It may not always be possible to reserve your tickets since most travel is decided on short notice. Even if you do want to reserve the list is too long even in the waiting. This blogger as a policy don’t tr
avel during holidays or festive season it is a logistic disaster, a nightmarish experience. I am really an off season guy!!. It is cheaper and quieter. But shockingly in last few years even off season has become crowded. It seems most people are into traveling anyway. When I least expect a crowd I try to find out the reason they are traveling. In most case it is a sudden decision because of some emergency or some unexpected reasons.
There are many people whom you meet, observe, interact while traveling some leave strong impression. Years back I was traveling from Lucknow to Allahabad a distance of around 6-7 hours, I checked the time table and dropped into the railway station. Surprisingly the platform was as crowded, since there are too many festivals celebrated in this part of the world I thought maybe I had missed some local celebration. Few queries clarified that this is usual, and no it is very much a working day. I couldn’t come in terms with the fact that so many people have some sort of emergency in their life or maybe like me they don’t believe in working!!. Anyway the lesson here was I need to restructure my theory on why people travel?!! To make the matter worse the train was announced to be delayed by half an hour and this they announced every half an hour!!.
avel during holidays or festive season it is a logistic disaster, a nightmarish experience. I am really an off season guy!!. It is cheaper and quieter. But shockingly in last few years even off season has become crowded. It seems most people are into traveling anyway. When I least expect a crowd I try to find out the reason they are traveling. In most case it is a sudden decision because of some emergency or some unexpected reasons.There are many people whom you meet, observe, interact while traveling some leave strong impression. Years back I was traveling from Lucknow to Allahabad a distance of around 6-7 hours, I checked the time table and dropped into the railway station. Surprisingly the platform was as crowded, since there are too many festivals celebrated in this part of the world I thought maybe I had missed some local celebration. Few queries clarified that this is usual, and no it is very much a working day. I couldn’t come in terms with the fact that so many people have some sort of emergency in their life or maybe like me they don’t believe in working!!. Anyway the lesson here was I need to restructure my theory on why people travel?!! To make the matter worse the train was announced to be delayed by half an hour and this they announced every half an hour!!.
The platform was very crowded there was no place to sit. In the mean time the train was further delayed and I started to consider other option like bus. By this time I had also got a place to sit so was reluctant to give up the comfort, very soon the train had arrived-4hours late, and so was the stampede to unreserved compartment, within seconds it was packed to the door. I found myself inside compressed to the side seat. After an hour or so my plight had started to reflect sharply on my face. A man looked up and said he was getting down at the next stop so I better stand next to his seat and so after another hour or so I managed to get few inches. Tired I drowsed, I was awakened by a sharp cry from my lap, I found a kid who was as startled as I was, on my lap, very soon he was dislodged and plucked by hands, it was another station and another swamp of people and noises. It was then I first noticed him, he was an ancient looking man (must be atleast 75, I guessed), wrinkled, lean, carrying a crumpled dirty cloth bag in his one hand, while the other clutching a seat. He did not respond to any of the commotions around and held onto his grip. A stoic grim struggle, it seemed the frail man was used to. Premchand had got his characters from these surrounding was it not??. I couldn’t help asking myself these (those days I dreamt of writing one great story, recently though it is waning, age catching up?. And so looked at people as characters!!, Arrogant me). Looking at him you could easily be transported to small dusty villages of north India that haven’t changed much in centuries. Soon I was in my own ethical struggle….well I should give him the seat (not exactly seat but few inches of space) shouldn’t I?? It was the struggle between mannerism and comfort, what is wrong and right. I was too tired but his haggard face and presence augmented the discomfort, for a moment in this ethical quandary I wished I could vanish or become invisible so as to escape his eyes which sometimes pierced me. Recently I was reading Iris Murdoch’s The Bell (picked up from a second hand book shop in Jabalpur few months back, I stumbled upon a gold mine of cheap spectacular old books, includes Gunter Grass, Iris Murdoch…ended up buying 20 odd books for 500-600Rs. The bookstall owner was ecstatic as I was but for entirely different reason, he never thought he would ever be able to sell these and some of the books were lying there for more than three decades, he informed. He should be right since the books I bought included Abu’s cartoon-1974 edition, 4Rs!!, also a very strange travelogue published in 1975, Sahib, your pony is ready- Diary of an unusual journey across India, by Johann Rudolf Hug, since I am really into travelogue-frankly I am into anything that fancy my interest, I bought this book, that looked quite rare, but found it to be bit too pretentious, at one level patronized the ‘poor but helpful people’. Jabalpur is strongly suggested for those looking for good old books or magazines). These lines from Murdoch’s book came alive and stared me
