Indian Railway C(r)oaches

We left the house in my native place at 6:55pm for a 6:50 train. When I reached the station at  7:15, the rain had just begun to show signs of subsidy. We made our way out of the car and began unloading the bags when we realized that there was no power in the station.  We carried our bags to the station entrance nonetheless and found our first obstacle : the makeshift wooden plank-bridge across the recent digging for the proposed ‘renovations’.

Employing a careful single file strategy with the bags between us, we made our way into the pitch black of the station, which in all fairness should be called a shack.With my hands in front of me, I searched through the darkness for any structure, when a kind passerby lit his torch for us to see the way; and its a good thing he did because smack in front of my face there were two wooden rods protruding out of the wall.

We scouted the floor for some piece of dry land and heaped all our bags together. Now, it was time to find a place to sit. By some stroke of luck, the power came on at that very instant. After waiting a couple of seconds for our eyes to get used to the light, we made our way to the benches that were, unsurprisingly, just under the protruding wooden rods. The station master announced that the 6:50 train would arrive at 7:40; as expected.

While we were waiting there we realized the downside to the sudden rains that had suddenly crashed the sun’s three month long fiesta – mosquitoes. It had only been raining for the past day and already, they were beginning to take over as the dominant species. I personally believe that Indian mosquitoes are in some sort of  hyper-evolved state. What with all the attempts at controlling them like DDT, bug sprays, mosquito nets on windows, trying to squash them with our hands, blowing them away, frenzied movement of the hand over the head, running away and of course, the most novel idea yet – the mosquito bat, they ought to have evolved at 10 times the normal rate and most therefore, now be super mosquitoes.

But I’m going off track; this post is about trains, not mosquitoes. So, where was I, ahh yes, waiting till 7:40; or to be more precise 8:10. The train finally managed to slog its way into the station and we boarded it. Finding our way to our seats we settled our bags and just began to breathe when we realized that the light just above us did not work. Undeterred we used the light from the neighboring set of seats to sit down. In about 20 minutes, the train reached a junction station, which meant that it would, hopefully, stop there for at least a couple minutes. Time for dinner!

Running through the crowd on the platform, we found a food stall, bought dinner and ran all the way back to our coach, in fear of missing the train. We found our seats again, and sat down, deciding to wait until the train began moving to start dinner. We ended up having to wait for 10 minutes for the train to start. Might as well have avoided running through the rain.

Dinner was rather uneventful and before long all of us were done and ready to hit the sack. I climbed up to my allocated berth and decided to read a novel as I wasn’t feeling sleepy. About an hour into the novel, I felt something moving near my elbow. Startled, I almost fell off the berth before realizing that it was only a cockroach. Yes, you heard me right, ONLY a cockroach.

For anyone traveling in Indian trains for at least more than a year, cockroaches are common co passengers. The reason why most people don’t mind them too much is because at least they don’t bite holes into your bags unlike the rats that too frequent the trains.

So there I was, on the upper berth, with this huge roach running around on the side. Thankfully, it didn’t stay for long and left just as soon as it arrived. Relieved that I didn’t have to make a mess by squashing it, I continued reading. Another hour later, I went to sleep. I think about three hours passed.

You know that feeling you get that someone’s watching you. Well, I did and I opened my eyes to find Mr.Roach sitting comfortably just a few inches from my pillow. I was just about to squash it with my pillow in a fit of anger when it suddenly ran through the crack at the edge of the wall into the next berth. Too sleepy to bother, I ignored it and fell asleep.

I woke up in the morning just as the train rolled into the station. Packing all our bags, we left the train and walked into in the crowded platform below. Good riddance, I thought to myself as we carried our bags towards the car park.

From somewhere in the dark underbellies of my bag, the roach thought to itself: these humans are such irritating pests sometimes.

Abishek

PS: True story…… ok well, except for the last line.

PPS: Moral of the story: Always remember to close your bags completely when on a train! This of course, wouldn’t affect the rats in any way whatsoever.