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"We deserve a break"

During the last few years, I have had the privilege of travelling across the lengths of this country, some backed by solid reasons, others on flimsy excuses of sickness. Over these journeys, I have come to realize that the few train journeys, the long distance ones, offered me the quiet moments that I missed. For the outside world, I was moving, working, but for me, the journey stretching across two nights was therapeutic.

"All these people!! Bah”

When you listen (I generally listen, I like it that way) to the chatter around you for 20 hours you come to realize how ideas manifest themselves. How everyone around you are as confused about what they are doing as you are. How each one of them have a theory for what is wrong with the world and how most of them are as right as they are wrong. How for the next 20 hours you are stuck with these people and finally think about why the word "stuck" came to your mind and how by default, you decided not to like someone.

"Oh dear!! Two days with them”

To stop judging people around you is very very very difficult. The worst, in my view, is judging your co-passengers. They might not feature in your pages ever again. These journeys throw light on a lot of prejudices you harbour, makes you see how stupid you are to have them. Based on some observations, I realize, most of us, including me decide some are more agreeable than others. The whimsical prejudices are.Ok..(" I don't like your face :P" ones) but there are others and we all know what those are. I don't want to pass these prejudices on to the next generation. Cultural prejudices once formed, are hard to wheedle out, and the society doesn't let them die. These days, when faced with something I don't like, I ask myself, "so what?"

"Maybe I should book AC next time...."

I work in an air conditioned cubicle everyday,10 hours, amid fake smiles, resigned smiles, devious smiles, knowing smiles, sad smiles, helpless smiles, hapless smiles, creepy smiles, 12 hours on some days. I go back home empty, spent mentally and physically. Here, I see a daughter talk to her father, a mother speak to her son because the phone has run out of charge, the delight of a six year old on finding out she has the sole ownership of the corridor and also some genuine laughter, a thing so rare, I forgot the last time I heard it. I have neither traveled, cramped, in a general compartment nor have I been blessed with perfect journeys every time I've stepped out.I've had my share of summer RAC journeys. How I travel is my choice. I will travel the way I want to, be it 2A or 2S .I will always enjoy it without subjecting myself to guilt trips on the underprivileged. There is something magical about a train thundering through the plains and nothing can change that.

I do grumble about the heat, I do get bored now and then, but when I get down at my destination, I'm humbled, wiser and sated with inexplicable happiness. So, the next time you see someone stupidly staring out of the widow with a smile on his face, say "Hi". :)