Dora stopped listening because a dreadful thought had struck her. She ought to give up her seat. She rejected the thought, but it came back. There was no doubt about it. The elderly lady who was standing looked very frail indeed, and it was only proper that Dora, who was young and healthy should give up her seat to the lady who could seat next to her friend. Dora felt the blood rushing her face. She sat still and considered the matter. There was no point in being hasty. It was possible of course that while clearly admitting that she ought to give up her seat she might nevertheless simply not do so out of pure selfishness. This would in some ways be a better situation than what would have been the case if it had simply not occurred to her at all that she ought to give up her seat. On the other side of the seated lady a man was sitting. He was reading his newspaper and did not seem to be thinking about his duty. Perhaps if Dora waited it would occur to the man to give up his seat to the other lady? Unlikely. Dora examined the other inhabitants of the carriage. None of them looked in the least uneasy. Their faces, if not already buried in books, reflected the selfish glee which had probably been on her own a moment since she watched the crowd in the corridor. There is another aspect to the matter. She had taken the trouble to arrive early, and surely ought to be rewarded for this. Though perhaps the two ladies had arrived as early as they could? There was no knowing. But in any case there was an elementary justice in the first comers having the seats. The old lady would be perfectly all right in the corridor. The corridor was full of old ladies anyway, and no one else seemed to be bothered by this, least of all old ladies themselves! Dora hated pointless sacrifices. She was tired after her recent emotions and deserved a rest. Besides, it would never do to arrive at her destination exhausted. She regarded her state of distress as completely neurotic. She decided not to give up her seat.
She got up and said to the standing lady ‘Do sit down here, please. I am not going very far, and I’d much rather stand anyway.’
‘How very kind of you!’ said the standing lady. ‘Now I can sit next to my friend. I have a seat of my own further down, you know. Perhaps we can exchange seats? Do let me help you to remove your luggage.’
Dora glowed with delight. What is sweeter than the unhoped-for reward for virtuous act?
Iris Mu
rdoch is as perfect a writer can get, she is flawless. She is the kind of writer you should read with a hot cup of chocolate coffee lying next to huge aquarium, fancy that??!!. ..well if you don’t have all these comfort then her writing will transfer you to cozy little world of interesting characters. There culture milieu may be different, geographical setting alien but emotions, predicaments are universal. So there I was somewhere between Lucknow and Allahabad in a crowded train very much identifying with a book written (published in 1958) by someone who may have never been to this part of the world. Astounding!!. So even if you don’t want to give the seat and try to be ‘strong’, you do end up doing entirely opposite!!. Ethical predicaments!!
I though worked out a compromise, after half an hour so when my legs had started to sting against the wooden seat, I offered him the seat and stood next to him. He didn’t smile or show any gratitude. He ensconced into few inches of space as if it was designed for him, he fitted in perfectly, it was as if his body was elastic. After an hour or so I asked him to get up and he got up as immediately as he had sat, no question asked, no smile exchanged. It was as if we were working in the hands of fate, diminishing my act benevolence which I found very irritating. After a station or two the person next to me got up, the old man occupied the seat. We were three people sitting on the seat meant for one, next to the window. His bones jabbed into me, he was all bones with a sheet of skin over it. Finally bored with monotony of things around I ventured to talk, very much apprehensive, since he didn’t seem like a person who would enjoy talking
Aap kahan ja rahe ho chacha? (in here people refer to old men as chacha in public, there is a stress in second cha. I love the Hindi of this region. They are very civilized and respectful-sabyya, in the way they use the language. Hindi finds its best expressions here, particularly old timers of Banaras). And just like the character in Premchand he referred to me as babuji (…I found it amusing if not embarrassing. Here I was twenty-something too much into trash fellow, being referred to as ‘babuji’ by an elderly, poor but dignified man!!). There was resignation in the way he said things. He told that he was going to Banaras and had got in from a place before Lucknow, the name I recall after much thinking as Hardoi. He was traveling alone. What about luggage? He looked at the cloth bag, it had started to tear, he held his hands over it as if he was carrying something precious. It sure was precious; it was his wife’s ashes he was taking to immerse in Ganges (ganga mayyia, as he said). In that crowded train looking at that bag, precariously held by those frail hands a realization struck me: if a single life is so precious, how is that people are ready to kill so many people. Every time there is bomb blasts or riots this thought comes back hunting and the image of that old crumpled man who when I asked:
‘kahan ja rahe ho chacha?’
