The VIP Brat: A Study in Contrast!

Here we’re talking about only two compartments inside a particular AC 2-Tier coach in a particular daily train under the Indian Railways that departs a particular originating station at around noontime and reaches the destination city early morning the next day. The train is popular because it is superfast and always on time. That fateful noon too, the train was ready for boarding about one hour before departure. We cut to the inside of that particular coach having those two compartments for our contrasting study. Two elderly couples were in a state of considerable distress. One of them, both technically senior citizens, had been allotted two upper berths and the husband was at his wits end how to proceed, because his wife was being taken for check-up after surgeries in both of her knees—she could hardly walk and her climbing up the berth was a sheer impossibility. The husband was also on the wrong side of the sixties, but he thought he could manage the climbing once he managed a lower berth at least for his wife. Luckily for him, he found a much younger but understanding passenger who was traveling alone and agreed to adjust his lower berth for the lady.

In the next compartment another elderly couple, the husband being a genuine senior citizen and his wife approaching the landmark fast, was sulking apart from being distressed since early morning when the Railway text message came informing them that they were allotted one lower berth and a side upper berth—the lower berth at the third compartment of the coach and the other berth at the end. The husband always hated that side upper berth even in his younger days, because he always found it inconvenient and awkward to climb up. In consultation with his wife he decided not to take the risk of climbing up that berth at this age, and they both agreed to share the lower berth for the night. However, the expected arrival of the TTE infused them with some hope, maybe he’d be able to do some adjustments.

Since the husband of the first couple had his second upper berth in the next compartment he came presently to deposit his backpack there, and glanced at the other passengers. Noticing the dejected yet surrendered second couple he approached them with the usual pleasantries. And eventually they shared their stressful stories of the Indian Railways trying to despatch them up, rather too early!

The husband of the second couple observed ruefully, “You know! The advanced computerized booking system doesn’t bother at all about our age or physical attributes, they allot the berths as they come. And the human fellas behind the system always express their helplessness! Some progress!”

“Still, perhaps the TTE can help if some berths can be adjusted! This lower berth opposite yours is not yet occupied.” the other senior citizen opined.

Whatever hope they had of some adjustments evaporated that very moment as two servile attendants escorted a young boy of about eighteen years of age and right royally installed him on the very lower berth they talked about.

Wife of the second couple made a cardinal mistake sometime after the spectacle. Acting upon her motherly instinct she addressed the boy sweetly, asking him if he could mind climbing up the side upper berth for the sake of people older than his parents, and only for the night. She got a snub with the most brutally shortened and abrupt ‘no’. Her husband murmured, “Don’t make such terrible mistakes, my dear lady! Do you think any sensible human being would ever agree to give up a lower berth that ensures a window seat for a godforsaken upper berth, that too on the sides?”

The TTE did come eventually. As expected, he expressed his total helplessness to help against the wishes of the master computers. He made no promise of adjustments as he moved on to check the other berth-takers.

For the rest of afternoon and the evening Railway staff and uniformed catering pros kept on coming to the boy asking him about his comfort and entertaining him with his food preferences. At every major station halt multiple food packets arrived for him, and occasionally he brought up a pal from somewhere to share the food as both of them devoured in blissful and merry oblivion.

The attendants came again to make sure he sleeps well and in full comfort for the night. Much earlier than that everybody in the coach knew he was the son of some high-ranking railway officer.

The VIP brat lay down full stretch and luxuriously on the berth surfing his mobile phone even as the senior citizen of the first couple left his handicapped wife behind and laboriously climbed up to the upper berth above the brat. While the second couple moaned and groaned throughout the night as they tried to accommodate themselves in reverse positions on the single lower berth and struggled to find their respective leg and torso spaces. In one of his countless toss-n-turns the husband made what he thought a devastating comment, “No! human fellas behind the computerized booking system are not as helpless against their master computers as we thought! Human intervention is still possible and exists for every single train in the country! However, this intervention works only for the VIPs or the VVIPs or their respective brats! No wonder, at what ease the other VIP brats drive their dads’ imported SUVs and keep on mowing down, maiming and killing useless commoners like us at will!” 

Nostalgia: Indian Railway Canteens and Meals!

Today I just happened to read a news item regarding a Mumbai railway canteen which is serving only biscuits and samosas due to policy decisions. And, suddenly all the nostalgia came surging back to me!

Call it fate or coincidence, in the late eighties and early nineties I used to miss the connecting trains on my journeys from Mumbai to Guwahati almost always getting stranded at Howrah. But during my nights at the second class waiting room floors I used to have sound sleep, Because, I always had the sumptuous thali (rice plate) at the Howrah railway cafeteria. All the varieties were there--vegetarian, fish curry plate, egg curry plate or the chicken thali. The food was homely, innocent and always tasty. To make matters ecstatic, I was ravenously hungry on all the occasions!

Not only at Howrah, all of the railway canteens anywhere in India appealed to my gastronomic mind hugely. They looked so welcoming and appetizing. It was a comfort zone, almost a home where you can barge in with all your luggage, relax and have a wholesome homely tasty meal. The service was good too. Even now I long for them. Get nostalgic about them. I have been missing them for a long long time and hope the delights are there still.

Maybe the nostalgia has a lot to do with my basic characteristics. While on long train journey I used to be very healthy and hungry. So I always enjoyed the food offered in the trains--particularly the rice plates for lunch and supper. I used to wait impatiently for them to arrive at my seat and had them immediately. When Ragini was around with me things were little tricky! She was my opposite, almost loathing the thalis. She used to just peck on it and so normally only one thali had to be ordered for the two of us. And so, with the warm attractive thali in front of me, I had to wait for her to make up her mind to finally have it or even I had to woo her telling how exciting the items looked and that it was always justice to eat while the food was still warm! You see, though my urge was overpowering, I was not so selfish to start devouring before my wife joined me!

Are you getting ready for the Indian Railway Thali or are you just plain bored?