Training to be in New India

Kanupriya Arya

HAVING spent a few years in New York, I finally landed in my own land — ‘New India’.  There was a bounce in my steps as I reached home in Bhiwani, mingling happily with parents, siblings and childhood friends. 

Troubled by erratic traffic, holy ‘Nandis’ sojourning in the middle of the road, stray dogs pouncing on you from nowhere, I still enjoy the garma-garam samosas and spicy gol-gappas. The heart-warming hugs of parents and the back-thumping friends add to the charm of being back home. 

I planned to visit Chandigarh. Overruling the advice of my parents, I decided to travel by Ekta Express, the ‘friendly’ train I used to travel by when I was a student at PU. ‘It is a Sunday, there will be no rush. I will take a window seat and enjoy the view of green fields and the strides of progress made by our country all the years I was away,’ I said. So, on the fixed day, at the unearthly hour of 4 am, my father dropped me a few hundred yards from the station. 

I sauntered to the platform to find a kilometre-long queue at the ticket-window. I was spared the hassle as I had purchased the ticket the previous evening. Indians in queue! A pleasant surprise! 

The platform was teeming with uncouth, smelly passengers, mostly young. I learnt that these young men were going to Karnal, Ambala or Panchkula to appear for a conductors’ interview. For us, Haryanvi youths, the post of conductor is highly coveted, like a constable’s or patwari’s post.

Hardly a seat was to be found in the train. Somehow I managed to enter a compartment. Finding me, a distressed young girl, an elderly man offered to share his cramped seat, saying: ‘Adjust karle beta, aage seat mil jaegi.’ Feeling grateful for the generosity and also missing the valet-ushered train journeys in the US, I ‘adjusted’ myself on the half seat. 

I looked around. What a sight! Hundreds of unbathed youths in crumpled clothes were everywhere. The corridors were crowded, the space between the berths was full, no space even to turn. A young girl, perhaps a student, peered through the window.  Discouraged, she moved to another window. Distressed, she moved away. I wondered if I was the only woman on the train. The platform was echoing with noises bombarding from all directions. All hell seemed to have broken loose.

A daredevil was trying to crash into the compartment through the emergency window. The entry point and corridor was jampacked with conductors-to-be. Many were hanging precariously, latching onto the handle bars of the door. Nobody could get in, or go out. I tried a silent witticism — ‘we were fevicoled’, or ‘we were in a packaged deal’. 

‘Now’, I said to myself, ‘you have taken a leap into the future of great India.... it is Bharat Mata... or do we call it New India?’ A fatiguing 293-km journey took eight hours. This is how I ‘bulleted’ my train journey!