Special Feature

Of the many obvious benefits of traveling, the opportunity to converse with people coming from different cultural backgrounds, speaking a variety of vernaculars, beholding a wide-range of occupations and inherently of uncommon tastes and interests.

No doubt-traveling is learning.
Like many wanderers, I too love traveling. Having spent more than 4 years in India as a student I have had a repeated chance to jump on and off the train, during vacations. Each and every trip-towards and away from my homeland has been a unique experience in itself.

Unlike the previous chapters, this recent journey of my return to Bangalore from Nepal, has an entirely different meaning- a mark worth a discussion. Strangled by the unending strike in Nepal, I somehow managed to reach the station before train did.

The train arrived. The quiet, asleep crowd suddenly went wild to break into the resting engine. Unlike the local buses, here each alive being is allotted an independent berth. Yet, people just can't stop themselves of waiting while, they rather go violent like a pack of dogs fighting for a piece of bone.
I, a would-have-been 'dog' remained distinguished from the pack because as I told- the strike had already snuffed life out of me. Climbing in at last, I quietly sat next to an old man wearing big, thick spectacles. Tired and awake the whole of previous night I preferred to go on a date with my dreamgirl.
A jerk by the old man revealed, no dream, no date- I was only semi-dead on the berth while the long-hand had already run 3 rounds. Just as I tried to take another nap, a splash of water-'mud-water' slapped the man lost on the seat close to the window. “Holi hai” shouted a pack of multi-coloured monkeys. A festive of religious notion mixed with colour powder celebration, has over the time remixed into a fight of engine oils, paint, mud and other toxic-permanent hues. The man rushed into the bathroom, with grumbles flying louder than the sound of water.
Following, wherever inside the running train, the breaking news hit, windows were sealed. I say-'the Holi impact'. But, unaware I was of the upcoming bigger impact. This owner of big, thick specs, was only a 24/7 news channel.
“Hello! Where are you from?” -began the probably never-ending monologue.
'Bang-a-lore', I stretched, reluctantly.
“Ah! A beautiful place”, he added. “A dream city”, he multiplied.
“After 48 years of service in the British Airways, on my return to India, I spent a month at the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.”
“Why did you go to the UK?” I asked.
“I was an aeronautical engineer. I left for the UK in 1952 and retired in 2000. Then came back to India.”
Though curious, I decided to not ask more about his whereabouts.
A non-interactive brat by nature, I opened a magazine and …
“Tell you what, life in the foreign is not as warm as in India. The whites are seemingly intelligent, over-confident and 'self-absorbed greeds'. I rather judge them as ignorant and narrow-minded than the Indians.”
“Self-concerned souls, I am not discriminating. No matter we are less literate, illiterate-we make better humans”, he shattered.
“Where are you from?”
“Nepal”, I said.
“A dreamland-that's it, nothing more”, he rounded off the nation's beauty into two words.
“I'm basically from Lucknow, but bred at Calcutta. So I can speak Hindi, Bengali, English and now a little Spanish.”
He then stretched his palms into one of his many bags and discovered a small book. I thought, in Spanish.
“A lyrics book of Kishore da's evergreen songs”, he smiled, alone.
Our, monologue, in English had already hooked all neighbouring eyes on us.
“Rhimjhim gire saawan”, he brayed. I would have died of not breathing, if tried a little more to not laugh. With me, burst the entire congregation of passengers in the compartment.
Followed another impact. A mentally-challenged personality, in the adjacent compartment bit a man who had tried to poke him. Soon everyone rushed to the scene expecting a replay of the bite.