Wednesday, August 19, 2009

And down goes another train....


Read in the papers today that Bihar youths burnt some coaches of a train after they were denied permission to board without a ticket.... I was surprised actually.. Not by the fact that somebody torched a train but that someone in that train had the guts to stand up to these guys.
As far as I remember trains passing through Bihar have always invoked thoughts..serious ones at that...and discussions across the dinner table. What if someone tells you to give them your seat? Or if someone says its their "right" to travel without a ticket as they are daily passengers? Or how about when someone asks somebody who is merrily sleeping (or even pretending to do so) to get up or else...
The answer to all the above question, according to my mom is "you oblige baba...Why should you create more problems talking to hooligans?" Hmm..well so far even I think that is true. Haven’t actually found any evidence to the contrary.
Once my sister had said something to some college kids in a Benaras bound train...and they retorted back to my parents...that my mom n dad should teach us how to behave. And when these things don’t work for them they use the age old...respect-your-elders-coz they-are-so-frail tactics. This elderly couple got on Purba Express and started crying that they are only going to travel for 2 hours and the people on the train are so uncourteous that they cant even offer the lady a seat. Needless to say, people did give them their seat..and as expected they travelled just 6 hours more than what they had promised... No big difference of course...
I should not feel badly towards any part of the country (hulllllohhh!!! I’m staying in Shiv Sena land). But I think they should draw the line somewhere. We pay the tickets for our nice, comfortable journey..and in emergencies I’m sure that more than half the people on any train would come to help them. Maybe someone can tell them the story of the boy who cried wolf...
PICTURE COURTESY: THE HINDU

1 comment:

  1. OMG Shohini! This blog of urs has gushed a bagful of those train journeys wich I took as a kid... First of all, lemme tell u, m a fan of ur blogs big timmmee!!! Gr8 goin gal:)
    Yeah so the memories... First of all the Bihar bound trains... I've spent all my childhood in Jabalpur in MP n vacation (dat too 4 times a year)only n only meant one thing- catching the first class compartment as i cudnt see the 'badamwala' in the ac coaches(trains had it earlier) of the Bombay-Howrah Mail n goin to Kolkata. The 'n' no. of times I've travelled on the same route, the other thing wich was common apart from the train always being a minimum of 5-6 hrs late(max was 36hrs once), was the turmoil wich all of us predominently 'Prabashi Bangali' passengers of the train faced was crossing BIHAR!!! The compartment doors were closely shut once we crossed 'Meena' which was at the border of UP and Bihar. Windows shutters were pulled down n wat not. But still sum bunch of villagers with a few hulkish men wud knock on the door... Wen sumone refused, he/she'll get a threat, 'Train bihar se nikalne deni hai ki nahi???' My dad being a sturdy Defence guy, used to be the only solace of the other families in the compartment but he was also concerned about the mob hysteria... But I also remember dis incident wen a train had derailed near a small place called Billi Junction(yeah there is a place by dat name)in then Bihar n now Jharkhand area. Our train was halted at sum deserted area near the village for more than 14hrs. The pantry was out of stock... It was summers so even water scarcity was a problem as well... At around 10.45pm we heard sum pounding noises on our coupe's door. We kids wer panicked, our Dad opened the door n we saw a middle-aged couple with two cane baskets in their hands which has these plates of food n their two kids had a surahi with chilled water. They served us with the food n water n dint charge a single penny for it. I still remember that humble but lifesaving meal of daal, rice, sattu parathas, chokha n dhaniya chutney. So yeah, Indian Railways has always been a part of my memories...Thanx for refreshing them:)

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