“A journey - it was never meant to happen again
Filled with surprises and events that made our eyes dampen
With Joy “
(Sabareesan Sankaran)
Part of this incident is factual and rest sheer imagination. Tell me frankly which stupid story teller doesnt add spice to his own experience, except the one's whose job is to sell stories of all great characters that this world has seen. With this narration I'm trying to step into the domain of story writing - who says a software engineer cannot write stories, probably they are the best in describing their woes. Though this has nothing to do with me as a software engineer, but talks about my childhood to teenhood transition days( again a software lingo - it has got into my blood. !!).
This happened to me a few years ago, when I had been to my dad’s hometown for the first time, without any clue about how the new place would be or to be more precise question marks around the type of people I’m going to meet. I was born to a family which has traits of cultural mix written all over it. I’m a hybrid between a staunch Brahmin and Kshatriya and that too from two different regions of this great land. Probably no one else better than me understands the need for greater integration in this country, Sandwiched between two languages Bengali and Malayalam, and the strong urge felt by my family members from both the sides to learn their corresponding languages made me go mad at times- I preferred to stick with English & Hindi.
Nevertheless my first trip to my dad’s hometown based in down south was probably the first shocker of my childhood days considering that I rarely knew what is it to have roots from Kerala. I always used to think aloud on the reason behind my father's dad and mom being stationed far off from my mother's, probably my parents were shy enough to admit about their marriage which wasn't arranged. To be frank gone are the days when people used to be a bit conservative while explaining how they got married, it is more of a pride now to say "Our's was a love marriage what about you both ?". For readers who are not from India there are basically four categories or types of marriages in India unless somebody contradicts with a new one- Arranged, Love, Arranged then Love marriage, Love then Arranged Marriage. They would sound like some weird mathematical relationships but its quite easy to make out which type you belong to. As each of the name says its in the order precedence for eg: In Arranged then love marriage, parents decide the girl or vice-versa and then you start calling each other/get to know each other(not sure to what extent, depends though :-) ) And eventually fall in love knowing that either ways you have to jump in the fire. Well to me this type is nothing but plain old arranged marriage but to spicen up their marriage definition, couples prefer calling it as arranged then love marriage. Live- in relationship is only possible in metros, if tried in villages you may never live to talk about it. Most of the state based cultures in India are quite hostile about Live-in relatioship, may it be extreme right Hindu or Muslim. I think I got carried away a bit with this and by the way mine was the second type - love.
This happened during the summer holidays of 1992 and based on my dad’s request my family decided to venture into a trip to Kerala(God's own country). It was a journey which marked my dad’s return from exile, he was probably the most happiest person in our flock to visit the place where he belonged to and as usual my mom’s Bengali troop came up with its depiction of how people from south India were with so much conviction, and I doubted if anyone among them ever had crossed the boundaries of Midnapur district. I still remember the day 15th April, 1992 when we started our long journey towards Kannur from Calcutta. Summer was at its peak and I missed my cricket matches which were scheduled by my friends against the JaiMa Kaali team (the next street rival team). Every year I used to be a key member of the playing eleven for saints XI, but this year I was more concerned about losing my prominence in my team and rise of a new star in my absence rather than our team winning the matches, and was totally helpless about it. We boarded our train- Coromandel express from Howrah Junction expecting a pleasant voyage though I was a bit disappointed to miss my matches and was desperately planning to be back as soon as possible to at least be part of the last few matches before the school resumes.
At the start it seemed to be a journey without any interesting events however it’s when we reached kharaghpur that I realized it’s not just four of us( including my small brother- though he had a very short role to play in this apart from waning and crying throughout the journey) whereas my entire mom’s family was going to join us as well. Everyone was interested to know Jamaai babu’s Baadi (son-in law’s home), well for me it was my “Baper Baadi” (Dad’s home). I was very happy to see my grandparents and I loved them especially my grandfather who was an ex-military service man and was part of Indo-Pak 65 and 71 wars. His stories of bravery made my skin filled with goose-bumps and a strong drive to become an army man- (though some of the incidents seemed to be hyped up as we normal Indians do - never realised that when I was a kid at that age). We had entire two row of seats filled with our family members and my uncle being an inspector in RPF(Railway Protection Force) it wasn’t a big deal for all of us to have seats in the same coach ( influence works till date). Now that’s what I call as “law bending citizen” and it perfectly applies to him. For a moment I thought the surprises were to end, but soon went on to realize that it was cast as a spell upon us throughout the journey.
