Chugging all the way: On a train, from Hubli to Bangalore.
Created | Updated Dec 5, 2004
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Chugging all the Way from Hubli to Bangalore, A train journey.
We reached the station well in time. We, here, refers to my cousin Mina, her friend Sheetal and of course myself. My aunt was also there, to see us off. The night was clear, the skies unusually starry for a town and a slight breeze was picking up. The weather was behaving well. The train too, obliged, and was on time for once. We got on and as the others settled down to discuss the soap ‘Kyon ki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi’ (Lit. Because mother-in-law was once daughter-in-law) I dumped my bag on the seat and went to the nearest Higginbotham bookstore to see if I could get something to read.
Making my way through the obstacle course of people, luggage, coolies and food stalls I finally reached it. Finding nothing more interesting than the latest issue of ‘Frontline’, I went back. ‘When we were Orphans’ by an author whose name I couldn’t pronounce, let alone spell, would have to do. Our train to Bangalore, The Kittur Channamma Express left at 10.45pm. Good byes were said; advice given and promptly forgotten and then we were off.
I normally prefer travelling by day because that way you can see the senery transform radically from town to the countryside. At night all you can see are regions right next to the track littered with odds and ends, lit up with dull yellow light as long as the streetlamps are there. So I took the upper berth, which apart from giving me the freedom to kinda sit up also gives me a view of four other berths in the compartment and the carriage door. I know it’s rude to stare but people when asleep are, I think, fascinating to look at. Besides, something has to keep you occupied when you’ve got nothing to do, the lights are dimmed and you can’t sleep for nuts. From the various other train journeys I’ve embarked on, I’ve found seven different kinds of snoring, six dance positions, feet in different states of hideousness (and in rare cases beauty) and countless facial expressions I haven’t been able to keep track of.
Only two other people got on with us at the Hubli station. One was an overweight, middle-aged lady in a heavy silk saree, a big red bindi on the forehead and gigantic fake gold earrings. She climbed up with great effort to the middle berth opposite to mine and settled down with a sigh. That was Shobha, as I was going to find out a little later. The other was a girl in her twenties with flaming red hair clashing markedly with her orange dress and matching embroidered bag. She had a bad cold and a distinct Birmingham accent.
After a few mandatory smiles and some polite conversation, all of us prepared to go to sleep. I did too, knowing it would be in vain but trying anyway. Five minutes later, I started reading my book.
The first to disturb us was the Ticket collector. He literally swooped into the compartment and started demanding tickets left and right. I could hear Mina cursing below me. She had our tickets. She passed it below to Sheetal who somehow managed to be more than civil to him. It’s not often that one comes across a reasonably nice-looking TC, she said after he went away, answering our unasked question. I went back to the Orphans, the others to sleep.
Then, came the peddler. I don’t know what he thought he was doing, trying to sell biscuits and cola at this unearthly hour. Mina cursed again. She was getting quite good at it. She knew how to curse in five languages. Later in Bangalore, I taught her how to in French. Now she can curse in six languages. Impressive, I must say, by any standards. After ten minutes came another hawker. This time ‘round, it was coffee. I felt rather sorry for them actually, and Shobha did buy a cup of coffee. I was under the impression that caffeine was a stimulant, until I saw her going back to sleep with incredible ease after crushing her empty cup and letting it fall to the floor.
A few minutes later, I saw the red-haired girl fiddling with the red chain on the wall between our berths. The chain was to stop the train in case of an emergency. You pull the chain; the train immediately comes to a halt. It’s the ultimate tool for troublemakers on the train, especially teenage boys who find stopping the train in the wilderness a marvellous joke. The fact that they might later have to pay a fine of Rs.300 and be sent to prison for three months doesn’t seem to deter them. This has of course never happened when I was on a train.
There was a story I heard, though. About one young Mr. Vidyasagar who pulled the chain thus stopping the train a hundred yards shy of a derailment that could have killed a lot of passengers. He was just sitting there, thinking absolutely nothing when it suddenly came to his mind. Nobody including himself knows how he got to know about it
Now, this lady didn’t seem to be either a mischief monger or a clairvoyant. Then I understood. The chain was a little loose and kept hitting the wall repeatedly due to the train’s movement, clinking every time it did so. She couldn’t sleep and was trying to get it to stay put. The Good Samaritan that I am, I offered to help her. Bad decision. But I couldn’t just sit there, being totally indifferent.
