Random Talk : My Love - Hate relationship with Train Journeys...

Like the title of this post suggests, I am going to be talking about long trips; to be a bit more accurate, long train trips where you are stuck with nothing to occupy your time with. Recently I went to Delhi, on a train of course, to manage the music for two Dramas, written and directed by CV Chandramohan, one being Eendra Pozudhil, and the other Kalyana Samiyal Boodham, bout of which I have reviewed in this very blog. Suffice to say, they were both really good plays, and I had an amazing experience at the actual venue, after reaching Delhi. The one and a half day journey to and from Delhi, on the other hand, was an entire beast all together.

Most of you probably know that I am a voracious reader. If not, well, now you know I guess. I did pack three of Patricia Cornwell’s novels, but as fate would have it, I did most of the reading at Delhi, before the shows, than during the actual trip there. Both the forward and return journey consisted of two nights and one day. Great, that meant that I could sleep away most of the trip right? Wrong.

If you have ever traveled on an Indian Railways train, you know how difficult it is to get any form of peaceful sleep. I didn’t want to whip out my laptop and watch movies, because I wanted to conserve the batteries in case of an emergency. That meant I was stuck with my phone. If you ever tell me you like watching movies on your mobile phone, I will walk away from the conversation and never look back. I am a firm believer in the fact that the only stuff that should be watched on your phone is videos from the internet and crappy pirated movies.

So after eliminating all the options, I was left with two simple options. Listen to music or stare out the window. I decided to do something better; listen to music and stare out the door. For more than five hours I sat at the door way of the carriage, with the door open, music in my ears and questioned the meaning of my existence in this world which was just a minuscule part in an enormous cosmos.

Eventually pondering about my existence gave way to more pondering about the intrinsic connections that people share, and about the temporary nature of the physical self, which further gave way to much more complex ruminations about the existence of the soul, finally ending in solipsism. Really productive stuff, if I do say so myself.

All jokes apart though, the calm of the whole trip really gave me a chance to gain new perspectives and assess where I was as a person, and where I wanted to go in life. To me travel has always been about the journey. As much as I make fun and complain about it, I probably enjoy it more than anything that I have ever done at my destination.

I enjoy the sense of isolation, in midst of the carriage full of people, and sometimes, I wish it would never end. Despite the extremely open and interactive nature that I started showing a few years back, I have and always will be an introvert at heart. What you see and what really is there are completely different things, and while this is true for many people, it really is surprising how few realize it.

I formed quite a few creative ideas during the journey. I really saw how much the environment has changed, form the last time I took this trip about two years ago. I came to terms with the fact that the damage we have done to the planet is irreparable. Now, I am not somebody who goes on rallies to save the environment, but what I saw really did scare me and in some ways changed my opinions on the nature of the damage we have done to the earth.

That is not to say, I didn’t see some incredible feats of human engineering. I saw two amazingly intricate factories, with huge silos and furnaces and some of the tallest structures that I have ever seen, and in a really odd way, they took my breath away. They really captured my imagination, in ways that nothing ever has before, with their huge rusted walls and tall structures like slumbering metal monsters waiting to wake up; truly a breathtakingly ominous sight.

I got to witness two incredible amazing sunsets, I spoke a lot of Hindi after a long time, to two guys who enjoyed their alcohol a little too much; but who am I to judge. I helped an army officer cancel his train ticket for another train. I lent my charger to a really nice couple who, I suspect were on their honeymoon. I got into a long conversation with lady who didn’t want the upper berth, despite having been allocated the lower one, which ended with me making her feel embarrassed after realizing that she was asking to switch to a seat that was already hers to begin with. I even got a chance to interact with a couple of deaf and dumb athletes on the way back to Chennai, something that I will remember for a long time.

Depending on who your share the journey with, be it one on a train or the journey of your life, things can go one of two ways. You have no choice on who will be allotted next to you, but you do have a choice on how you interact with them, and who you interact with. Make your choices wisely, and I am sure any journey will be interesting

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I just realized I wrote a 900 word post on absolutely nothing. Welcome to the world of a brainstorming writer.

Peace!!!