It was nine in the morning, the second day of our journey and our train was moving across the big plains of Andhra land. It was pouring heavily outside and I remember dad saying that it's quite strange to see raining at that time of the season. A family which boarded the train from Srikakulam enlightened us with the current meteorological news about the flash floods in Godavari and the heavy rains around coastal Andhra (those days India was not into the habit of naming cyclones, forget that Indian Govt rarely predicted cyclones). When the train arrived at Rajahmundry station the railway authorities realized that the Godavari Bridge was not safe for train passage and the trains travelling in that route will have to go through a different route. Well I’m lucky to recall this in my blog just because they didn’t delay their findings.
My dad felt it’s just going to be the same old delay story being played by Indian railways. As usual my grandfather went on to flaunt his ex-army identity before the TTE only to find that we had to cope up with a 48 hr delay and the train will take a different route towards north and back southwards from Nagpur. And since those were the days where middle class travelling in a Second class reservation was equivalent to the current gen travelling in 1st or 2nd AC. And as usual cleanliness in trains was never to be expected which has hardly changed till date.
My aunt Chandrika (uncle's wife) was totally uncomfortable with continuing the journey and even suggested that we all get down at Berhampur when the train headed back northwards, whereas my Dad thought that this was a chance for the family to understand each other closer and strengthen our realationship by going through this ordeal together. For me these things never made sense at that time as I was constantly lost on the thoughts of losing my stardom in saints XI. Well the importance of that journey made sense to me only after 8 yrs and how it paved a path for a distributed but integrated and peaceful family.
My father hailed from a rich and well to do family and most of all his parents were probably the pseudo rulers of the village even in a post raj era of this great land. In his case I accepted the fact that Love travels apart from whatever else it does. Later my uncle (my dad’s younger brother) disclosed to me that “He was the most sought after bachelor, but luck never favored the local ladies of Peruvamba" and he was destined to get married to a girl hailing from Bengal. It was day two of our journey and it seemed to be an endless voyage, and as far as I'm concerned I was still thinking of clearing Tinku's(most feared bowler of JaiMa Kaali team) ball over the rope(a sixer) !!.
Later that night a family boarded from Srikakulam who got settled in the first row of seats in the coach which was right next to the exit door. After some point when everyone of us including the other family were in deep slumber, we woke up after hearing the female crying loud only to realize that the Srikakulam family lost their jewels to a thief whom none of us were able to detect- he turned out to be a stealthy one. None of us could do anything about it rather than feel sorry for them. A RPF cop, ex-military man and my dad none of them got a chance to display their bravery but seemed to be actively engaged in arguing with the TTE for an unplanned stoppage at isolated area. Well till date I feel like TTE is not just a “Train Ticket Examiner” but has to wear the cap of “Train Theft Eliminator” at times, what else that poor soul is expected to do apart from his job of checking the tickets, at least he is ensuring that one of the world’s largest employer is not robbed by petty criminals who travel ticketless. My uncle was the most vocal amongst the arguing lot and after a lot of arguments & counter arguments which was fairly limited only till verbal duels, they probably got tired and let the poor TTE go, but the situation hardly changed. It was like an india-pakistan show-off which makes you feel scary but never ever turns out to be one.
After an hour post the theft incident my uncle and grandfather felt the need to search our family belongings just to ensure that we were also not victims. There was no end to the trail of cruel surprises we had on that day, and this last one was probably the worst. My aunt lost her bag which was filled with cosmetics, jewels and what not, instead of everyone feeling sad for her materialistic loss some seemed to be quite happy( a true hallmark of any joint family) atleast some memebers of the family especially my mausis were the happiest lot, I was able to see a sign of happy smile from both my mausis (mom’s sisters). Jealousy within family members especially within the ladies is something in their genes; it’s as if GOD has decided this to be a mandatory emotional parameter while creating a women. Probably since its expected to be an emotional parameter it may not be considered as a sin( you really need a lawyer out there in heaven to fight for your right to get into heaven- men hardly stand a chance).