It was easier said than done. Two stations, a metal paper clip, a piece of thread, a coffee break, some genius, intermittent conversations, a plastic paper clip, another piece of stronger string (that Mina handily procured, cursing spectacularly all the time), some more genius, forty-five minutes and we were finally there. We made the chain, shut up. She went to sleep, and I to the Orphans.
Ah, the peace…………would not last for long. At exactly 12.25, The TC came back. Not for the tickets, but for Sheetal. There is a single seat between the door and our compartment. He opened the door and stood next to it, his thick jet-black curls bouncing in the wind, inviting her to join him. She accepted the invitation, her own poker straight brown hair bouncing too (possibly because she was nodding her head so enthusiastically.) She sat down on the seat, legs crossed and chin up and I determinedly went back to the Orphans. As the main character of my book was flirting dangerously with the idea of escaping from a Japanese concentration camp, Sheetal was flirting audaciously with the TC. I closed my book and prayed hard for sleep…or ear plugs at least. About fifteen minutes later, he left. Sheetal came back with a smug smile firmly in place.
Nothing happened for another hour except that it started raining. Then the girl with the red hair, I never quite got her name right, started snoring. It looked like her cold had blocked her nasal passages completely. Snore type: 8. Shaken out of my complacent night time daydreams about how lonely and enigmatically beautiful our planet would look if seen from outer space (and the order in which I would explore it), I came crashing down to the Japanese concentration camps at ground level. This time I couldn’t read for long because the lights (dim as they were) suddenly went off. And this time, I cursed. Three seconds later, Mina cursed. Her phone had rung, and the call she said, was for me. Reluctantly, I took the call, wondering who wanted to talk with me at one in the morning.
Turns out, it was a miracle in disguise. It was my old friend Tara who was on a holiday in Hawaii. I could almost hear the waves crashing; she said she could hear the storm raging outside my train. We were twelve hours and thousands of miles apart, but yet so close. Leaning against the barrier between my berth and the one in the next compartment, I reminisced with her about middle school, high school, old friends, first crushes, incorrigible boyfriends, Christmas Parties, costume parties, the movies, tricks we played on teachers, fund raisers, mothers, those little things we wrote, books we read and loved…. When we were finished, it was three thirty in the morning. The storm was over, the stars were out again and Ms. Red hair had stopped snoring. God was in his heaven and I felt better than I had in weeks. And then, for the first time in my life, I fell asleep in a train.
Uninterrupted, blissful dreamless sleep lasted two and a half hours. At six, I heard the little alarm clock ringing in the duffel bag I was using as a pillow. I had forgotten to put it off last evening. I was refreshed enough, but it was strange, really. I usually need full nine hours of sleep and still feel that I can use another hour.
I sat up and the first thing I saw was that it was a beautiful morning. I decided to go to the door to get some fresh air. As I was going to get down, I saw my feet. My feet are, well…weird. They’re big and my toes are very, very long. My big toe is as big as my mother’s thumb. Also, there’s a scar on my left foot, a souvenir from when a car ran over it five years ago. As a rule, I find my feet ugly but I love them anyway. I saw that nobody else was awake, so I said out loud but not very loud, “Good Morning my ugly big feet!” Mistake. The person beside me on the next berth snorted and bent around the barrier to look at me, a bemused expression on his face. Smooth, olive skin, deep brown eyes, light brown hair worn slightly long and tied back accentuating those lovely cheekbones. Very striking, very attractive and very, very groggy.
‘Didn’t get much sleep, huh?’ I asked him, trying not to look like I was struck by lightening.
‘Not really. Besides, I had Gilmore girls meet FRIENDS going for me!’ He had a slight accent I couldn’t place. ‘Tell me, do you talk to your feet often?’
‘Did you hear the alarm too?’ I said, ignoring the second bit. This was getting a little embarrassing.
‘Yes’
‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I…I didn’t mean to…’ Way too embarrassing.
‘Its alright.’ I know he doesn’t mean it, people never do.
‘But…’ I realise I’m blushing furiously.
‘Believe me. I cannot sleep in a train anyway.’ he smiled. Maybe he does mean it. On the other hand, maybe he is just trying to put me at ease because my face looks like the setting sun.
‘Really? I can’t either’ Am I the same person who spoke non-stop for over two hours last night? Why do I find it so difficult to speak??
