About train, journey and awaited destination

The train was speeding past some blurry stations. I was half asleep due to the last night of “peaceful gathering” that I had with my friends in Mumbai, half awake because of the gentleman sitting behind my seat who had to finish all his important telephonic conversations during the journey. It was a Monday morning and had it not been very, very essential for me to reach my workplace in Surat, it would have been impossible to push me into the A/c Chair-car compartment of the Shatabdi Express. Now, I don’t want to misguide you to think that I am some kind of party maniac who visits Mumbai on weekends to unleash the wild party animal that sleeps within him during the work weekdays. My purpose of visit was to meet up my family who has the privilege of residing in the ever-alive metro and to meet up few of the people I happen to call friends after my 21 years of existence in the metro before moving to Surat for work.

As I made myself comfortable in my window seat of the fastest mode of transport to Surat, I made some marvelous observations as well as some PhD material analysis. Here is the list of my analysis:

ü Most of beautiful specimen of opposite gender is always traveling by either the train before your train or by the one after yours.

ü The remaining few beautiful ladies will have to be placed in the coach either to your left or the one to your right.

However, defying my own research and to my pleasant surprise, I was privileged to have a fairly pretty lady as my companion for the next three hours. Not that I was going to astonish her by my charm or something, but it always feels good to have such company, even though it is just a superficial one. The lady placed herself at the seat beside me and hid herself into the complimentary newspaper which was lying on the seat on passenger’s arrival.

I was myself lost into the changes in the Indian economy and its impact on my client’s portfolio, trying to analyze every statement in the Economic Times. After all, being a Portfolio Manager in one of the reputed multi-national banks, I needed to keep myself updated to impress my clients with the knowledge that I possess and to make sure that my clients make profit from their investments and my bank makes profit from their future investments. Meanwhile, the pantry staff served us with Coffee and snacks.

After doing MBA, you tend to realize how you are surrounded by brands and how these brands try to be around you anywhere and everywhere. Right from the newspapers placed on the seats, to the “Nescafe”, “Everyday” and “Britannia Marie”, every brand was trying to woo the elite customers travelling in the fastest train on the route. After I finished reading the Economic Times which I always carried while travelling and the newspaper lying on my seat, I placed them at the pouch in front of my seat. That was when she turned to me and said – Can I have that newspaper, mine has coffee all over it.

Before you start concluding this as some sort of romantic love-story developing at 200 kmph, let me clarify that this was the only conversation I had with her. Partly because I was too sleepy to start a conversation, partly because I knew it was too much of effort and the results would not justify the efforts (when you are MBA, you tend to use cost-benefit analysis for possibly everything in life).

After knowing every detail about the financial condition of my country, I thought I would rest a while as it was another hour and forty minute for my destination to arrive. As my heavy pupils were about to find company of each other, I suddenly heard a loud roar of “Kyun Paisa Paisa karti hai”, the latest Bollywood music fortunate to be the ringtone of a gentleman who was an Auditor of Railway Services traveling by the train. Not that we had a formal introduction, or that I was eavesdropping on his conversation, it was the sheer level of sound at which he conversed that increased this trivia of entire coach. The gentleman had a problem with the fact that he was offered Cutlets with less green peas in the train and was determined to file this in his audit report. As the gentleman tried to raise his voice to one of the biggest problems which our nation faced currently “depletion of green peas from cutlets”, I struggled to find sleep in my seat as we passed another station in the train. The gentleman had his vigorous discussion on phone for another 15 minutes and then decided that rather than involving someone half asleep in his bed and waiting for action to happen, he should take matters in his own hand to solve this major crisis that he had discovered. Thus, he called up a Pantry guy and asked him to bring the “Complaint Book”. The pantry guy offered to provide assistance to solve the issue at hand by providing another cutlet with extra green peas. The next 10 minutes were devoted to the heroic speech of gentleman mentioning that it was not a matter of him getting the green peas. He was fighting for greater good, not a green pea for him, but green peas for everyone. Before the pantry guy could revive from the first blow that the gentleman had given him, in came another blow. The gentleman queried why he was not given an option for choosing between Upma and Cutlet, why was his democratic right of choice taken away and why the cutlet was forced upon him by the pantry dictators. The discussion went on for another 20 minutes post which they ended up in a truce of providing complimentary juice to the entire coach. Thus, due to our valorous hero, we received what mankind had always been fighting for, Mango Juice.

All these events had consumed half of my journey as the train halted at Vapi, the only stop between Mumbai and Surat. The lady besides me had already consumed her third cup of coffee and was now reading the Bollywood section of her “borrowed” newspaper. I decided against dozing off now, lest I miss out my stop and lose my job due to absence in the meeting with the regional head which started at 11 a.m. on the same day. Moreover, my sleep had dropped its guns against the courage and the zeal that the gentleman in the seat behind me had portrayed.

