Train Diaries: The Raid.
I had completely settled down at my side lower berth. On my right side were a family with two kids (the boy looked younger), and two men and two women. I could guess the kids belonged to the middle aged couple. The other couple seemed to be newly married. The man was pretty serious once in a while hushing his whenever she said something. The kids were playing their usual games jumping up and down from the berths while their parent had their usual tough time controlling them.
I fished out my James Hadley Chase novel and started reading it. I always enjoyed reading Hadley’s novels during journeys as they were more like Masala popcorn covered in an air tight bag, bursting at the right time with all elements of suspense and thrill.
Suddenly I saw a bespectacled guy bumping into my berth. “Oh god, I thought it was S6 and went into S9!” He exclaimed as he put his luggage on the upper berth.
By his looks, he was a geeky type (or a forced geeky type to be precise), with his hair combed in a thorny fashion upwards and l settled with hair glue , Floral T-shirt and Torn Jeans.
“I Am Tammy” He said extended his hand for a hand shake protocol. I was affirmative, and accepted the protocol. “I am Raghu” . I said.
“Tammy!” said the boy in the opposite cubicle suddenly turning towards us. I wondered how he heard the name in this commotion. “That’s our Dog!”
“Shut up!” said Tammy, while the boy’s mother hushed him away..” You shouldn’t say such things”
“ I am a software engineer” He said proudly, “Into designing ,coding and yo yo man, I like to build things.”
“Whereas people like to play games, I like to design them” He said. A new Zuckerberg is on its way I thought.
“Have you designed any game” I asked losing interest in his ambitions.
“Not yet, yo yo.. but am an aspirant!” he said, taking out his note and scribbling something in it.
“You know I like coding to the core, yo yo.. I am a fresher but people say I have the knowledge of a 10 year experienced guy,, Isnt that great, yo yo” He pushed his noted back into his bag.
“My laptop has run out of battery, otherwise, I wouldn’t be talking to you.. I will be coding”
“hmm I said” again focusing my attention to the book.
“You read these kinds of books?” He said, “ I read only books on Coding: like crack the Code etc, and you know I like discrete structures, Boolean algebra…” he boasted.
I felt he had mugged all the Computer Science subject names, or may be he really was a genius.
The train slowed down and came to a screeching halt near a station. People again flooded the train.
The halt was for only a minute and the train started moving again. I put the book back into the bag and looked outside.
“Clap Clap” There was a rhythmic clapping sound, and this rang alarm bells among the passengers . The geeky guy’s facials expressions changed as the sound started coming nearer combining with the train’s sound effects.
“I hate this situation”, he said. “These Nar Narees create havoc every time whenever the train leaves this Bangarpet station” He wailed.
Indeed the Eunuch’s are a menace in Indian trains. They would come in gangs and plunder the poor! And do what not with men for their mamool (kind of alms), leaving even the toughest guys to bend.
I too had some terrible experiences in and out of the trains and hence had become resistant now.
And my past experience taught me two golden rules that these “one by two” people had:
1. They won’t bother people having food.
2. They won’t bother if the person is asleep.
3. The mostly don’t bother family passengers.
I immediately pulled the packaged food from my bag that I had bought a few minutes ago from the catering service and started eating. I slowly raised my eyebrows to just see what’s happening. Then entered the bunch of baddies into the scene. I glanced at them intermittently avoiding eye contact lest they pester me.
There were three of them, well built, each almost 6 feet tall wearing similar sarees.(might be their “Hijira” Uniforms), waving their hands in the unique styles, one arm on their hips and waving the other to and fro like a pendulum.
“Baayya!” Said the spade tooth eunuch in a masculine tone pinching Mr Geek on the cheek. “Give me whatever you can or I will have to take whatever you have!!”
“Sir.. I mean madam, I am fresher, I don’t have anything!” He screamed as she(he) pinched him hard.
“What is your name?” She asked .
“Tammy”
“Oh that’s a nice name, sounds like us isn’t it?” She said nudging her friend.
“I am Maada, She is Baanja , she is Himmy and you are Tammy!!” She said, “You too can be one among us!”
“Ahh,,but I don’t have any thing right now!” He croacked.
“What are you talking Baaya! You are a SaptuBearu and you say you don’t have money? Where are you keeping the lakhs you are earning!” She shouted rapping him on the head.
Mr Geek’s pride went before his fall. “What?! Give me whatever you can, Or I will..” She started her catchphrase again. “We too will take whatever you have!” The other two joined.
Then they joined their hands and stared an orchestra cum dance show along with the moments of the running train.
“Mein tho rasthe je jaa rahee thi,
Bhel puree khaa rahi thi,
Theri naani maru tho..” Here all the three started rapping him on the head turn by turn.
“Tho mein kya karoo, “
I looked to my side and could see the family were enjoying all these musings like a TV serial.
“Mummy!” he screamed like a school kid.
Finally he turned to me unable to bear this anymore. “Anna, please do something”
Now he came to his normalcy. All the pomp and show was drained out of him in 5 minutes!