‘Yes, I surmised as much. Look, I apologize for listening in on your conversation but I must say it was far less depressing and definitely more entertaining than this book I was reading.’ Hmmm…He certainly looks more awake.
‘Apology accepted. I was reading a depressing book myself. Don’t know how I managed to get hold of it.’ I got the book and showed him.
‘No kidding!’ He had the same book. Hah, Coincidence!
‘Okay, where in the book are … I mean which part of the story?’
‘The part where he’s trying to escape the Japanese concentration Camps.’
‘Shut up! No way.’
‘You know…
‘Of course, I mean…
‘But then, that doesn’t seem very…
Blah blah blah…I’m having the time of my life. We’re standing at the door looking at the rising sun …blah, blah… Seven o’clock. Almost everyone’s stirring. Mina is wide-awake and is looking suspiciously at me. Sheetal looks like she’s still dreaming.
‘Um…maybe we should… He sounds hesitantly hopeful.
‘Sure. I’d like that very much.’ I smiled. ;-) And so, I have a date. So now what?
The blessed phone rings. It’s for Meena. And…
‘Karim!’ someone’s calling him. (He’s half Egyptian and I so Love his name!)
‘Coming!’
We both excuse ourselves, the awkwardness successfully evaded.
It’s Eight thirty. Everyone’s awake and getting their bags out. Bangalore is five minutes away. Ms. Red hair is down too. ‘Good Morning!’
‘Morning! Are we there yet?’
‘Almost’
‘Sleep well?’
‘Uh…
The train whistles, signifying we’re at the end of our journey. All are rushing to the door while we sit down and wait patiently. Ms. Red hair and the three of us. And Karim. Ten minutes later we’re out on Platform number 8.
Ms. Red hair’s friend, Ms. Straw yellow hair is here to see her. Their heads look lovely together.
Sheetal’s gone off to see the TC at the gates just as promised.
The overweight middle-aged lady is hugging some one who looks like a thinner, younger and trendier version of her…. Now they’re gone too.
My cousin, Mina is still on the phone.
Karim and I say good-bye and he heads toward his hotel.
And I go off to find something interesting to read at the nearest Higginbotham bookstore.
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Chugging all the Way from Hubli to Bangalore, A train journey.
We reached the station well in time. We, here, refers to my cousin Mina, her friend Sheetal and of course myself. My aunt was also there, to see us off. The night was clear, the skies unusually starry for a town and a slight breeze was picking up. The weather was behaving well. The train too, obliged, and was on time for once. We got on and as the others settled down to discuss the soap ‘Kyon ki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi’ (Lit. Because mother-in-law was once daughter-in-law) I dumped my bag on the seat and went to the nearest Higginbotham bookstore to see if I could get something to read.
Making my way through the obstacle course of people, luggage, coolies and food stalls I finally reached it. Finding nothing more interesting than the latest issue of ‘Frontline’, I went back. ‘When we were Orphans’ by an author whose name I couldn’t pronounce, let alone spell, would have to do. Our train to Bangalore, The Kittur Channamma Express left at 10.45pm. Good byes were said; advice given and promptly forgotten and then we were off.
I normally prefer travelling by day because that way you can see the senery transform radically from town to the countryside. At night all you can see are regions right next to the track littered with odds and ends, lit up with dull yellow light as long as the streetlamps are there. So I took the upper berth, which apart from giving me the freedom to kinda sit up also gives me a view of four other berths in the compartment and the carriage door. I know it’s rude to stare but people when asleep are, I think, fascinating to look at. Besides, something has to keep you occupied when you’ve got nothing to do, the lights are dimmed and you can’t sleep for nuts. From the various other train journeys I’ve embarked on, I’ve found seven different kinds of snoring, six dance positions, feet in different states of hideousness (and in rare cases beauty) and countless facial expressions I haven’t been able to keep track of.
Only two other people got on with us at the Hubli station. One was an overweight, middle-aged lady in a heavy silk saree, a big red bindi on the forehead and gigantic fake gold earrings. She climbed up with great effort to the middle berth opposite to mine and settled down with a sigh. That was Shobha, as I was going to find out a little later. The other was a girl in her twenties with flaming red hair clashing markedly with her orange dress and matching embroidered bag. She had a bad cold and a distinct Birmingham accent.
