One thing that people from my generation experienced, and well, was the quintessential Indian train journey.
Not the AC 2 Tier/3 Tier version. The 2nd class sleeper. The reservation list pasted outside the bogie – finding yours, and then searching your name to confirm the allotted seats. Climbing in, excited when you found yourself at the window seat…the sounds, the smells, people in a hurry trying to board, and some others in a hurry trying to see them off (possibly good riddance). Some others waiting by the window, some last minute instructions both ways – eat well, call me once you reach, write a letter, say hello to so and so…until the train whistles and a then starts with a sudden jerk. Watching the platform slowly walk away from you as the train pulls out of the station, some tears, some smiles at the prospect of an exciting journey…
The journey itself, an experience in mindfulness. Staring outside the window, watching the fields go by, lost in thought, possibly reading a book, or playing Ludo or snakes and ladders…someone gossiping, someone else snoring nearby, having a siesta…in days when one cannot sit for a couple of minutes without glancing at your phone, its tough to imagine how hours and hours passed in random thought – eyes open, mind elsewhere. Or sometimes, mind nowhere – just bliss.
And then watching the train pull into a station – names you couldn’t pronounce, or never heard of – people you would never see in your life again, just that moment or two when your lives crossed at that junction…A stay too short, or too long, depending on where you wanted to go…
Of course, those vendors. With hot tea, sometimes coffee, suspicious looking snacks, bargaining aunties, repackaged ‘Bilresi’ water, sometimes toys, combs and little somethings – an eager eye cast at the mom, who promptly dismissed such impulse purchases, a disappointed you going back to look out of the window, and forgetting it a moment later…
The smaller joys of life cannot be brought – only experienced.
I did too today, as I ate something that I had last tasted over 30 years back – on my train journeys from Bangalore to Mysore. A major stop those days was Maddur – home to the infamous Maddur vada. A snack that was a given on those trips. With piping hot tea. Journeys that were made in a different life, not better, not worse, just different. An experience that was good when it was, but not something missed or to be nostalgic about. But every once in a while, it feels nice to relive an experience of such small joys – brings back a smile, and small memory, and a sweet feeling.
Train journeys, and Maddur vada. Sakkathagide!