A Night at a Railway Waiting Room

Our Indian Railways is a great thing, for, apart from our parents and teachers, if there is someone who has a genuine and keen interest in providing opportunities and creating circumstances for us to improve our inherent skills, it is Indian Railways. It scarcely commits the capital mistake of running trains on time and thus provides all its travellers ample time to indulge in their interests and sharpen their skills – those who like to read can read, those who like to write can write, those who like to draw can draw, those who like to observe can observe and so on. I am one in the last category, those who like to observe, and a railway waiting room is the best place to pursue such a vocation, if ever there is one.

On a Friday night, while I was indulging in my favourite occupation of observation at a waiting room of a railway station, my eyes got hooked on to a tall, lean, fair lady in her early twenties. Not only my eyes, but the eyes of all humanity that had the chance to assemble there at the waiting room at that point of time, were fixed on her. Children, men, women, all were staring at her as if staring at an animal in a zoo, for she had a queer, if not weird, look about her. She was in a pink dress that revealed more than it concealed, though leaving something for the imagination of the beholders as well. Strings were dangling from all parts of her dress with beads attached to their ends, which made some noise every time she cringed, crouched or bent. She had a metal ring fixed on her nose, the sort of ring that women used to wear on their ears in the past - in those good old days when women where unambiguously women - which appeared to have made her feel elevated to the ranks of Indian tennis superstar Sania Mirza. Her white, transparent duppatta slipped from her shoulder as often as was logically possible for a cloth of its kind to slip, and as many times she put it back to its place that many times it slipped off and fell down. If you thought that the constant slipping of the duppatta and the difficulty of putting it back to its place had caused her some discomfort or annoyance, it must be noted that she seemed to belong to a rare tribe of humankind for whom such human emotions occurred not when a trivial thing like slipping of a piece of cloth occurred, but when things of much greater gravity, like railway announcements that declared the arrivals of other trains than the one in which she had to travel, happened.

Even when such fascinating things, as a pretty lady with revelation as her prime goal, constantly seize the attention of a young mind as mine, there are certain things that would usurp your attention and turn it towards them. The unsolicited DJs, people with loud music in their mobile phones, as is often seen in places where we normally travel ‘cattle-class’ (guess Shashi Tharoor hasn’t got any trademark protection on the usage of the word), are some of that kind who’ve this disgusting habit of making others listen to what they like. You would invariably find Bollywood songs of the 1990s in their song collection, which they would play in loud sound inflicting serious harm on others like me, who are involved in much more important and significant occupations like observing people.

While I was rather immersed in such mixed observations, I was suddenly woken up from my trance by the sound of some furious thing. Startled by such a bizarre sound I turned back and found out that it was no one but the lady, the keeper of the latrine, who was the object of such a commotion. I have often noticed that this lady, who is about two-score years old, has this awful penchant of spewing insolent remarks at anyone and everyone frequenting the waiting room. Every time you ask her something you could be sure that she will answer you with some rude words. This time around it was some poor girl who was the victim of her abuse; the girl’s crime – she had only 10 rupee note with her and not the exact change to pay for the use of the latrine. In between, when the lady resorted to a light doze, a couple of young children went inside the latrine, splashed their boots, came out and went off with stealthily footsteps without paying, while not forgetting to make some faces in front of the sleeping lady in absolute merriment. Then suddenly the lady woke up and resumed her denunciation of one and all – of a kid hither, of a lady thither and of an old man yonder.

Amidst all these chaos and delightful distractions, there dwelled a couple, a pair of a beautiful girl and a handsome young man, obviously lovers, hand in hand, glancing together with great interest on to a personal diary, most probably of the girl, in which she might have added the day by day account of their love story. The girl was entirely leaning on to the boy as if saying to the world that he was her ultimate support, both literally and metaphorically. While her one hand was in the young man’s hand, the other one was on his shoulder, busy at the business of pinching his ears often and laughing heartily at it – altogether, a great romantic spectacle indeed. Her eyes, though were looking on to the diary, frequently wandered and every such time they ended up eventually at the lady in the pink dress and in each one of these occasions there was jealousy in her eyes and curse on her lips. Her lover, the handsome young man, though appeared to be rather enthusiastic in reading the diary, occasionally threw glances at the lady in the pink dress as well, without his girlfriend knowing it, until he noticed me observing him staring at that lady. Now his attention turned on to me and he had a look of abhorrence at me probably thinking what a boring person I would be to languish in such a monotonous waiting room on a cold night without a girlfriend leaning on my shoulder or calling me on my phone.

By that time it was well past midnight and most passengers in the waiting room had either slept or were in the threshold of a deep slumber when another announcement came and all lent their ears to it. And there it was – the announcement that my train would arrive within a short time, of course late by two and a half hours. We all were happy – the lady in the pink dress, the unsolicited DJ and I, for it was our train; the lover couple, for it was not their train (yes, what a blissful thing Indian Railways is for the romantic hearts). I got up, took my bag, dusted it off, put it on to my shoulders and started walking when the handsome young man whispered something on to his girlfriend’s ears and they both gazed at me. Then I paused, thought for a second, looked back and gave them a rise smile as if wishing them that their train would never come.