Of all the possibilities, being stuck in an A.C compartment(Jan Shatbdi,Sitting Chair car,Indian Railways) with your over achieving newlywed wife, who is so serious about the exam that even our honeymoon got pushed, is indeed a traumatic situation. Both of us have the same exam, but i wouldn’t mind some..well.. you know… Instead, I end up in this typical train journey , with the compartment thermostat as consistent as the Indian middle order. In between my delirious sleep (i tend to sleep the moment the train rumbles), the one question that had been on my mind since I booked my ticket, gets answered. A large guy, typical Mallu male, pot bellied and mustached, drops himself next to my seat. Great! My travel just got cozier- jammed between my cramming-before-exam wife and a diametrically endowed man not to mention the added luxuries offered by the Indian Railways.
{Disclaimer 1: My wife is not fat. Yes, she wears fashionable jewelry, but is by no means: Fat
Disclaimer 2: I am.}
I have sacrificed a lot for this journey. I have risked myself yet another Entrance Exam, willing to receive its blow, again. My wife would go berserk( and that's lightly putting it) if I even dared to suggest we skip it for a trip, so it’s safe to say that I was coerced to face this bully(entrance exam) again. I also had to sacrifice a UTD vs Liverpool match. Big deal?? Ask your mom to cook dinner during her favorite serial time. Multiply it by the emotion my wife would undergo when she finds that the book that she intended to study was not lost, but actually discretely hidden by her husband. All those emotions put together, would still not do justice to the feelings in my mind about missing this match. Yes, I’m a football guy, through and through. Some say, while making sacrifices, the feeling is sweet. This sucked out right. But I went ahead. And then, there is the biggest deception of all time, one that we fall prey to, despite having experience prior. I would say that this is the ‘Mother of all hopes’, the only reason why you decide to bear the tortures of Indian transportation, the eternal belief that the seat next to you would be occupied by a Bipasha Basu or a Katrina Kaif. It has never happened to any Indian before, yet we hope and dream. But as you already know, this dream of mine was also squashed. The guy next to me, like always, took most of the seat and started scouring the newspaper. That meant, like an umbrella, he unfurled himself, pushing me into a retreat into the domains of my study paranoid wife. As the din of her reading became intolerable, I risked venturing back, to reclaim my lost space. The guy had dozed off and this allowed me to reassert myself. As I enjoyed the sight of him drooling, I began to hear a peculiar Beep coming from his stomach. Perplexed, I listened intently. On further observation, I noticed a plastic cover wedged between his thighs and the seat. The cover bore a Biriyani packet. Now, you guys might question how I concluded it was a Biriyani packet? Well, having been living in the land of Biriyani for quite some years, I have a good knowledge on these things. I'm a kind of expert and you do not question the experts, do you? Anyway, the guy had a Biriyani packet with a beep sound emanating from it. Now, you needn't be an expert to see the anomaly here. A beeping Biriyani? As I tried to convey this turn of developments to my better half, she gave me the standard advice of “you having nothing to study does not mean I don't have” and went back to her books. Ok. So this guy has something fishy in his Biriyani( Fish Biriyani??:P). As the beep continued ceremoniously, I considered my options. I could complaint to the TTE (Train Ticket Examiner) about this suspicious character, but as the above mentioned was an endangered species in the Indian railways, I had to abandon that quest. I soon realized it was up to me to save the day.
As an expert in non combat, I decided to observe him further. His phone suddenly rang and he spoke in some mysterious language. Suddenly someone came and tapped his shoulder and he got up. He took the packet with him. As my wife moved onto her third book (an unofficial record, I guess), with my chief suspect on the loose, my mind refused to relax. Maybe he received a call from his handler. The beep in the packet dint augur well for anyone, but maybe, there was a change in plans and he had gone to get updated. He took his time to return and I had just started to doze off, when he seated himself aplomb with a suitcase in his hand. Hmmm. The plot thickened. Maybe, the suitcase was filled with sharpnels for ‘Deep impact’(Im a movie buff too:P). I began to become restless and wished I had never taken the journey. The beep still came regularly, confirming my fears. The guy suddenly turned towards me and asked," What time is it?" I quickly glanced to see that he had a watch. "10.02 am", I replied. He looked into his watch and confirmed. Of course, time was important for him. He was a pure professional, even if it was blowing trains up. I knew for certain that these were the last moments if my short 27 year life. I looked over to my wife who was busy scouring for last minute points. I thought of sharing my thoughts with her, but then decided, one has to do what one enjoys most in their last moments. Studying was her purpose of life, but still I couldn’t stop smiling at the irony, studying for an exam that she probably wouldn’t write. I briefly thought about my parents, brother , my close ones and slipped on my Nokia Lumia headset( I do not brag :P). Bryan Adams was blasting into his hit song "Heaven" , when I felt a movement beside me. It was a sudden, yet subtle movement. The movement of a man, who was in a hurry, yet dint, want to be noticed. I ever so slightly opened my eyes and saw my terror man, move forward in the compartment, with suitcase in his hand. He seemed to move with purpose. I grimaced. Here was my final moment, along with mine, the final moments of thousand unlucky ones who decided to travel on this fateful day. But they dint know, while I knew what was going to happen. Even my wife’s hand was intertwined in mine, she being fast asleep. I thought of all the happy memories I had in life. I quickly relived the whirlwind Sachin innings at Sharjah decimating Australia. Liverpool lifting the Champions league flashed in front of me. Minutes began to tick by.
Suddenly, my wife started shaking me...”Why are you all sweating? Whats the matter?" , she asked with genuine concern. I must have blacked out for a few moments cause the train had stopped.
I looked around. The tea vendor lazily asked me if I wanted banana fry. Dreamily, I bought 5(my standard number). As I was into my second banana fry, I looked out. In the station, just outside my window, stood my terror man. He was swinging a child, throwing him up and down. The boy was laughing, a lady next to him was holding onto his arm, dearly. My hitherto terror man, cold and calculated , turned into this stereotype Mallu father, a typical family man.
As the train slowly moved on, I saw him take out the Biriyani packet and hand it over to his son, who took it excitedly. As the train left the station, I could see all 3 of them walking hand in hand.
I was dazed. I had finished my 5 fries and still felt empty inside. Maybe, it was the guilt.
Beep.
The sound returned. As I meaninglessly stared ahead, my wife (who had started her 6th book) absently commented, " For heaven’s sake, please adjust the folding tray beside you. It’s been a nuisance since the start". "Nuisance??” I asked. “If you mean the beep..."
She cut my sentence half way through. “Squeak. That's how we call it", she said.
And that it was. A squeak sponsored by the Indian Railways, thanks to a loose folding food tray in my adjacent seat. I wedged a tissue paper into the lock of the tray and the beep (or the squeak as my wife says) stopped. The rest of the journey remained uneventful...
Bye all!