One unique thing about your body once you start working is that it schedules itself according to your daily schedule. Thus, as we crossed Vapi and also my regular waking up time, my body-clock started sending my alarm for a very important activity. I usually avoid using Publicly available human-waste disposal units for the simple reason that more often than not, I have found that the waste has been disposed in the units but has not been disposed from the units. Thus, I tried to practice self-control to avoid confrontation with something unexpected and unpleasant. While I was trying to manage my own problems, a team of three entered the coach to get “feedback” from us regarding the problems we were facing in the train. It was an external survey agency appointed by Indian Railways to get feedback on service levels in Shatabdi and Rajdhani trains in the country so that they can improve their services. While the gentlemen conducting the survey entered from the backside and explained how our feedback was important and how it would take just few minutes of our time, I was deciding between the temptation to be tension-free and the ordeal of facing specimen of other people’s release of tension.

The survey gentlemen gave the activist at the rear another opportunity to spill out his plight. As I took the survey sheet, more to divert my mind than to help the government improve, I realized that the survey was focused on the hygiene in the train and in the toilets of the train in specific too. So, after completing the survey in the next two minutes, I set out to help the railways get a feedback on how clean or unclean their toilets were. As I reached the doors of the toilet, I could almost hear harps playing in the background. I pushed the door with the sign “western toilet” to find that the heaven was already occupied by another angel. I waited for my turn, feeling like the “slumdog” actors waiting in queue for their turn while there seemed to be a regular appearance of people in and out of the opposite side door bearing the sign “Indian Toilet”. After waiting for 10 minutes in reality but which felt like eternity at that time, in that position, I was caught in a Catch 22 Situation. Should I wait at this door for the gentleman/ lady to exit or should I go across the coach to avail the facility at the far end? I decided to stand my ground, partly having known the “Queue Principle” (the queue that you are in always moves slower) and partly because it would take lot of energy to move across the coach and I would not want the potential energy within me to turn into kinetic before I reach the intended destination. After another 300 seconds had passed by, I called out the pantry guy and drove his attention to the door which had been lying closed since the creation of mankind. I showed my concern for the person within, after all, we do not know what kind of effect the poisonous gases within that gas chamber might have had on the poor occupant. The pantry guy very casually replied – Sahab, ab hum andar jaakar thodi dekh sakte hai. Koi hoga bina ticket wala, seedha Surat ya Baroda pe hi niklega.

After having lost around 20 minutes of my time and realizing that my wait might prove to be unproductive, I gathered courage to move back into my coach, walk all across it and reach the other end. As I reached my destination which had the same sign as the starting point of my Journey “Western Toilet”, I would have done a Somersault and a split had I not been restrained by my hassled status and lack of flexibility. THE DOOR WAS OPEN and the toilet was CLEAN. As I fastened the latch of the door, the speaker in the toilet blared out – We are shortly arriving at Surat. Disheartened, shattered and discomforted I reached my seat quickly, took my baggage and without even glancing the lady who was still placed at her earlier position, I walked towards the exit. It is very surprising how somethings which attract us at most times in our life lose their importance when you are placed in certain peculiar situations. This is what I term as “LAW of PRIORITIES”.

As my train applied brakes, I realized that my ordeal was not over yet. The train had halted just outside Surat station waiting for a green signal to enter its destination. However, it was very difficult to stop everything via signals, and I was trying to do the same. I wondered if wearing a red underwear would have helped! After another five minutes and lot of meditation and yoga during these minutes, I placed my feet on Surat station platform. Without looking around or waiting for the train to halt completely, I made my way through the rush of passengers towards the Rickshaw stand and got into a rickshaw. Without wasting time over bargaining, I placed myself in a Rickshaw only to find the Rickshawwallah answering – Gas nahi hai, koi dusra rickshaw pakad lo. The word “GAS” seemed to be a bit louder than usual. I got down and got in another rickshaw, which was being operated by a gentleman who seemed to be as ancient as civilization itself and his rickshaw just a bit younger than him. Thus, we set on the roads of Surat at a turtle pace. It took colossal effort to provoke the rickshawwallah to accelerate and my body did not permit me to strain myself to that extent. Thus, I sat quietly watching birds overtake the rickshaw as it “paced” on the flyovers of Surat. Finally, I reached my rented premises in Surat. Without waiting to discuss price, I paid an additional Tenner to the rickshawallah and rushed to open the lock of my house. Finally, I had reached HOME SWEET HOME…