Fog hovers across Nagpur railway station. We throw our vision beyond the platform boundaries. No advancing train. Only a green light visible in the dark. The announcements repeatedly try our patience. I hate them for their insincere “regret of inconvenience”. It is 4.30 a.m. The railway rats are observed by those awaiting Kerala Express. The light turns red, the unique whistle is heard. In a moment everybody is on their feet. Platform shakes in the arrival of the giant!
The morning sky is painted variedly outside the window. Whistling, the journey heralds its beginning. A day to pass and you will be in another land. These journeys have always connected the two cultures since my childhood. You see it coming gradually as the train moves, runs… runs over the rivers, sneaks speedily through dark holes, sometimes crawls across the fields. A small canal may just pass before you notice it. Winds and unwinds over hilly terrains, you barely get to see it from corners of the windows. If you await a favorite, river Krishna, you get to admire it enough. Note the amount of water. You might remember your childhood journeys when you threw coins in the river making a wish. Then you remember the cousin who started the stupidity for you.
Beggars endorse their USPs. Some vendors amuse. At a point when you are irritated, the scenery outside interests you if not anybody else. A cloud making faces at you, or is that two clouds talking? Is the Mountain or the forest more mysterious? That is an unusual tree! Array of clothes drying on a river side might just set you thinking. The commoner’s life. That is the sons’ clothes drying after washing in the river, now the mother must be inside cooking for them. Ordinariness breathes here. The heat and the wind smell of the culture. And you think, this is India, this is South.
Read for a while, sleep for some time and check which songs were still ignored in your phone. When you have heard all of them, the wind sings you asleep. Shallow sleep or shaking sleep? The shake is difficult to describe. The dreams are also shaky. And the disastrous sound made when another train passes alongside! That most horrible noise. Babies gets scared, drowsing uncle wakes up with a jerk, appalled. You gauge the length of that train by the duration of the sound. You can’t hear the person sitting next.
For some humane amusements, look whose willing to talk. A passenger of any age can be worth a time pass. You can observe a lady knitter, or a cute baby or you might just get genuinely friendly with someone whom you feel you have known before. And you very well remember the interesting ones you met. You learnt about their culture, bit of their language, you asked them so much about their profession and left the personal side untouched but that’s what you do on a train. The child you adored so much or the nice guy you wished you talked to, you never meet them again. Faint memories, slight remembrance is all you have of them. And the sound ! So typical of the giant. Artists do imitate it and you appreciate. But you know the real thing is the real sound. And… Is it different in the night? Or perhaps it’s just because you are trying hard to sleep that you think so. Somebody should turn off that one light that is irritating you. Hello, someone’s trying to sleep here ..
That day mother needn’t shout to wake you up. Before she thinks it is required, you are woken up by the vendors. You are about to curse them for spoiling the dream. Then you look curiously to know which station it is. Wow, it ‘s different. But very familiar.
Ever since we start seeing the purest of greenery, we know we have reached. The train moves along succulent fields, coconut tress greet you . The morning air is agile over river Bharatha. The train coils it’s way between the demarcations of the forest and fields. It might look mysterious or it might just look the pure nature you longed to see. You point out to your new acquaintance the place a famous song was shot. Before the talk is complete, your train whistles onto the platform. You alight to see Thiruvanthapuram’s “welcome”
Train meets station and the journey meets it’s destination. So much on this journey. Later when someone asked about the journey, I called it the ordinary one.
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