It felt as if the Rain-God had finally decided to let go of
his longstanding anger for being so mean to us. And so he went splashing and
drenching frenziedly, attacking every nook and corner of the oven-baked land,
the sun-tanned terraces of the multi-storied buildings, and the ever-buzzing,
overtly populated, westernized proviso of this once traditionally enriched and
culturally enhanced metropolitan mega-city of mine: The Chennai.
Rainy days are definitely a feel-good factor and a welcome
change for us, who are always open to the chastisements of the sizzling and
searing Universal God of Light: The Sun!
Eventually, taking some time to roll back to the past
reminds me of an almost adventurous rainy day experience that I had five years
ago.
It was mid-October 1999. Yet again, not-so-surprisingly, it
was pouring down hard and heavy. I bet hailstones were included too, though I
probably didn’t take much time to notice.
This was only to add more glory to my most renowned and
exemplary late-start to the railway station to catch my “Guindy-Tambaram” 7.20
a.m. Electric Train.
I was doing a half-run, half-jog journey across the 100 ft
road to reach the subway. From there, I had to find my way through the tunnel,
which was crammed with office-goers, college-goers, school-goers, market-goers
and business-seekers. All of them were heaped up under the single roof of that
lengthy stretch, in vain tries to be saved from getting sodden by the heavy
downpour.
The same subway, which used to look like a creepy
underground place for all sorts of illegal business dealings on sunny
afternoons, was unbelievably overpopulated that day.
There was a strong stench of unwashed socks from the school
kids huddled towards the corner of the narrow passageway. This was peppered
with the reek of moisture, sweat, unwashed clothes, unwashed bodies and what
not?!
It was 7.13 already. I was still at the threshold of the
subway and I had a long way to go.
Buying a ticket wasn’t a problem because I had my train pass
with me. So that process at least was a time-saver!
In the menacing crowd that was unsuspectingly manhandling me
from all four directions, everyone was desperately trying to find room in the
constricted space available.
I was trawling to find my way out of this deadliest trap,
with quick glances at my digital sports watch once every 15 seconds. Even
quicker prayers were naturally coming out of my mouth at the time of crisis,
such as this, to get into the 7.20 unit. I was also hoping to empty my
last-minute ditch effort at that, as long as it served the purpose in the end
to find me in my train!
Slowly trudging my way through the messy mass, I was getting
restless.
Suddenly, like a gust of wind from nowhere, and with a quick
push from a group of ladies behind me, I was shoved towards the egress of the
eternal subway!
At the first rush of fresh air, I thanked the Almighty for
letting me survive the Tunnel-Effect Syndrome!
But then, that definitely was not all there was to it.
Well, in fact, it wasn’t even half of what it took to make
this incident a wholesome adventure, as I called it before.
Now came the most intriguing part, where I had to choose
between two options.
Either I could take the long route, walking another furlong
and surpassing the heavy roadside traffic. Or I could do a high jump across a
four-and-a-half-foot-high wall, amidst all the unknown and unauthorized bushes
and shrubs.
Not to mention, there was also a nostril-flaring thick odor
of the fluid-downloads done at morning, noon and night by our fellow humans in
and around the area.
For once, being lightweight and athletic did help me in a
real-time situation such as this. I went in for the high-jump option, which
almost none of the girls who travel by the same transport media as mine fail to
choose.
After having achieved a successful time-saving tactic, I
looked at my mega-sized sports watch to make sure it was still working. It had
lived through quite a strong hit against the half-demolished side parapet wall.
Thanks to God, the watch was intact!
Defiant as always to my mother’s advice, right from rising
early from my bed in the mornings to starting out early to reach the railway
station in time, it was cringe time as usual.
I hurriedly recoiled all the advice of “amma” while
maintaining a fast gait across the railway gate towards the steps to my
platform.
I must appreciate myself for managing a
prayer-cum-time-check all at once.
Oh gosh!
It showed 7.23.
I split into a quick run down the steps, now praying that I
don’t end up falling down face-first by stepping into a slippery pool of idle
waters formed at both ends of every step.
This was all due to the mad rainfall, in the past how many
ever hours it had been raining for.
But thanks to my Reeboks, it was very much firm enough to
give me all the grip that I needed to do a safe landing.
Guess I was too young back then to have managed such a
remarkable speed.
Therefore, I reached my platform and let out a sigh of
relief at the notice of my usual train-mates.
A couple of college girls, a vegetable vendor and a
40-year-old lady who worked for the Tambaram sub-registrar’s office.
It was that dainty lady who first acknowledged my
last-minute inclusion in the prolonged wait for the train.
She ensured me, with a soft pat on my shoulder, that I
hadn’t missed it and that the train was delayed due to the washout of the
tracks at Basin Bridge.
Now, another creep began to unveil its face slowly.
