The double-decker express between Chennai and Bengaluru is an interesting train. It has an upper and a lower deck. There is also a central deck, at platform level, where the doors are located to enable passengers to get on and alight. So, technically the train should be called a triple-decker, but we’ll let it pass.
The train runs quite smoothly but passengers, especially old-timers, being used to wildly swaying trains in the good old days, expect some kind of lateral movement and prepare to balance themselves. Accordingly they sway left and right of their own will when they walk down the aisle in the coach. In fact, I once saw a passenger sway alarmingly from side to side as he walked down the aisle in the upper deck of this very same train, when the train was absolutely stationary, had stopped moving and was standing quite still at Katpadi station. The poor chap realised his chumpiness after a few steps and straightened up; just then the train started moving with a jerk, throwing him off balance, much to his chagrin.
One Sunday morning recently, I had occasion to travel by this train to Bengaluru. It promised to be an interesting journey because the inimitable administrator of a music lovers’ group of which I was a member had put up a quiz, based on old Hindi film songs, and I was looking forward to sorting it out during the journey. I got into the train in a mood of enthusiastic anticipation. I had an aisle seat in the upper deck and settled myself in with my mobile phone, its charger and my recently acquired second-hand copy of P.G. Wodehouse’s A Damsel in Distress at hand.
My first task was to check the Facebook page of our music group. When I ran through the quiz, it seemed that some of the questions had absolutely no answers. I couldn’t think of a single song matching any of the clues given. I felt that the “quizzard” must have had a difficult time setting the quiz and had made sure that the “quizzees” didn’t get off easily.
This “quizzee”, in fact, was in the upper deck of a moving train and couldn’t get off for at least another five hours. As I mentioned earlier, this choo choo train doesn’t sway much as it chugs down the track, but other things keep happening all the time as it travels on; inquisitive next-seaters craning their necks to see what you are staring at, kids in the row just in front of you bawling their heads off in anger at being restrained to their seats, people bumping into you as they stagger up and down the aisle, the train has all this and more.
Even after we had passed the half-way mark to Bengaluru, I still had no clue about any clue. I had never tried solving a music quiz in a train before. If you think it is no great shakes, try it in a moving day train with vestibules and a pantry car attached. You sit there, amidst some 70-odd passengers, trying to focus and mumbling out the various songs which come into your head as options. Sometimes it takes just a glance at the clue to get that song but other times it takes more than an unblinking two-minute stare and a cup of hot but tasteless tea. After much perspiration and little respiration, you think you have managed to get the first word of that elusive song. But just when you begin to break into “Noo-oo-oorie!” (under your breath, of course), your concentration is shattered by the cry of “Poo-oo-oorie! Massaal vadai!” close to your left ear, and you’ve forgotten what you were about to sing. You scratch your head and look at the question again. Starting from scratch. After this happened some seven times, I felt like 18 sorts of a fool and gave up. I decided I would rather wait till I was on terra firma, where I could do things on my own firm terms.
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