The Train Stories.

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 :)