THE
LONG TRAVEL
“Chai, coffee.. “ , “Biscuits, chocolates, lays..” was all
that anyone could have heard inside the packed Red and Yellow coloured,
air-conditioned double-decker Bangalore – Chennai express. Lost with Ruskin
Bond’s short stories and his beautiful description was I, smiling at my
imagination of the Himalayan landscapes.
Bond keeps me occupied, so that I wouldn't feel nostalgic
and want to get back home. I have to spend a week in Chennai, with five exams
at a stretch. Dad had to compel me to leave Bangalore; home had been comforting the past ten days. Study
holidays they say, it was the best time I had in the past few months. Long
sleep, best food, amazing city. Sun shines in the afternoons and rain pours in
the evenings. Its midnight when I sleep. I hear the dogs howling, the distant
road lamps blinking. I struggle to push myself to sleep, enjoying the coziness,
counting at least two hundred sheep, I sleep.
I’m lost in the Himalayan terrain, but there’s disturbance
around me, a comforting one. Its not the little girl opposite me who asks her
dad with a peremptory tone the corresponding word for dinosaur in Tamil, nor is
it of the vendors who make a living out what they sell in the train, nor is
it of the handsome young man sitting at the other end who keeps throwing occasional
looks towards me, nor is it the spiritual song played by the old couple at the
extreme end of the coach.
The smell of wet soil brought me directly to the Western
ghats from the Himalayas, close to a 2000 miles covered in less than a minute!
For any Economist preferences count, I chose the rattling sound of the water
hitting the Earth and the sight of the gusty wind through the window to the Himalayan
view my brain power was providing me with, for I've never been to the hills.
The shock I’m presently experiencing is not because of the
long travel in a short time, it’s the view that makes me stick my eyes to the
window pane.
A tributary flows underneath me, the train quickly strides
over the bridge, leaving with just a glance of the pure water and the rocks at
the bottom. A few seconds ,and its feast to mine eyes, with coconut
trees slanted to a 45 degrees from the ground, and mountains in the backdrop and
a little high above were black rainy clouds extending till the horizon where my
human eyes could see.
Lost in the rain stuck in the train was I, able to view it
but not get wet, and my phone vibrates in my jean pocket. Not far in the past
a friend of mine told me “that’s what you do when it rains, you get wet” ,
will he remain to be “a friend of mine” or the “Prince who stole my heart” ?
Only time will tell.
With different thoughts flashing through my head, and
different sights for my eyes to enjoy, the train slows down, my phone still
vibrates in my pocket. A beautiful woman emerges out of a tunnel, which has
been dug only for a single lane (“Othai adi paathai” a beautiful phrase in Tamil) She wears a sari, nothing like how I would wear it, the sari covers her
top to bottom, there is a layer of sari that’s above her head, neatly fleeted
at the front, a trouser like clothing covering her legs. It poetically reveals
her structure but nothing vulgar. She carries two pots on her head, one above
the other, perfectly balanced. My phone still vibrates.
Struggling to bring myself to the present, I pick the call.
I hear my dad’s voice at a distance “there’s a storm in Bay of Bengal” and he
says a few other things that slip my mind. I remember the last time there was a
storm; dad and myself were enjoying our tea sitting at the balcony of our Chennai
residence, that was one amazing Daddy- daughty day I’d say. My dad makes the
best of teas. I would never want to taste the English tea, my dad’s would do to
keep my spirits high. That was a storm that uprooted trees during the fall of
2012. It kept us indoors and I enjoyed it because dad was home.
My friend had instantly agreed to join me for lunch and drop
me at the station when I asked him this morning. He is interning at Bangalore. I
vaguely remember him telling something about the storm, or didn't he? We've been friends for four years now, but have hardly gotten to know each other. Fate
had it that way. We were in different cities, he in Hyderabad and me in Chennai,
but still managed to keep in touch. He’s a little taller than what I saw him
before. He brings along a friend of his. He helps me wade through the crowded Bangalore
city railway station and helps me board the train. Being friends is such a
wonderful feeling I felt. Even when you hadn't seen one another for two years,
things remain like as though the two years never happened. He offered to carry
my luggage, but I know for sure he later regretted it, men do that! It was
weird when we departed, he hugged me when I didn't expect. I’m not much of a physically
affectionate person. Born and brought up in the South Indian culture it took me
years to get accustomed to it, I’m fine with it now but not very comfortable
with the other gender. He’ll understand I
tell to myself.
The rain hits the window hard for few minutes, the train
then moves out of range of the rain clouds. Its barren land that my eyes see
now. Lost in thought I doze off. I dream of the snow, only I know where my
heart lies. I see a figure walking in the distance at a slower pace. I run to
catch up with him, he slowly fades away, I turn around, the footsteps are still
visible on the snow.
Coffee, that’s what I smell right now. It isn't strong enough, I know it from the smell, i smile to myselves telling its my dad's gene. I decide not to buy
it because I know that would be nowhere close to what my mom makes. I remember
she’s packed me coconut burfis for the journey. I relish them one by one and
assure to myself that I’ll be home in eight days.
I get off the train. Chennai welcomes me with its blazing
lights, honking vehicles and the smell of the city. So familiar a city seems
lost in the past. The rickshawalas queue on my way asking if I need a ride, I pass
through them and there are beggars who ask me for anything that I could give
them.
I got to buy my dinner, board the sub-urban train, reach
the hostel, to an unwelcoming room with an arrogant roommate. Life has to push
me through the next one week. Five exams to go, and then it’s a night’s journey
home. Bangalore, I’ll join you soon.
It was a wonderful journey for me, but not for the slum
dwellers who I see at the distance, cursing the rain for flooding his house.
