train trips all in all are an amazingly interesting peek into dissimilar POVs, psyches and lives of so many different people.
For most of the people they are just to be forgotten conversations in trains, for some these rendezvous are a pastime, for some they are pure bullshit, for a marketer they are consumer interaction, for the talented - an audience, for egotists they are agreeable listeners and for people like me they are another reason to write a blog.