It was not even two minutes since I felt happy at having
kept up the time before the train reached the station.
The new creep was this:
“Will I be able to reach my college on time, which is at
8.30 a.m.?”
It takes one hour to reach Tambaram. Especially when it’s
raining like this, it would take a quarter more extra to reach Tambaram.
From there, I still had to walk again for about 10 minutes
to reach my destination!
I immediately skipped into a mental arithmetic of the
approximate arrival time of my train at Tambaram, starting from 7.27 a.m.,
which was what my watch displayed at that point.
I was damned sure to be late for a minimum of at least 10
minutes, and at the max, GOD KNOWS!
Anyways, I gathered some more energy to withstand the loud
and disgraceful barks of my college gatekeeper and lecturer.
Then there would be the stifled ridicule of my own
classmates as a topping to everything that I had gone through for the past half
an hour or so.
The thought made me emulate a shiver, followed by the real
one that was due to the chillness of the climate and my wet dress.
In utter distaste at the mental picture of being ridiculed
and yelled at, I felt a sudden urge to hop down the railway crossing and get
back home.
I could produce a leave letter the next day at college,
saying that I was sick with fever or had a bad stomach pain that kept me
immobile.
But then, that again was an even more irritating procedure.
I would have to produce a prescription to the college
authorities so as to make them believe that I wasn’t being dishonest about my
fever.
Hell with that.
At least going late stopped with a few warnings and a minor
ridiculing.
Consequently, I decided that going to college somehow was a
much better and saner option.
Within the next 10 minutes, the train came puffing and
gasping, with the maximum possible number of passengers footboarding and
clinging to the windows of every compartment, from the first to the last.
It moved as fast as a buffalo walking in the rain.
My instinct told me not to get into this train.
But I had no other go if I lost this train.
My gut warned me again: at least not this compartment. My
usual one. The ladies compartment.
But who dares wins, I told myself.
It was going to be crowded only for the next few stations.
After Airport, it was going to be all right.
So I decided to dare.
As fast as I could manage, I pushed through the trampling,
squashing, tumbling bunch of ladies fighting with their full force and yelling
on top of their voices to find a place inside.
I took pride in spotting just the right place in that
compartment.
Just near the entrance, but not too near.
I let myself into the two straps of my legendary black bag
and rested my back with the semi-cushion effect that my bag gave me.
My back was resting atop the partition between two sitting
enclosures.
The next station came even before I could start feeling
comfortable with the convenient place that I had found for myself.
So I felt all the more happy, thinking that after all, this
wasn’t as bad as it had looked a few minutes before.
Just then, from the station by which the train had just
stopped, emerged a crowd of ladies that I never imagined could fit in five
compartments of the train.
A female with a hefty build and an unfriendly appearance
stood there, with a funny face skewed in the process of chewing what looked
like a truckload of tobacco.
She grumbled and cursed at the new faces in the compartment
for snatching her private little place.
That place was the one facing the entrance, where my bag
and, in turn, my back was rested upon.
According to all virtual and non-existent rule books, that
place belonged to her.
She showed her full frustration by placing a huge jute
basket full of vegetables on my right foot.
Apparently, it took me a few minutes to gather my strength
to react to the acute pain on my right foot, as a result of the mercy bestowed
upon me by the hefty lady!
I told her she had conveniently rested the basket on my
foot.
She retorted back, asking:
“Vera yenga vechhi tholayaradhu?? Ingadhan moochu vidakuda
yedam illye?”
[Meaning: “Where the hell am I to put it then? There is no
place here to breathe even!”]
Hurriedly, without wanting to hear another verbatim to be
blurted out from the dear lady, I kept my big mouth shut.
I then indulged in the process of slowly releasing my foot
from underneath the heavy vegetable basket, inch by inch.
In what looked like a few decades, the train reached the
next station.
To me, it only meant more crowd.
But the hefty lady somehow managed to shove in a few lean
and wiry girls who worked for the leather company next to Airport.
She then got herself some place to stand by me comfortably.
Looking down, she pushed the basket towards herself and
said:
“Romba valikuda papa? Vera edamey illayema na yenna
panrathu?”
[Meaning: “Does your foot pain real bad? What am I to do
dear, there was no place around.”]
I was taken by total surprise at her sudden concern about my
hurt foot.
I beamed at her with an assurance that I was perfectly okay
and that it didn’t hurt much.
In fact, it did hurt very badly.
With the numb-some pain that I was going through, I couldn’t
actually gauge the depth of the damage done to my poor little tail-ender toes.
Having received my endorsement about the state of my hurt
leg, she switched on again to her ranting.
This time it was about the new crowds during rainy times,
giving the usual passengers big-time trouble because of lack of space.
Then she spoke about her morbid profit rate from selling
vegetables on a heavy-set day such as this.
