For someone who claims to love travelling, I must say I haven't travelled much.
Forget going out of the country I have not even been to the whole of South India to
begin with. All said and done, whatever little travelling I have done so far, more often than not, I have done it alone. My parents get
paranoid as hell every time I travel alone and insist I go in 2 AC or 3 AC.
Every time I travel by train I hope I would meet some interesting people
who would change my perspective about life or would give me some story which
would probably become base for some book I intend to write. But the truth is
such things never happen. Not in AC coaches at least. The reason being those
closed windows which don’t let you hear the sounds of the running train or the
hustle of railway stations and the curtains which are always drawn, making you
invisible to the person who is sitting next to you. The excitement of seeing your fellow passengers soon fades away as M 25 is clued to his
laptop, F 19 is lost in her cell or M 56 is snoring away to glory. (Yes, even if it
is just 8 PM).
While I understand there might be few of us who would want to read and
not liked to be disturbed but how about we put that book aside, pack that
laptop in, shut that phone for a while, look around, smile at people and
strike a conversation? For all you know, the 'real' life might be fun and
interesting too!
And this is what happened when I
did that. I helped a man reach his son who met with an accident.
A couple of months ago I was travelling from Hyderabad to Bangalore.
After all the drama my family created when they came to drop me off at the
station, I was more than happy to get to my berth. I plugged my charger, put my
phone for charge, took out a book and went to the upper berth. I immediately drew
the curtains off and marked my territory. But after a while the AC stopped
working and the train halted at some random place for really long time. I got
down and sat on the lower berth only to realise that the
other passengers were fast asleep and it was only 10. I looked around
and saw a man working. 'Is that a laptop?’ I asked, knowing clearly that it was
not a very good question to ask to strike a conversation. He looked up and said
'yes' with a straight face and went back to working. I knew that was the end of
the conversation with him. After a while he opened his food box and offered me
some probably after realising that I have been staring at his food. I smiled
and declined even though I could eat up the entire contents of that box. After a bit of talking
we established that one of my classmates from college is married to
his nephew. (God! the world is really a small place). He immediately took out
his phone and dialled his nephew's number. Awkwardly I took the phone and spoke to her after god knows how
long. I gave her my number and hung up.
At around 1 in the night when I couldn’t sleep I took out my cell and
saw few missed calls from some new number. It was from that classmate who was
trying to reach that uncle but couldn't, to inform him that his son had met with
an accident. I woke him up and gave him the phone. A gazillion worried calls later;
he found that his son was doing okay. The next morning he thanked me for
whatever little help I did and left.
Now, this might not be one of those life changing incidents, but I
realised the 'train stories' we all look for, happen only when we open that
curtain and say a little 'hello' to people around. So, next time when you are
in a train, look around. Maybe you will find someone like me sitting across trying to make a
conversation :)
