The Fountainhead in 4 days -- I
The auto-rickshaw swerved to an unceremonious halt outside the Secunderabad railway station, and I got out gingerly, tugging my weather-worn travel bag out from behind the seat before I paid the driver. (You always do that, just so he can't leave with your luggage as soon as he gets his fare.) The coolies that passed gave me disdainful glances at the lack of challenge that my luggage presented, and flitted away in their red outfits towards more promising travellers, not unlike scavenging birds in search of meaty carcasses. I pretended not to notice, hoisted my bag over my shoulder and walked to the enquiry queue to find out which platform my train was on.
A couple of minutes later, up and down two staircases, through a corridor overlooking the tracks, past a few beggars, there I was before the grand Falaknuma, my home for the next day-and-a-half (or so I thought then) till I got to Kharagpur, where I usually had anywhere from 1.5 hours to 15 minutes to catch a connecting train to Jamshedpur, where my family lived then. This time I was expecting my train to run a little late, because Orissa had just been hit by one of its annual cyclones. But what the hell, it happens every year. Nobody knows (or usually cares) what happens in that state, right. Most of it passes in the night, anyway - we usually get to Bhubhaneshwar (the state capital) by 11:00 am.
So at 4:00 pm on the 28th of October, 1999, I boarded the train and found my berth - a side upper, my favorite. No one asking you to get up so that they can pull out their middle berths to sleep on, no one asking to "share" seats till the next station. You get to do your own thing on the side upper. Unless you're six feet or taller, which I wasn't. So I took off my sandals, pushed them to one end, propped up my bag at the other, and lay down with my head on it, pulled out my Koti market copy of the Fountainhead and began reading. (You always lie down with as many of your body parts on top of your luggage as possible, so no one sneaks off with it at a stop. My bag and I had a symbiotic relationship: it served as my pillow, and my head on it kept it from changing owners.)
The train soon gave a gentle shudder, and the platform outside began rolling away. People stood in doorways and waved to their loved ones, who ran alongside the train just to prolong the moment of separation, addicted to the "sweet sorrow" of parting. Vendors of snacks and cheap magazines, coolies, the waifs who swept the compartments for a living, all hurriedly jumped off before the train gathered speed. But I had to get through at least five chapters before dinner, so I read on, lost in the stark world of Ayn Rand till I heard the crew member come around asking what each traveler wanted for dinner. (You always keep an ear pricked for this guy, especially if you're on a side upper, because sometimes he just walks right past and then your only hope is to get off and buy something on the platform, which is always risky - you could lose your wallet, or your luggage, or miss your train, or just buy bad food.)
But then I heard the guy speaking in English, rather loudly. And I heard a gruff voice reply, "I'll have the non-vegetarian, please. Yes, the egg curry, too, thank you." I looked up from my book to see that on the top berth opposite me, there perched, quite comfortably, a white man, lean and about 6' 7", in his twenties, bald, glasses. His neighbors were looking at him with curious but indulgent smiles, but he, seemingly oblivious, returned to his little travel guide. The Western tourist, I thought, hungry for the third-world experience. Good for him. I ordered my dinner, which arrived in due time. Night fell outside, and my train, the Sec'bad-Calcutta Falaknuma Express, cruised at a fair clip into the lesser known parts of Andhra Pradesh, ever nearing the Orissa border. About ten chapters into the book, I fell asleep, while the lights around me went out one after another, and the desultory conversations of the others sharing my compartment died down in the darkness.
That night into the wee hours of the morning, a massive cyclone struck Orissa, obliterating an entire village, destroying thousands of homes. The monster reared out of the Bay of Bengal days after its predecessor had sent in the first warnings.
....to be continued.
A couple of minutes later, up and down two staircases, through a corridor overlooking the tracks, past a few beggars, there I was before the grand Falaknuma, my home for the next day-and-a-half (or so I thought then) till I got to Kharagpur, where I usually had anywhere from 1.5 hours to 15 minutes to catch a connecting train to Jamshedpur, where my family lived then. This time I was expecting my train to run a little late, because Orissa had just been hit by one of its annual cyclones. But what the hell, it happens every year. Nobody knows (or usually cares) what happens in that state, right. Most of it passes in the night, anyway - we usually get to Bhubhaneshwar (the state capital) by 11:00 am.
So at 4:00 pm on the 28th of October, 1999, I boarded the train and found my berth - a side upper, my favorite. No one asking you to get up so that they can pull out their middle berths to sleep on, no one asking to "share" seats till the next station. You get to do your own thing on the side upper. Unless you're six feet or taller, which I wasn't. So I took off my sandals, pushed them to one end, propped up my bag at the other, and lay down with my head on it, pulled out my Koti market copy of the Fountainhead and began reading. (You always lie down with as many of your body parts on top of your luggage as possible, so no one sneaks off with it at a stop. My bag and I had a symbiotic relationship: it served as my pillow, and my head on it kept it from changing owners.)
The train soon gave a gentle shudder, and the platform outside began rolling away. People stood in doorways and waved to their loved ones, who ran alongside the train just to prolong the moment of separation, addicted to the "sweet sorrow" of parting. Vendors of snacks and cheap magazines, coolies, the waifs who swept the compartments for a living, all hurriedly jumped off before the train gathered speed. But I had to get through at least five chapters before dinner, so I read on, lost in the stark world of Ayn Rand till I heard the crew member come around asking what each traveler wanted for dinner. (You always keep an ear pricked for this guy, especially if you're on a side upper, because sometimes he just walks right past and then your only hope is to get off and buy something on the platform, which is always risky - you could lose your wallet, or your luggage, or miss your train, or just buy bad food.)
But then I heard the guy speaking in English, rather loudly. And I heard a gruff voice reply, "I'll have the non-vegetarian, please. Yes, the egg curry, too, thank you." I looked up from my book to see that on the top berth opposite me, there perched, quite comfortably, a white man, lean and about 6' 7", in his twenties, bald, glasses. His neighbors were looking at him with curious but indulgent smiles, but he, seemingly oblivious, returned to his little travel guide. The Western tourist, I thought, hungry for the third-world experience. Good for him. I ordered my dinner, which arrived in due time. Night fell outside, and my train, the Sec'bad-Calcutta Falaknuma Express, cruised at a fair clip into the lesser known parts of Andhra Pradesh, ever nearing the Orissa border. About ten chapters into the book, I fell asleep, while the lights around me went out one after another, and the desultory conversations of the others sharing my compartment died down in the darkness.
That night into the wee hours of the morning, a massive cyclone struck Orissa, obliterating an entire village, destroying thousands of homes. The monster reared out of the Bay of Bengal days after its predecessor had sent in the first warnings.
....to be continued.
posted by Sketchy Self at 10:03 AM
Your thoughts: 2
"addicted to the sweet sorrow of parting"... the specialty of indian railways and the whole package that comes with it is sure to fill one up with nostalgia. waiting for more...
Ha there you are... I did relive this with you under our rambha chettu/the tree in Vasavi, but not in this detail. Great!
Eagerly waiting
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