And what would she do if the rain continued this way,
spoiling the meager money that she was making?
Although I nodded, I was wondering what a world it is.
We wish, pray, chant, do Poojas and perform Yagnyas wishing
for rain.
But when the rain decides to drench us as an answer to all
the Poojas and Yagnyas carried out in favor of the same, we LAMENT and CRIB
about it.
Just another perfect example of the fact that life is always
a mishmash of ironies and paradoxes.
A sudden jerk of the train, brought about with the blow of
its whistle, got me back to the practical world.
I found the lady next to me grinning and saying:
“Yenna papa, na sollradhu sari dhaney?”
Meaning: “What dear, don’t you think I am right?”
Well, apparently, I didn’t know what she was referring to,
as I had lost myself in my thoughts about rain and its consequences.
So I managed with a grin in return and a nod.
That made her feel pleased and kept her happy at that.
With that blow of the whistle, I was expecting the next
station to approach very soon.
Unfortunately, that never happened for the next 15 minutes.
I was getting restless.
At last, when I inquired, I was told that the train was
waiting for clearance.
It seemed like the dangling half-dead signal had totally
broken down last night, as a result of the wind blowing at some hundred and odd
kmph.
Very insightful, I thought, and felt pissed off!
After what seemed like hours, actually 15 or so minutes, we
got manual clearance from the station guard.
The station guard was late for the day because of the mad
rain. Ha Ha.
He also had no knowledge about the knocked-down signal.
He got threats from a few furious passengers about being
reported to his higher authorities for failing in his duties.
Having done all that, the train got back to life again.
My heart was pounding and racing more than the speed of the
train, because as for now, I was already running late for about 20 minutes and
I had one more station to go.
The rain hadn’t slowed down all the while.
Amidst all the pushing, pulling and hodge-podge of the
crowd, there were shouts and screams of missing and broken umbrellas.
Thankfully, I was wearing a jacket, so I wasn’t running the
risk of losing one or breaking one.
Then the train stopped abruptly.
This definitely meant it was not the station where I was
supposed to get down.
It did not move an inch for the next 20 minutes.
By now, I was definitely undergoing a repetitive stress
injury because of the excessive load on my shoulders.
This was the result of my trekking bag, stuffed with my
engineering drafter, chart pipe, books, lunch, water bottle and other college
essentials.
I was holding on to the central pole at the entrance as if
my life depended on it.
Actually, it did!
The train started moving, just after my feet went numb and I
could feel a spring in them.
It moved only to stop midway, a few yards from where it had
started.
Another twenty minutes in the middle of nowhere.
I tried to perfect my transcendental patience practice.
It just didn’t work.
I gave up.
Every inch of my body either ached or felt funny.
I felt absolutely hopeless.
And then it was time to get another announcement.
Due to some engine choke-out, we were told that the train
wouldn’t move any further.
We were to walk for about one kilometer to reach the last
station, which was also my destination.
Destination Tambaram!
How did I know that something as worse as this was waiting
for me in this train journey?
My gut feeling had come true, the one I had got at the first
look of this train propelling itself as slowly as it could to reach my boarding
point.
Nothing worse than being a skeptic, I told myself.
Too ghostly, I say!
I started thinking about who said, “Thank God I’m an
atheist.”
I found no answer to that.
So I gave up.
I surpassed.
Now, all I could do was eagerly wait for the moment I would
be pushed down by the raging and growling crowd jostling me all over.
Then I would be put back to square one, to trudge my way to
my destination once again.
Just the way it had all started!
Finally, after what felt like a complete geological era of
delays, stoppages, signal failures, engine failures, foot injuries, shoulder
injuries, emotional injuries and repeated tests of my faith in humanity, Indian
Railways and weather forecasting, I climbed down from the train.
The rain, of course, was still at it.
By then I had stopped negotiating with God.
In fact, I had reached a stage of spiritual evolution where
I was willing to negotiate with absolutely anybody.
The Rain God.
The Train God.
The Signal God.
The Engine God.
Even the Vegetable Basket God.
As I dragged myself through the rain towards Tambaram, I
suddenly spotted the vegetable vendor marching ahead like a victorious army
commander, basket balanced perfectly, rain completely ignored and spirit
utterly indestructible.
Here I was worrying about attendance, lectures and
embarrassment.
She was worrying about selling vegetables before they became
vegetables-in-soup.
Somehow that put things into perspective.
By the time I reached college, drenched from head to toe,
twenty shades darker from railway soot, carrying enough luggage to qualify as a
Sherpa and approximately forty-five minutes late, I realized something
important.
The train journey had finally ended.
The adventure had not.
Because waiting for me at the college gate was a far more
dangerous force than thunderstorms, overcrowded compartments, broken signals
and engine failures combined.
My lecturer.
And unlike the train, she was running exactly on time.
