At the very outset, let me pay respect to the 1978 movie "Gaman", directed by Muzaffar Ali (his first movie), rarely has there ever been a movie which is summarized by a single song.... "Seene me jalan aankhon me toofan sa kyon hai.."
I spent 3.5 hrs waiting for a train the other day.... 3.5 eventful hours, if I might add.. It amazes me as to how much you can learn by way of observation... by merely blanking out all your frustrations about the Indian railway's lethargy, about the indifference of the platform announcers and the frustration of not being where you ought to be... If only we would see things the way they are, instead of the way we want them to be... we'd see so much more...
I saw that we are all hypocrites, by nature.... in the comfort of an armchair, we'd cry foul at the way our system is rotting through corruption... but on a platform in Surat station at 1 am, knowing that the train is "indefinitely" late, we wont blink twice before offering a Rs.100 bribe to the ticket checker for a ride on some other train...
I saw the importance of an onion... There was this old guy on the platform that night... Legs too frail to support him any more... by day, he might be a beggar pushing himself around on an improvised cart... by night, he was an inspiration... You see, he'd got hold of this onion from somewhere... and he was trying to keep it safe for the life left in him... in the half hour that I observed him, he must have twitched a dozen times, each time making sure that his treasure was safe in his torn pockets... I'd never know what he planned to do with that onion... but I will surely think about him, every time I waste food on my plate....
I realized a word that pretty much defines the state of this nation... "Adjustment".... I wait for this train (Avadh Express) for 3.5 hours... It finally comes to a different platform (unannounced by the platform announcers)....I cry foul... but I adjust... I board in to see that three guys have already squatted on my seat and enjoying a sleep that was supposed to have been bestowed to me... What do I do? Be a hero and wake them up... show them their place on the floor and climb on to my heavenly abode? Nah...I adjust... I find one more place, that was thankfully vacated at Surat station, and perch myself in.... I hear people talking around me, in dialects I've only heard in the movies... That night, a Tamilian felt as if he were in the middle of Uttar Pradesh, inside that train stationed in Gujarat... and he adjusted quite well, thank you...
I did not see many families that night in the S1 compartment of Avadh express... I saw men... band of brothers.... who had left their families back in the Hindi heartland and were going towards the unwelcoming city of Mumbai.... with a dream of being better than what they already were... with a dream of traveling back to their villages and towns, one day, on a confirmed ticket... Because, not all Tamilians are of adjusting nature inside Avadh express...
Last but not the least, I saw that you cannot stop the human spirit by installing a barricade of parochialism.. You can turn a tide, into a trickle... but a trickle shall remain, nonetheless.... No one can show a man, a promise of a better life... and then prevent him from trying to have it... I dearly hope that Mr. Thackeray reads this...
And after seeing all this.... I slept...
