No sleep, in Indian railway sleepers
It’s a shame that an Indian-train ride hasn’t yet been listed as a magical fix to most of life’s problems in medical journals across the subcontinent.
As you begin a train journey in India, slowly the weight of the world lifts off your shoulders. Political discussions more animated than Arnab’s newshour fill-up the compartments, people lay open their lives in front of each other like unpacked suitcases, warmth and hospitality waft through the air in the familiar smell of achaar(pickle), namkeen(savouries) and a variety of sabzis (curries, usually dry) cooked especially to last for a day or days depending on the length of the journey. Suddenly, you realise everyone’s going through the same problems, living the same lives and probably fighting the same demons too.
Then there are the breathtaking landscapes that stretch into the horizon outside the window. Soothing you into a meditative-trance as you criss-cross across cities, villages, farmlands, and wilderness.
All of this, combined with the scrumptious snacks and beverages that enter the compartment at each station, pretty much make a train-ride a picnic with strangers.
Come night, this romance of the train-journey makes a tragic shift. Ideally, it should become more therapeutic with everyone winding down, leaving you in the company of your solitude, except in India, nothing is ever ideal.
Just as you try to wind down for the day, the chatty daytime background score is now overpowered by snores loud enough to strike terror into hearts of the wildest of beasts.
A long-distance couple near you will find the night opportune to whisper sweet-nothings to each other through a microphone that’s possibly gotten more PDA than the couple themselves.
Another fellow passenger, probably suffering the quietness, will start doomscrolling through reels, pouring an acidic playlist of viral songs into your ears through the night.
A few insomniacs, probably under influence would now launch into some repetitive discussion at a careful volume that’s just-above a whisper and just-under regular conversation, annoying you even more like a show that keeps buffering just when a scene’s getting heated up.
Some kid will probably decide that his parents underreporting his age to make his travel ticket-free was a criminal offence. And throw a fit late into the night to protest this denial of freedom and space.
After surviving all of these diabolical challenges, when you finally start drifting into sleep somewhere at the fag end of the night, an alarm suddenly goes off around you, waking everyone up except the phone’s owner who snoring blissfully through it.
By the time, the alarm dies after ringing for a thousand hours, and you fall into the arms of sleep, hugging her like a long-lost lover, the snoring uncle wakes up and starts his morning gargling routine.
Soon, hawkers crying “Chaiyaaaaa” and “Nescofeeeeeee” arrive completely ruining whatever chances you had of catching a few minutes of sleep.
And finally, a realisation dawns on you, that in Indian railways, even trains arrive after hours and hours of delays,
BUT SLEEP NEVER DOES.