After a few mandatory smiles and some polite conversation, all of us prepared to go to sleep. I did too, knowing it would be in vain but trying anyway. Five minutes later, I started reading my book.
The first to disturb us was the Ticket collector. He literally swooped into the compartment and started demanding tickets left and right. I could hear Mina cursing below me. She had our tickets. She passed it below to Sheetal who somehow managed to be more than civil to him. It’s not often that one comes across a reasonably nice-looking TC, she said after he went away, answering our unasked question. I went back to the Orphans, the others to sleep.
Then, came the peddler. I don’t know what he thought he was doing, trying to sell biscuits and cola at this unearthly hour. Mina cursed again. She was getting quite good at it. She knew how to curse in five languages. Later in Bangalore, I taught her how to in French. Now she can curse in six languages. Impressive, I must say, by any standards. After ten minutes came another hawker. This time ‘round, it was coffee. I felt rather sorry for them actually, and Shobha did buy a cup of coffee. I was under the impression that caffeine was a stimulant, until I saw her going back to sleep with incredible ease after crushing her empty cup and letting it fall to the floor.
A few minutes later, I saw the red-haired girl fiddling with the red chain on the wall between our berths. The chain was to stop the train in case of an emergency. You pull the chain; the train immediately comes to a halt. It’s the ultimate tool for troublemakers on the train, especially teenage boys who find stopping the train in the wilderness a marvellous joke. The fact that they might later have to pay a fine of Rs.300 and be sent to prison for three months doesn’t seem to deter them. This has of course never happened when I was on a train.
There was a story I heard, though. About one young Mr. Vidyasagar who pulled the chain thus stopping the train a hundred yards shy of a derailment that could have killed a lot of passengers. He was just sitting there, thinking absolutely nothing when it suddenly came to his mind. Nobody including himself knows how he got to know about it
Now, this lady didn’t seem to be either a mischief monger or a clairvoyant. Then I understood. The chain was a little loose and kept hitting the wall repeatedly due to the train’s movement, clinking every time it did so. She couldn’t sleep and was trying to get it to stay put. The Good Samaritan that I am, I offered to help her. Bad decision. But I couldn’t just sit there, being totally indifferent.
It was easier said than done. Two stations, a metal paper clip, a piece of thread, a coffee break, some genius, intermittent conversations, a plastic paper clip, another piece of stronger string (that Mina handily procured, cursing spectacularly all the time), some more genius, forty-five minutes and we were finally there. We made the chain, shut up. She went to sleep, and I to the Orphans.
Ah, the peace…………would not last for long. At exactly 12.25, The TC came back. Not for the tickets, but for Sheetal. There is a single seat between the door and our compartment. He opened the door and stood next to it, his thick jet-black curls bouncing in the wind, inviting her to join him. She accepted the invitation, her own poker straight brown hair bouncing too (possibly because she was nodding her head so enthusiastically.) She sat down on the seat, legs crossed and chin up and I determinedly went back to the Orphans. As the main character of my book was flirting dangerously with the idea of escaping from a Japanese concentration camp, Sheetal was flirting audaciously with the TC. I closed my book and prayed hard for sleep…or ear plugs at least. About fifteen minutes later, he left. Sheetal came back with a smug smile firmly in place.
Nothing happened for another hour except that it started raining. Then the girl with the red hair, I never quite got her name right, started snoring. It looked like her cold had blocked her nasal passages completely. Snore type: 8. Shaken out of my complacent night time daydreams about how lonely and enigmatically beautiful our planet would look if seen from outer space (and the order in which I would explore it), I came crashing down to the Japanese concentration camps at ground level. This time I couldn’t read for long because the lights (dim as they were) suddenly went off. And this time, I cursed. Three seconds later, Mina cursed. Her phone had rung, and the call she said, was for me. Reluctantly, I took the call, wondering who wanted to talk with me at one in the morning.
Turns out, it was a miracle in disguise. It was my old friend Tara who was on a holiday in Hawaii. I could almost hear the waves crashing; she said she could hear the storm raging outside my train. We were twelve hours and thousands of miles apart, but yet so close. Leaning against the barrier between my berth and the one in the next compartment, I reminisced with her about middle school, high school, old friends, first crushes, incorrigible boyfriends, Christmas Parties, costume parties, the movies, tricks we played on teachers, fund raisers, mothers, those little things we wrote, books we read and loved…. When we were finished, it was three thirty in the morning. The storm was over, the stars were out again and Ms. Red hair had stopped snoring. God was in his heaven and I felt better than I had in weeks. And then, for the first time in my life, I fell asleep in a train.
