I HAVE TRAVELED in trains since an early age. Every
time I met different people who became family for that little while and made me
feel like I had known them forever. Sometime we knew quite a bouquet of things
about each other except our names and sometimes we forgot to ask, which would
be my case in particular as I often find myself forgetting to ask names. But I have
also learnt that there is so much more present than just a name to put on a
face.
During my travels, I have met many different people
and nobody among them have crossed my ways more than once, yet they have left a
sweet impression on my mind which reflected on my face as well whenever I remembered
them.
This one time, which I am now going to narrate, I
was travelling from Nagpur to my home at Calcutta in the time of Durga Puja of 2009
and it was this time when I got the opportunity of travelling with a gentleman
who has left a hard-to-forget impact in my memory. I was exceptionally happy
that day, which surfaced every time I travelled back home and the obsessive
excitement and desperation made the journey longer and longer every minute in a
progressive pattern which mathematicians might term as geometric progression (a
value which doubles with every step).
When I woke up in the morning and climbed down from
that swinging top berth in the train, I noticed a new face occupying the window
seat of the opposite lower berth. He must have boarded the train when I was
fast asleep. He was a man who would be comfortably in his mid-fifties. The
proud graying hair was combed primly and a warm brown blazer felt heavy but contented
on his shoulder. His head swayed with the movement of the train as his eyes
kept reading through the bottom portion of the bi-focal lens resting on his
nose. I took a quick gaze from the corner of my eye avoiding any awkward moment
as I folded my blanket. The mornings in the countryside felt chilly even though
it was the middle of September.
After I had settled down in my own window seat which
I borrowed from the kind gentleman whose night had just started in my top berth,
I ordered a cup of coffee from the passing vendor and I asked my companion
sitting immediately opposite to me if he would like a cup for himself. This was
the cliché technique of starting a conversation in any journey and it never
seemed to fail nor age. He cordially agreed and thanked me with a decent smile and
folded his book beside him. I had already grown a little fond of my newly found
travel companion and the book lying in my bag kept seeming unnecessary minute
by minute.
As we carried our conversation forward with the
gradual attenuation of coffee in our cups, I discovered he was an Indian
Railways employee and even though he was entitled to a first class coach for
free, he liked it better travelling in the second class. It secretly lifted my
respect for him in no time. And I also discovered that he was an exceptional
storyteller as well. Among his hilarious tales, the one I especially remember involved
a nasty misunderstanding.
“Once, I was travelling by train.” He began, “when
night had fallen and everyone commenced preparations for their sleep, the passenger
in the opposite seat said to me - ‘bhai, I have to get down at a station which
arrives around 2 o’clock at night. I am a really heavy sleeper. Bhai can you
wake me up? Well, I might resist and not want to get down, but I insist you to
force me and see that I make it to the station.’
“I agreed.
“When everything was settled, and everybody went to
sleep, I, who was supposed to wake up my companion, lay awake reading my book. The
clock ticked from one to two and the train started slowing down at a station. Now
I approached the berth my companion fast asleep and started waking him up. He
started resisting as I was forewarned and started moaning that he is not
supposed to get down, but I kept forcing him and somehow, I managed to pack all
his luggage and carried my sleeping companion to the platform. The train went
on and when daylight broke, the gentleman from the top berth climbed down with
a horrified look on his face as he had suddenly realized he was still on the
train. I glanced and to my astonishment and horror, saw my companion from
previous night who had asked me to wake him up. He instantly turned towards me and
started showering abuses which I took silently. When the next station arrived,
he collected his belongings and got down still muttering curses directed
towards me.
“An adjacent passenger curiously asked the reason for my silence even after such irresistible provocation, and I calmly answered – ‘well, whatever he said is nothing compared to the passenger whom I have forced to get down at the station at 2 o’clock last night.’
“Apparently, he had changed berths with somebody and
didn’t remember to inform me.” He finished.
By that time, I had already managed to attract weird
glances from those sitting earshot of this story. And this wasn’t the only one
but I didn’t cared about anything else for laughter is one of my weaknesses and
I forget of any courtesy during this brief period.
The journey didn’t last forever, on the contrary it
seemed miraculously shortened considerably. But this gentleman, whose name I forgot
to catch yet again defending my previous record, had placed himself in my memory
forever. Sometimes I really feel thankful to my fortune that I ended up as a traveler
which came more as a compulsion and transformed into a necessity for heart. Sometimes
even for the thirst of meeting new nameless people, I start travelling,
journeying in public transports for faraway destinations and the pursuit not
only fulfils my occasional yearning for getting acquainted with new faces, but
also new places. But sometimes, I really miss not knowing the names, to meet
them once again, but the extraordinary irony is, maybe that’s the beauty of it…
