I seem to enjoy a special relationship with the trains of the Indian
Railways, for most of my train journeys always yield a memorable result—at
times very amusing and at times dearly painful. Over the decades I must’ve
spent quite a few
sleepless nights on various
railway station platforms thanks
to the delayed schedules or
freak/serious mishaps on various tracks or my
missing a train or the connecting trains, not to mention other sleepless nights
I spent on board looking to get a
reservation on the way that never came my way!
I meet various interesting people on most of the journeys that make my journeys
delightful or rather irritating depending on their quality, and most
importantly most of those precious guys end up becoming my characters in my
short or mini stories (most of which you can find in my various published collections
of short stories. A few remain here too!)! Now, I invite you on board a train
for a brief journey I undertook recently which actually doesn’t qualify for a
memorable one by any of its revealed elements, but it does have an interesting
angle that is somewhat unique to my varied experiences.
As I mentioned the
journey that started around noontime and was to reach the destination early
next morning was in no way extraordinary and it didn’t present my wife and I
with any difficulty or bad company as we got our good confirmed seats in the
same compartment and except for a government officer who was shifting to a new
posting there was no other people there for quite some time. And yes, the
officer was very nice and immensely companionable. Obviously he had considerable
luggage, but he adjusted efficiently not to inconvenience us. We spent several
enjoyable hours together having our teas and the delicious meals offered by the
Indian Railways pantry cars on some of its frontline express trains. After
lunch the officer retired to his upper berth and accordingly as there was no
other seating passenger my wife spread the bedsheets on her lower berth to have
good afternoon nap. I occupied the other lower berth opposite to hers and I was
spending the time looking out of the glass window—a pleasure I often indulge in
whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Maybe by early evening I
dozed off, for a commotion jerked me out of my drowsiness. It was not actually
a commotion, the train only halted at a station and a new passenger was
boarding. He was a young man of maybe twenty-something age and medium height,
however, his small head housing the face was almost invisible amid the
unnaturally huge bulk his body carried downward. He’s extremely overweight, I
pondered, but it looks abnormal and there must be a clinical reason for his
literally bloated fat-laden physique. It reminded me of the Sholay-famed veteran actor Amjad Khan
who suffered from a disease of unnatural fat and eventually succumbed to it at
his prime.
I was immediately
responsive to the young man and sat up on the berth creating enough space for
him to sit down. He thanked me, and asked his attendant to put his backpack on
the berth above me. Then he prepared to ascend the upper berth, perhaps he
wanted some rest.
The process was extremely
painful to behold. The young man was unable to find the right foothold to
ascend even as the attendant tried his best, and obviously he was not able
enough to possibly lift the immense torso up. The officer at the opposite berth
woke up in the meantime and noticed the mechanics of the ascent. He advised the
young man to come in-between the berths and use his arms to push himself up
resting his feet at the edge of my wife’s lower berth. I watched on even as the
young man finally succeeded in lifting his body up flexing his both arms, and
then suddenly I got very scared.
The stainless steel
chains creaked at both the joints holding the upper berth as he slowly pushed
himself up, and sitting down at the lower berth I watched in horror. The upper
berth visibly curved downward and moaned like the hoofs of the oxen under
tremendous pressure as the young man was finally able to place himself on it. I
shot a quick glance at the officer who too was looking up and down concerned at
the proceedings, trying to disguise my terror with an amused grin.
Involuntarily, I started sliding to the inner fibre wall of my berth tilting up
my knees so that should the upper berth crash down it’d catch my legs first rather
than the precious head.
However, I was sure the
Railways would never allow that kind of a freak accident and all the upper
berths must’ve been firmly and powerfully chained up testing all kinds of
weights on them beforehand. And lo! I was safe, nothing untoward happened!
But we are all ordinary
mortals and the scares would never really disappear permanently. Therefore, the
berth-crashing scares came back two more times that night: by late evening when
the young man went for a leak break and ascended; and then ascended for the
third time after having a late dinner at some other passenger’s seat perhaps. I
held to my defending leg-positions on both the occasions, and thanks to the
Railways nothing untoward happened. We also took up a conversation with the
young man inquiring after his well-being and if he’d taken dinner or not.
During our dinner time
when the young man was not there the officer confided to me in a hushed tone,
“Good God! I was really worried the berth was going to crash down!” I gave him
a reassuring smile.
I had good night’s
sleep despite the huge weight rolling and tossing around in the berth above,
for the weight on my mind got considerably reduced by the display of the strength
of the Indian Railways!
