SBC ....MAS....Adyar

I was coming back from Bangalore to Chennai on the "Weekend Express" . Both words deserve to be in quotes because the train spills over its journey into the next week by a few hours and also its not an express ... there are stops at unknown places for unknown reasons for long intervals .

For this journey , I was suprisingly well prepared ... the to and return tickets were with me ; I had packed in a couple of extra undies , and hankies ; I even remembered to take all the stuff dad asked to get ! Considering my earlier misadventures with tickets ( tore both to and return tickets thinking they were used once ! ) and losing things like umbrellas ,credit cards and mobiles ... this was far better .

That was a fair introduction to fickle me ... a part of me , mind you ! Anyway , I was at the station on time and in my compartment . The lights were off and someone was in my "bed" (second sleeper) , I presumed . Then I resisted shaking the man / woman .... no it was a man , awake .An old voice came out of nowhere , asking me "yendhe seat number , sir? " . I looked around in the dark and saw the old man lying down on the middle berth on the left hand side of the compartment and wondered why he should bother . Anyway, he made me think out aloud , and I figured out that the upper berth above the RAC seats was mine and got on unceremoniously .


Wearing a pair of leather shoes of an unacknowledged brand "Lycostyle" worth 2k (bought at Spencer's), a Levi's worth 1.4 k at B'lore and a shawl to keep warm , I tried stretching out . But to my dismay , found the berth short even for a 5 '8 me ! Hmm , must have been a cost - cutting measure , the software engineer inside me said . That made me smile and triggered memories of office . It kept me occupied for sometime as "multiple threads of executions " were spawned ( many thought processes were running in my brain at that time ) and as if many "goto" statements were coded , I switched context rapidly between events , ideas and people . As this was going on , my body was still uncomfortable with the cramped space and the already switched on fan , enhancing the chill in the air . My shawl was like a thin wrapper around a bulky "Active X " struggling in its container executible . And if this is a bad comparison , you won't believe the stuff people dole out at work ( s/w ) as if its a piece of art ! Anyway , coming back to the chill , it was especially annoying because my throat was itchy and the bag (which doubled up as my pillow on travels ) bumpy . I thought , this was going to be another one of many sleepless nights I 've spent in trains and buses and a sleepy one at work / college the next day . The simplest solution I thought would be to turn off the fan and sleep peacefully . I just bent over like a mountaineer and reached out to try the switches under my berth . Then made use of the "Diet " mineral water bottle and managed to turn on a light , luckily nobody was awake at that time ... found the right switch and gradually the high pitched sound of rotating fan blades stopped . All the fans in my compartment went off ! There were 3X2 + 1 passengers other than me in that compartment . Obviously , there was a bug in the switching system or the design and anyway I didn't think anyone would mind the lack of chilling cold ! So , I settled down to a better rest .
After an hour or so , my half sleep was interrupted by one of the old ladies who was in a lot of clothing meant for the cold (sari + sweater + bedsheet etc) . "Who turned off the fans ? " she asked in a accusatory tone directed to all there . All responded negatively , I guess they were in varying stages of sleep . And I lay there still , wondering if they would find out . I guess one of them found out , but I didn't move , I just lay there ... in self righteous comfort . One of them got up and flicked on one of the switches near to their end ... and again a surprise , only their fans came on and mine remained unaffected ! So , "All's well that ends well " I said and drifted back to half sleep .

At 8 am the train reached Chennai Central . The latest I ve reached in an overnight journey by this train . " Not my lucky day " I thought as my eyes scanned the crowd for some sign of a pretty girl . I walked the long walk from S8 to the entrance/exit of "Central" dodging the coolies and a maruadi kid and his mother who were approaching me like a WWF tag team ... holding hands and moving in for a "clothesline ". They split and rejoined behind me . Carrying on beyond the auto guys (who don't bug me nowadays surprisingly) and into the subway , I noticed a wave of people . This wave was like a "compression - rarefaction" kind of wave , the way sound travels . People were moving up two alternate stairs to exits from the subway . One was closer to the bus stand maybe by 15-20 m . Most went this way , at half the speed the other group was going , but with double the number of people . I took the lighter path and avoided touching anyone or breathing into anyone's face for obvious reasons .


I expected the bus stand to be crowded and spashy like the last time ... but it was dry and buses were moving around easily unhindered . Thanks to the traffic cops who are functional at all times and at all places I go to . Sometimes I resent their presence but without them , it would be chaos . A college guy , from Kerala I guessed asked me the bus no. to Anna University . I told him the bus numbers . They carried on , with some other plan, probably an auto I thought . Anyway they were out of sight and a somewhat "empty " bus swerved in and stopped with the characteristic Chennai bus sound . Getting in , I found the all seats save the last filled . There were two columns of seats . The left side is meant for women , the front is meant for women and so I assumed that the back must be for men , or at least free for all . I sat down leaving one place empty , which a lady in her late thirties came to occupy . She looked at me with a vertical scan and said "Idhu ladies seatu "(this is a ladies seat ) . But I was wary of being taken for a ride , and replied " Yengiyo elidhilla , apdinu " (Its not written so anywhere ) . I don't know to read tamil , but clearly there was nothing written in that area , so it was a safe argument I thought . With some scorn , she asked "Madrasikku pudhusa ? " (new to Madras?) . I replied honestly "Oru varsham aachi , aanal idhu ladies seatinu yenakka yarume sollile"(Its been a year ,and nobody ever told me this was a ladie's seat ) .


She settled down next to me while her companion remained standing . Settling down , I thought "Abbada , thats enough friction for a day " . But no , someone must have heard me . A skinny girl entered the scene at the next stop with a brown stripes on white uniform and dumped a huge bag of books on me . I was shocked out of my wits ... "What do you want me to do with this ?" I asked , though it was pretty obvious madam was not in the habit of lugging her luggage like the way I used to in school . She said "Please hold my bag " , but to me it sounded wrong . She should have ideally said , "Can you please hold on to my bag " , or at least a gentle request instead. Anyway , it was in English I thought ... I could n't get the english speaking with school kids and college kids out of my system . She turned around and told her friend "Tamil therla polarku " (this guy doesn't know tamil I think ) laughing at my predicament . That made me a mixture of pissed off and embarassed . The conductor came in at that time and I asked him "Sir , Idhu ladies' seat aa?" (Sir ,is this a ladies' seat ?) . "Aaama"(Yes) he replied and I dumped the big back pack on my neighbour unintentionally ... I was so averse towards holding someone else's burden . Then saying the final "sorry" of the day (I decided) , I got up and stood the rest of the way until we reached Alwarpet ... somewhere near "Ramada Raj park " ,the only 4 star hotel I've stayed in . Sitting down , I reflected on the events and what I should have done . Alternate summaries and climaxes struck me , but that didn't happen and I was not going to make it happen on that day ! Let a different "me" in a parallel universe try it out , if he/she was led through the same series of events by chance /probability .

And that was the beginning of my day back in Chennai !