Well the limit of damage didn’t seem to end there next in the list of theft sufferers was my grandfather whose entire carton of Bengal homemade cigarettes went missing, well I can only imagine how he would have felt that day (it's as if you have snatched the honey pot from a bear, which makes it all the more violent). He appeared emotionally lost for rest of the travel and had to settle with few beedis that too borrowed from fellow passengers who happened to be smokers as well (those were the days when Govt was still thinking to implement anti smoking laws as the law implementers were themselves smokers or affiliated to Tobacco giants). Poor soul he had to do this till Kerala because of his strong dislike for branded cigarettes. Well my grandma was initially happy to see that the cigarettes are gone only to realize that she had lost her red gutka paste cans too(this is another form of tobacco induced addiction) . Well now everyone including me was a victim of the theft. The thief didn’t spare my cricket bat (the one with Kapil Dev’s photo in it), my dad lost his brand new Bata chappal. To me it felt as if the thief had to cater to a demanding family as ours and the poor soul didn’t find any other options apart from stealing from a similar family( I assume that It was neither a coincidence nor a planned, to be precise he was just too lucky !!).
Next day morning the train reached Nagpur (land of oranges) and I saw peeled orange skins scattered probably everywhere including the bathroom in the train. People in the train probably were spending the time travelling in some of the worst and unhygienic conditions. The entire coach was stinking with shit smell originating from the unclean toilets and I personally didn’t dare to get started with my morning karmas. I started missing my home more than anything else and even started feeling angry about my dad’s decision to get going with the eventful journey. I had to control my body’s excretionary urge till we reached next station, and our beloved TTE had already placed a formal request to the relevant authorities in Nagpur station to get a stopover of extra 20 minutes at the next station and get the train cleaned with the local cleaners from that station. The wait till the next station was probably worth going through as I eventually got the chance to get it done after the cleaning exercise. That’s when I realized- why should the most frequented place called bathroom is also known as a rest room, believe me it was indeed a restful experience.
We had poha as breakfast from the next station and we were told by the TTE that the train will now go through the Sholapur route till Raichur and from there it will merge on to the normal route which is via Vijayawada. The train pantry supply was exhausted and passengers had to predominantly rely on the food sold from the stations. Hawkers and food suppliers from the station, with their knowledge of train timings were able to guess that our train was not supposed to pass through the station, probably the stink and our tiresome posture also added to it. The worst part was that it started reflecting in the price they quoted for the food. We had to settle for the price with no other alternative as none of us had the intention of fasting.
Well the food wasn’t great, but had to get on with it- idlis barely visible like a fast melting iceberg in the ocean. The best part was the torino drink after the food, I used to love torino probably one of the first soft drink in India apart from Goldspot, those were the days when Cola didn’t see daylight in India. We were fast approaching towards the border of Andhra & tamilnadu and everyone in the train felt impatient to reach Madras, after a historical journey. When we neared Guntur the train stopped again in the midst of nowhere, this time there was no rain or clouds visible, but day we certainly felt that GOD was testing our patience, it wasn’t a normal halt and neither a scheduled one (I hate to say this but we were slowly getting accustomed to the widely practiced unscheduled halts by Indian Railways). Somebody was yelling “Koi Kat Gaya” and came running towards us. Those words didn’t make any sense to me, and that’s when my uncle started to follow the man, only to stop after my aunt shouted “Oyedikke Jabo na”(roughly translated as Don’t go there !!). He seemed to obey my aunt’s command as one of Hitler’s orderlies. Grandpa stepped out of the train to confirm the incident and it was then I got to know from my mausi that somebody got run over by the train. As a 12 year old kid I felt remorse for the dead person, but didn't understand what made a person to take this extreme step. After few minutes grandpa came back laughing, for a moment I started questioning myslef - is he that cruel ? only to realise that he wasn't. Apparantely a cattle got run over by the train. But the Loco driver stopped the train to check the extent of damage(probably his first day on the job). Never in my life till date would I have witnessed such an example where a Train was stopped for something it has run over, may it be in the leve crossing or anywhere else, its the same. It rules the iron tracks and no other living being or machine has a stake in it !!
The delay was a brief one and did bring some smile to almost everyone in the train, though some(inlcuding me) felt sorry for the cattle. We got settled soon and movement of the train made us feel pleasant. By each passing hour my Dad was feeling happy as we were inching closer towards his home.
To be continued ................
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