Uninterrupted, blissful dreamless sleep lasted two and a half hours. At six, I heard the little alarm clock ringing in the duffel bag I was using as a pillow. I had forgotten to put it off last evening. I was refreshed enough, but it was strange, really. I usually need full nine hours of sleep and still feel that I can use another hour.
I sat up and the first thing I saw was that it was a beautiful morning. I decided to go to the door to get some fresh air. As I was going to get down, I saw my feet. My feet are, well…weird. They’re big and my toes are very, very long. My big toe is as big as my mother’s thumb. Also, there’s a scar on my left foot, a souvenir from when a car ran over it five years ago. As a rule, I find my feet ugly but I love them anyway. I saw that nobody else was awake, so I said out loud but not very loud, “Good Morning my ugly big feet!” Mistake. The person beside me on the next berth snorted and bent around the barrier to look at me, a bemused expression on his face. Smooth, olive skin, deep brown eyes, light brown hair worn slightly long and tied back accentuating those lovely cheekbones. Very striking, very attractive and very, very groggy.
‘Didn’t get much sleep, huh?’ I asked him, trying not to look like I was struck by lightening.
‘Not really. Besides, I had Gilmore girls meet FRIENDS going for me!’ He had a slight accent I couldn’t place. ‘Tell me, do you talk to your feet often?’
‘Did you hear the alarm too?’ I said, ignoring the second bit. This was getting a little embarrassing.
‘Yes’
‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I…I didn’t mean to…’ Way too embarrassing.
‘Its alright.’ I know he doesn’t mean it, people never do.
‘But…’ I realise I’m blushing furiously.
‘Believe me. I cannot sleep in a train anyway.’ he smiled. Maybe he does mean it. On the other hand, maybe he is just trying to put me at ease because my face looks like the setting sun.
‘Really? I can’t either’ Am I the same person who spoke non-stop for over two hours last night? Why do I find it so difficult to speak??
‘Yes, I surmised as much. Look, I apologize for listening in on your conversation but I must say it was far less depressing and definitely more entertaining than this book I was reading.’ Hmmm…He certainly looks more awake.
‘Apology accepted. I was reading a depressing book myself. Don’t know how I managed to get hold of it.’ I got the book and showed him.
‘No kidding!’ He had the same book. Hah, Coincidence!
‘Okay, where in the book are … I mean which part of the story?’
‘The part where he’s trying to escape the Japanese concentration Camps.’
‘Shut up! No way.’
‘You know…
‘Of course, I mean…
‘But then, that doesn’t seem very…
Blah blah blah…I’m having the time of my life. We’re standing at the door looking at the rising sun …blah, blah… Seven o’clock. Almost everyone’s stirring. Mina is wide-awake and is looking suspiciously at me. Sheetal looks like she’s still dreaming.
‘Um…maybe we should… He sounds hesitantly hopeful.
‘Sure. I’d like that very much.’ I smiled. ;-) And so, I have a date. So now what?
The blessed phone rings. It’s for Meena. And…
‘Karim!’ someone’s calling him. (He’s half Egyptian and I so Love his name!)
‘Coming!’
We both excuse ourselves, the awkwardness successfully evaded.
It’s Eight thirty. Everyone’s awake and getting their bags out. Bangalore is five minutes away. Ms. Red hair is down too. ‘Good Morning!’
‘Morning! Are we there yet?’
‘Almost’
‘Sleep well?’
‘Uh…
The train whistles, signifying we’re at the end of our journey. All are rushing to the door while we sit down and wait patiently. Ms. Red hair and the three of us. And Karim. Ten minutes later we’re out on Platform number 8.
Ms. Red hair’s friend, Ms. Straw yellow hair is here to see her. Their heads look lovely together.
Sheetal’s gone off to see the TC at the gates just as promised.
The overweight middle-aged lady is hugging some one who looks like a thinner, younger and trendier version of her…. Now they’re gone too.
My cousin, Mina is still on the phone.
Karim and I say good-bye and he heads toward his hotel.
And I go off to find something interesting to read at the nearest Higginbotham bookstore.
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