Dora stopped listening because a dreadful thought had struck her. She ought to give up her seat. She rejected the thought, but it came back. There was no doubt about it. The elderly lady who was standing looked very frail indeed, and it was only proper that Dora, who was young and healthy should give up her seat to the lady who could seat next to her friend. Dora felt the blood rushing her face. She sat still and considered the matter. There was no point in being hasty. It was possible of course that while clearly admitting that she ought to give up her seat she might nevertheless simply not do so out of pure selfishness. This would in some ways be a better situation than what would have been the case if it had simply not occurred to her at all that she ought to give up her seat. On the other side of the seated lady a man was sitting. He was reading his newspaper and did not seem to be thinking about his duty. Perhaps if Dora waited it would occur to the man to give up his seat to the other lady? Unlikely. Dora examined the other inhabitants of the carriage. None of them looked in the least uneasy. Their faces, if not already buried in books, reflected the selfish glee which had probably been on her own a moment since she watched the crowd in the corridor. There is another aspect to the matter. She had taken the trouble to arrive early, and surely ought to be rewarded for this. Though perhaps the two ladies had arrived as early as they could? There was no knowing. But in any case there was an elementary justice in the first comers having the seats. The old lady would be perfectly all right in the corridor. The corridor was full of old ladies anyway, and no one else seemed to be bothered by this, least of all old ladies themselves! Dora hated pointless sacrifices. She was tired after her recent emotions and deserved a rest. Besides, it would never do to arrive at her destination exhausted. She regarded her state of distress as completely neurotic. She decided not to give up her seat.
She got up and said to the standing lady ‘Do sit down here, please. I am not going very far, and I’d much rather stand anyway.’
‘How very kind of you!’ said the standing lady. ‘Now I can sit next to my friend. I have a seat of my own further down, you know. Perhaps we can exchange seats? Do let me help you to remove your luggage.’
Dora glowed with delight. What is sweeter than the unhoped-for reward for virtuous act?
Iris Mu
rdoch is as perfect a writer can get, she is flawless. She is the kind of writer you should read with a hot cup of chocolate coffee lying next to huge aquarium, fancy that??!!. ..well if you don’t have all these comfort then her writing will transfer you to cozy little world of interesting characters. There culture milieu may be different, geographical setting alien but emotions, predicaments are universal. So there I was somewhere between Lucknow and Allahabad in a crowded train very much identifying with a book written (published in 1958) by someone who may have never been to this part of the world. Astounding!!. So even if you don’t want to give the seat and try to be ‘strong’, you do end up doing entirely opposite!!. Ethical predicaments!!I though worked out a compromise, after half an hour so when my legs had started to sting against the wooden seat, I offered him the seat and stood next to him. He didn’t smile or show any gratitude. He ensconced into few inches of space as if it was designed for him, he fitted in perfectly, it was as if his body was elastic. After an hour or so I asked him to get up and he got up as immediately as he had sat, no question asked, no smile exchanged. It was as if we were working in the hands of fate, diminishing my act benevolence which I found very irritating. After a station or two the person next to me got up, the old man occupied the seat. We were three people sitting on the seat meant for one, next to the window. His bones jabbed into me, he was all bones with a sheet of skin over it. Finally bored with monotony of things around I ventured to talk, very much apprehensive, since he didn’t seem like a person who would enjoy talking
Aap kahan ja rahe ho chacha? (in here people refer to old men as chacha in public, there is a stress in second cha. I love the Hindi of this region. They are very civilized and respectful-sabyya, in the way they use the language. Hindi finds its best expressions here, particularly old timers of Banaras). And just like the character in Premchand he referred to me as babuji (…I found it amusing if not embarrassing. Here I was twenty-something too much into trash fellow, being referred to as ‘babuji’ by an elderly, poor but dignified man!!). There was resignation in the way he said things. He told that he was going to Banaras and had got in from a place before Lucknow, the name I recall after much thinking as Hardoi. He was traveling alone. What about luggage? He looked at the cloth bag, it had started to tear, he held his hands over it as if he was carrying something precious. It sure was precious; it was his wife’s ashes he was taking to immerse in Ganges (ganga mayyia, as he said). In that crowded train looking at that bag, precariously held by those frail hands a realization struck me: if a single life is so precious, how is that people are ready to kill so many people. Every time there is bomb blasts or riots this thought comes back hunting and the image of that old crumpled man who when I asked:
‘kahan ja rahe ho chacha?’ Said with an effort to smile ‘bahuth dhoor jha rahe hai babuji…..bahuth dhoor….’
