I have always preferred train journeys. My preference for trains must have taken root when I was a child. Staying far away given my father’s job, the family would usually take long-distance journeys twice a year to connect with relatives in the village. We would always travel in the sleeper class.
Sleeper class: the microcosm of our society. One can always feel the pulse of society by travelling in this particular railway class.
Last year I chose a train from Secunderabad to Varanasi. Just when the train was about to leave, a couple in the mid-30s entered my compartment with their two sons. One could easily guess that there was not much of an age difference between the children. It took a while for the family to settle down.
By overhearing the couple’s conversation with other co-travellers, I came to know that the family had come to visit Hyderabad on a pleasure trip. Meanwhile, the younger son started to ask for the window seat that I was occupying.
The boy looked at the mother and the mother turned her face towards the father. However, I could notice that the couple felt uneasy to ask for my seat. The person occupying the opposite window seat had already gone to sleep. So the other option was also closed to them. The boy’s cry got louder with every passing second. Finally, the father looked at me. I offered my seat to the boy as his cries were disturbing my reading of an interesting novel. Now, the boys started to take turns to enjoy the window-view. Children always have that fascination!
I was wearing a long green kurta freshly stitched from my favourite tailor in Hyderabad. My long beard, spectacles and a bag full of books seem to have caught the attention of the mother. She was gazing at me continuously and whispered something in her man’s ear.
Suddenly, the father asked me, ‘Are you from Hyderabad’? I was puzzled for a second. I have lived in quite a few Indian cities though not more than three years at one place. In Hyderabad, I stayed for five years. “Yes,” I said instantly. “What is the problem of this MP of yours and his brother? Always giving hate speeches against our religion?” He asked again. I didn’t say reply. I didn’t know what it was about.
After a while, the boys lost their fascination for the window-view. They started to roam around, climbing to and then coming down dangerously from the upper berth. If one would be climbing the other would be dragging his leg. The boys created a sort of commotion. In spite of the parents scolding them, they were going out of control. Suddenly, the mother said, ‘Hey! Come down… otherwise the ‘bearded uncle’ will beat you!
This is unfair, I thought to myself. Most Indian parents use it as a ploy; they present strangers as villains to scare their unruly children. The couple used my personality a number of times to control the boys. It seemed to work for them.
The next morning, the travelling ticket examiner came, for the first time. I was still asleep. The calling out of my name by the ticket checker ‘shocked’ the couple. Once the TTE left, the man asked me, ‘O! You are from our religion?’ His wife seemed relaxed now. The boys were still asleep. However, silence pervaded amongst us after my discovery. I got down after an hour.
On my way home, I was puzzled how the colour of my kurta had turned my blood green in the eyes of my fellow passengers!
After a few days, my wife and I went to a market. A boy was selling fresh guavas. Atop his stall he had kept a freshly cut guava with pink pulp. My wife was excited, ‘This type we get in my place.’ So we purchased 2 kg.
However, back home, the fruit would come out with white pulp, every single time. We felt cheated. We called the boy-seller names. My wife even declared that we live in a city of thieves.
But there was a twist in the tale. We found that the last three guavas had pink pulp! The boy was not at fault, we realised. We never asked him whether all the guavas were of pink pulp.
Actually, we had committed the same mistake as that of my co-passengers. We were reminded of what Carl Jung said: ‘Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves’. Both the parties failed to understand that the colour of human blood is red — not green or pink!
umeshkumareng@bhu.ac.in
