Pune Journey

 

During my graduation I was very active in spreading awareness about the cleanliness and traffic rules. At the same time I was preparing for my MBA entrance exams. One of my school friend was studying in Pune at that time. His name was Umang. He had invited me to visit him. So I was excited about visiting my friend.

Umang was pursuing his graduation in Liberal arts from Symbiosis College. We were school friends. He often complained that I do not visit him. I was in the 3^rd year of my graduation and was studying in the Saurashtra University at that time.

He had invited me to Pune and “see the actual world” as he used to call it. When he came to visit me in the Diwali vacation, for hours we discussed about Pune student culture, the students in his college were very politically correct and how he was getting mocked by everyone for being a gujju their. I could see a lot of change in Umang’s accent. We used to spend hours in chit-chatting about his classmates and some really good interactions that he had in the class with his history teachers. His history classes were very interesting to attend. He told that “one should get a popcorn and sit in the history class”.

Few months later after my graduation and completing all the competitive exams I decided to visit my friend.

I went to the nearest ticket reservation office to buy the tickets in tatkal. I went early and waited their. As I was standing their. I observed that a little farther then me, a railway official and two other RPF employees were having a chat with each other while one of them threw a masala wrapper on the ground. I quickly took the initiative and tried to stop the railway official,

 

Me(loudly)- Hey, can you please pick that wrapper that you just threw on the station?

Employee(smirk face)- Who are you? What are you doing here?

Me- I am waiting to book my tickets to Pune. I think we should keep our surroundings clean and thus it is really wrong to throw wrappers on the ground.

 

The railway employee stormed inside his cabin with an angry face.

 

RPF employee- Why did you talk to him like that? He is the station head here. What are you doing here?

Me- I understand but throwing garbage on the platform is also not the right thing to do. Isn’t it? I and my friends hold cleanliness campaigns in the city.

 

The RPF employee walked away and said in a low voice, “Kids these days! Huh!”

 

I saw the station head entering the ticket office and leaving from their. I got my tickets to Pune anyway and happily called my friend that I was coming to visit him.  It was the morning train. I had this habit of stopping people from throwing garbage everywhere but I had realized that I had to control that behavior since there will be a lot of people in the sleeper coach who would throw wrappers outside from the train.

 

Train Journey

My fourth semester of MBA was going on. I had decided to go to my hometown when the college administration was busy in taking the interviews for the new batch of students. Since it was a plan made at the last minute, I saw that the plane tickets were very expensive so I did my reservation in the train.

I got my ticket but it was in a waiting list so I had to spend a part of my journey in the General coach. Previously I had only sat in the general coach once or twice but that was for very short distances while travelling to the relatives house.

My train was from the Yeshwanthpur Station. I reached the station in the morning and observed the billboards that showed the coach signs and I found out that the general coach was at the far end of the station. I could see a large group of people waiting for the train. Most of them were the families who were moving to a different location in search of work. They had big iron suitcases with them. They were carrying small children. As the train came I managed to enter the coach while there was a lot of push and pull from the crowd of people.

I was surprised to see these families who despite having a lot of luggage and not to mention their small kids were very comfortable in catching the train. I had very less luggage with which I sat on a seat near the window.

It was the February month. One can only imagine how cold it was going to get because the train was going to pass from Pune, Lonavala and the outskirts of Mumbai. I had to sit in the general coach till Pune before which I could get my reservation confirmed in the sleeper coach.

The train was really slow, it stopped at virtually all stops inviting more and more people. At one point of time, it was literally hard to breath! The day passed like this.

During the night time. People were dozing off on the floor of the coach, outside the toilet, near the gate etc. I was just thinking that if I have to pee then where are the places on the coach where I can put my feet and reach the toilet without disturbing anyone.

I observed that the labourers were playing games in their Vivo phones. Others were busy in listening songs on their earphones. I could feel very cold wind blowing from little spaces between the rickety windows but due to so many people everywhere there was no scope of feeling cold. Uncles, boys, kids, aunties and old age people were everywhere.

I managed to doze off resting my head and my hands around my bag that was kept on my lap. As I woke up I saw that the coach had so much less people. As it was a pass local so most of them had dropped down at different stations.

I reached Mumbai. I was still sitting in the general coach. It was comfortable with less people and crowd in it. The train stopped at the outskirts of the city from where so many people starting coming in.

There was a moment of rush again. People were coming inside, the students, so many gujjus who do the daily up-down journey to a work location etc. There was so much of energy in the environment that was missing when I caught the train from Bangalore. I loved it.

I had a small discussion with a group of people about where they are going and what work they do and introduced myself to them. I got down from the train once or twice and washed my face near the railway water facility. I loved eating biscuits back then so I bought my favourite hide n seek from a shop.

As I came closer to my home location the train was getting empty and soon there were very few people left in it. I saw the climate changing also, it was the same, very hot and dry. It was a 30 hours journey but I was not feeling any tired as I had reached home. It seemed like nothing much has changed.