Platform क्रमांक तीन

It was only after I sat down and made myself comfortable, did it really strike me. The privilege I was carrying around was far from innocuous. The sweatshirt read GAP in bold letters, and underneath it was a salmon-pink H&M shirt. The shoes & socks adorned the sign and brand of Nike, and the final strike below the belt was Levis. A bejewelled NRI. 

I was in a 3AC compartment of the Indian railways, travelling from Delhi, to Chandigarh on a pleasant Thursday afternoon. It had been a while since I had last commuted via a train in India, and that showed in the lack of expectation and mental preparedness I entered with.  The remaining six people around me had humble backgrounds (I could see it in their eyes) and their clothes smelled of simplicity. I at once knew the privileges, and riches I was travelling with, compared to them, and the majority of India. I had forgotten that most people who travelled in trains in India, came from lower-middle-class families, and used this mode out of compulsive necessity, and not with the knack to explore India’s grassroots – the mentality I was coming with. 

The previous two train journeys were back in two-thousand-and-nineteen. An overnight return to Delhi after a long, tiring day in Amritsar meant that I didn’t really get to interact and know the people that surrounded me. The penultimate one was during my return from Mumtaz’s tomb, and again the strenuous schedule put me to sleep as soon as I stepped foot in that bustling sleeper compartment. 

But this time it was different. I boarded at 2:30PM and had four hours to let India sink in, the real India. I turned to the uncle sitting next to me and asked where he was from. Kota, was his reply. He didn’t say a word more, a word less. I found this slightly strange, as people in trains, and India in general are quick to jump into conversations. I didn’t think too much of it though, and just tried to settle in. On any other journey, I would have surely turned to listen to music for a while, but given that this meant using my AirPods to add to my already bejewelled self, I decided against it. Somehow, it just didn’t feel right. 

As we moved through fields, I was establishing the family trees that existed in the compartment. There was a young couple with an adorable daughter, not more than three feet tall, but just right for her age – I found out a while later. Her maasi – her mother’s sister, was also accompanying us. The uncle next to me then started talking to a young girl lying down on the upper berth, her head resting against a sports bag. His daughter I presumed. I took the cue from the sports-equipment and tried to make conversation, for the second time – success ensued.

She was a badminton player, and a talented one too. Brought up in Kota, it was early in her childhood when her father, the middle-aged person I was talking to, decided to send her to Hyderabad. Despite being just 13, it had already been over two years since she was staying away from her family. Growing up around people of science, and the aura that they had created around it, I was under the false impression that “kids” only went to Hyderabad (and Kota for that matter) for their IIT preparation. But I was far from right, making this conversation capture my attention from the moment it was ‘tossed’ in the air – and I was gradually becoming one with the train environment.

Part of a dummy-school, she and the other hundred-odd talent mines would have to attend school and give their exams, just once a year. A replica of junior-college science preparation prior to undergrad studies, but fortunately they were passionate for what they were doing. Training during the day along with an evening slot, sandwiched between a healthy diet was what their schedule looked like. I then asked him what the cost of this entire endeavour was – a monthly expenditure of twenty-thousand INR to the training centre, was his reply. “That’s manageable”, was my ignorant response, and it was only after those words came out of my mouth did I realise my rookie mistake. He took that as a bait (unfortunately), and went on to explain how the extensive training wears out their shoes every few months; the racket-nets break every other time; and on top of this the additional expenditure of travelling to tournaments. In all of this, I had forgotten that this extremely talented badminton player, the supposed future of India, was travelling by train, to Chandigarh, all the way from Kota. An eleven hour journey, before taking part in an all-India competition. I couldn’t help but think of the additional tiredness that would add, and how it would affect her game adversely. Sure, Mihir, that’s manageable. 

That conversation died out naturally, and we all moved our attention to the next family. The four-and-a-half year old girl had a hairband with her hair cutely tucked in. It was around this time where she took her father’s phone and opened Snapchat. Browsing through the filters, she ‘ordered’ him to make different poses, and once she was satisfied with his performance, there was a role reversal. But pleasing her was much more difficult, as she made him hold the phone in different angles while she herself danced around until she was happy with the outcome. It was a beautiful sight, and experience, of how a small girl, far younger than everyone else in that compartment, had made technology her own, and brought a smile on all our faces, collectively. Gen-Z is it?

Chandigarh was approaching soon, and while I had boarded only four hours ago, the others had been there much longer. Train 12449: Goa Sampark Kranti Express, as the name suggests, was originating from Goa. Maasi, and her family, were returning home from their vacation, all the way in Goa. Thirty-Seven hours, one way, for a vacation. It’s hard for me to imagine that, let alone do it. And I guess it got to them as well, for in the dying stages of the journey, she and her husband treated us with a fight. I tried hard to not eavesdrop, but well we were in the same compartment, less than a feet away. I would be lying if I said I didn’t thoroughly enjoy it, but to make it less obvious, I interleaved it by making small-talk with the middle-aged uncle sitting next to me. Their sore relations were back to normal within minutes of that altercation, and once again I couldn’t help but smile. Human relations, and connections, especially in India, are so intricately woven, and even when they have seemingly broken, all it takes is another ‘selvage’ loop!

I got down from that train at half-past-six, and made my way home. A friend’s home, but well, home. The next forty-hours were spent in the abodes of two of my undergrad friends – relations that had grown and matured despite not having met them for the last twenty-four months. Filled with gratitude for being treated like one of their own by both sets of parents, I left with a warm and heavy heart on Saturday afternoon, back home, to Delhi.

It was a chair-car-train this time. The intimacy of having eight people sit in front of each other, in the same compartment, was absent. Besides, I was not in the mood, or the state of mind to socialise for the next four hours, at least not with strangers. Unknown to me, however, was the fact that food was going to be served during this journey. Surprise, Surprise! Smile, Smile!  The earliest (or rather the latest) memory I have of food being served in the train was that from two-thousand-and-seventeen, when I made the twenty-six hour train journey from Pune, to Delhi. Well, I can take long journeys for vacations, or at least I could. I remember a continuous and steady supply of different delicacies, and how my respect for the Indian Railways had escalated that day. That tradition was repeating itself on my way back from Chandigarh and the system (& the chefs) once again did justice to the praise they had earned from me four years ago! 

But this return-journey did not stand out for the food. About thirty minutes before reaching the New Delhi Railway Station, the train passed through one of the bazaars of old-Delhi. Sadar Bazaar. There were houses on both sides as the train crawled through the middle like a boat through a canal, while people looked down at us through their broken windows. Our eyes met, and then my eyes turned away to the ground beneath them. There was garbage, and much more. I’ve seen dirt, and some more on Indian roads, and abroad as well, but this was something different. I could spend thirty-seven-hours on a small patch, and yet not be done cleaning it. It is one thing for an area to be dirty, but it adds an entire different dimension when people are staying all around it. It made me sad, but more than that, for the first time in a long time, I felt I wanted to do something, however little, to make a difference in India. I don’t know what and how and if I will, but I know what I felt, and no one can take that away from me. 

The train slowed down right near that dirty patch, poetic in a lot of ways, and the bollywood-buff in me could only think of Swades. Maybe this was my Swades moment, and just maybe like the girl using her badminton equipment as a pillow, I won’t just sleep on my dreams..