This weekend, I am in Bangalore to visit my newborn niece. My onward journey was in the Bangalore Express train and it is one experience that will take quite some time to forget.
It was December 10th, 2004 and it was a pleasant evening when I reached the Railway station. The train, scheduled to depart at 18.40, was delayed by half an hour and as I sat there by the steps, I seemed to be the sole “information provider” about the Platform Number 8, from the “inseparable” newly weds to the tattering octogenarian.
The train finally arrived and as I boarded my compartment, there, in my bay, awaited one of the queerest families I have ever seen and they will be the main characters of this post.
There were 7 of them in total- spanning four generations- from an year old to a septuagenarian. There were 3 children and 4 women altogether. Actually, these seven people were a part of a marriage congregation of over a hundred North Indians, who were returning after the marriage, unfortunately, in the same train as mine. It seemed to me that all these people religiously defied the maxim “Less luggage, more comfort”, for, each one carried at least 4 baggages on an average and my bay was filled with more than 20 baggages of all sizes. It should be evident at this point that I spent the initial stage of my travel standing by the door side.
There was one characteristic feature of these four ladies and that is- they can easily be mistaken to the “famous” Tamil actress Kiran. It is not their histrionic skills I am talking about, but their portly dimensions. And if there was one topic on which all four will agree, then it was FOOD.
After standing for sometime, it became evident that I will not get a seat. So I went to the topmost berth and I began watching the “grand food mela” that began to unwind. The marriage organizer had arranged food for the whole caravan and the packets came. It had a reasonable amount of food ranging from pooris to various north Indian sweets. The avaricious eaters started their “humble meal” and soon there was enough noise to get my attention once again back to them. “CHAWAL” (Rice) was all that I could hear from everyone’s mouth. It became clear that they had run out of stock of the rice that was supplied to them. Soon the marriage organizer came and he was sent in a frantic search for rice. After a second round of rice, their shoveling came to a stop.
I thought it was all done when I was proved wrong again. This time, the fattest of all, made a gargantuan attempt to pull a bag underneath her and out of it came a box. This box contained the magic mantra behind their bursting figures. It was filled with almonds and cashews and they started the next round of feast. All these while, the bay was filled with the noise of the group. To add to the audibility levels were a lot of their relatives, coming to wish them time and again (One of them was ‘Pinky’, who, I guess is their distant relative as she couldn’t match their mammoth flab).
As I was getting ready for my dinner (which I had ordered in the train), nature made its call to their little child at the most inopportune time. And worse, the child’s mother-“ Miss corpulent”, left the toilet doors open on her return. As I sat there cursing her, one other nature’s callee, came to my rescue and eventually had the doors closed. I finished my dinner and as I lay in my berth, thinking of these people, whom, I thought “lived to eat” contrary to what others do “eat to live”. Slowly I dozed away, amidst their clamor.
The next morning, I was determined not to sit with those and I waited till they got all their stuff out. I was in the conception that they were getting down one stop prior to me. After they got down, I realized that it was indeed my stop and as I prepared to get down from my berth, I was startled by the sudden rush of rag pickers who were in a frantic search for left-overs by the passengers. I made a heroic jump from the top in order to rescue my sandals lying down.
At last, I gathered my belongings and got down at 7.45. It was a cool breezy morning but I couldn’t see that caravan. Probably they had gone for their breakfast…;-)
