This blog is the fruit of a request made by my brother (which is a surprisingly weird occurrence in itself!)
So this entry is dedicated to him...
First off, this entry has nothing in
common with the book from which the title is derived other than the fact that
there are three children in here(Me, my brother and sister) and they too have a
lot of fun & thanks to E. Nesbitt for the title of course.
I wanted to write about a typical
Bombay train journey but the title makes me think about the longer Kerala trips
(which are fun as well)
So I’m
going to write a mish-mash of both. (Pray it turns out well since I’m
running low on inspiration.)
O.k., so here goes...
{Train whistle}
Bombay
(Yes, I don’t use the name Mumbai
since I am totally against the vernacularization (Not sure it’s
a word!) of perfectly good English names)
trains:
The first time I travelled alone would
be sometime in the first year of my Diploma to Borivali...Manu’s
whim and I’d have done anything for that trip. To
make this blog interesting, I’ll
make a list!
The Biggest fears when you’re
on a local:
1.
It will be crowded
and you'll get pushed off it or flipside: That you’ll
get pushed in so bad, you can’t
come out!
2.
It will be filled
with fisherwomen sitting on the footboards, who yell curses at you when you
lean over them to get a grip somewhere, then abuse your height, and (If they’re
badly pissed off,) your family.
3.
You'll doze off and
miss your station.
4.
If you’re
running late, it'll get jammed somewhere in the unknown forever.
5.
Your pocket will get
picked or you’ll
drop your belongings or even your baby (I’m
cruelly paranoid I know!) when you're jammed in the throng of bodies.
Some Ewwy and irritating things to
happen on a local:
6.
To be stuck beside a
sweating (It’s
natural yes, even I sweat but there is something called deodorant) and
irritating fat Guajarati lady who keeps pushing her cleavage on you and makes
you wet and stinky.
7.
To have people yell “age
jao, age jao”
at you when you’re
stuck with no scope of limbic movement at all and your station is fast
approaching.
8.
To have people tug at
your bag's strap, hair, arms or anywhere else to move you or just get your
attention(Come on, just standing there is painful enough, why make it worse??)
9.
For a kid: It’s
awful when adults push you down when it’s
already hard to see you and then you have to crawl your way between peoples
legs like a little bug which makes them look at you like you definitely are a
bug!
10. And
if you’re
a peace loving person like me...you’ll
hate the shouting (I’ll
say men are better in this matter) and also eunuchs, (Known colloquially as ‘chukkas’)
saying “Baba,
paisa do”
and blessing you (Thankfully, being a girl assures you that they don’t
pay much attention to you) and the fact that you tower above everybody else in
the coach doesn't
help.
11. Travelling
during the rains is a horrific experience with all the squelchy mud, wet
clothes, vermin and mosquitoes.
Kerala trains:
I have around 4-5 trips worth of
experience for these...so here goes!
Biggest fears on a long-distance
chuk-chuk gaadi:
12. The TC will come around before the station we
have the ticket from arrives.
13. We'll
fall from the top berths while sleeping(I had a phobia of some guy touching me
when I’m
sleeping on the top berth where my parents can’t
see me(& btw I have no abused past if you started thinking it.)
14. Some person (Even a sibling) who actually has
the window seat will claim the seat in the morning before you get to it.
Or a drunkard will be sprawled over
your berth when you board the train & you’ll
have to stand around while people try to get him off and leaves finally but not
before retching on the seat.
15. The toilets won’t
have a mug or will be this perpetually stinky bog and there will be scary
abuse(Or a pimp's phone number) written on the doors and there will be
paan-stains, sanitary napkin papers and
even body fluids in the toilet when you have to go.
16. That
ticketless waifs (I was one on a trip but got a seat due to strangers’
kindness) will come and sleep between or even under your berths and scare you
out of your wits when you step on them by mistake & then you take pity on
them and share your seat and food and your mother goes all charity and begins
giving them 100 buck
notes which they spend on drinking and loot you when you get all familiar
(Paranoid I know, but it has happened).
Things you look forward to or hope for
on a long-distance:
17. The coach will have rubber handles, and
magazine holders and charger plugs and no table, rusty handles or torn seats or
yucky fixations and good toilets.
18. Good people in the adjacent seats and at least
one person of interest to stare at throughout the trip. (Girls fine but Boys
better because you can spin stories by just observing them!)
19. Awake
parents with plenty of money to spend on books, CDs and snacks...and a
wonderful aunt to get you yummy stuff at Panvel!
20. This
is something I wish for real bad but hasn’t
happened yet: A friend on the journey with me....some of my college besties or
Roy or any guy (Can’t
think of any other guy I’d
want to go with right now, Roy should be honoured, but He’d
probably say no and I’d
spend the time fuming and secretly enjoying it....because he won’t
have anywhere to escape my hard-hitting questions!
Diverging...beep beep)
I apologize for that.
Yes, so that’s
my train monologue. Hope you liked it.
Train
Song by Vashti Bunyan is, I think, the
perfect accompaniment to this entry!
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