Train journeys have always fascinated me. The comfort and joy of the journey cannot be surpassed by anything else. It has been almost 8months since I shifted to Bangalore. Every weekend I travel by train to my hometown. (I do commute by buses owing to the circumstances.. that’s a different story altogether..). You come across many interesting/fascinating/idiotic things when you travel in train. Well, I would say that you should be lucky enough for these things to happen. The duration of the journey is around 3hrs. Many a time I have enjoyed joyous/funny moments in train.
Sometimes the Ticket Collector catches some people who are traveling without ticket. The victims usually pay fine and leave silently. There are others who are courageous and argue with TC (God knows what for…) and end in creating a scene in the compartment. (Anyways, it is sometimes good to have some entertainment ;)) There are other people who try to be too curious about their co-passengers. Most of the time my co-passenger starts the conversation like this…
Co-passenger: “Neevu yenu madthiddirra?kelasa na?” (What are you doing?working or studying?)
Me: “kelasa madtidini” (I am working)
Co-passenger: “Yelli? Bangalura?” (where? In Bangalore?)
Me: “Houdu” (Yes)
When you say that you work in Bangalore, the next question will be
“IT?”
(These days Bangalore has become synonymous with IT. You say that you work in Bangalore and it usually means that you work for some IT company. There is a joke which is been circulated since many days…
“In Bangalore, when you throw a stone it will either fall at a dog or at a software engineer” )
The next question will be about the company. And then your co-passenger will give the most awaited response…
“Oh! Howda?? Nanna tammana hedatiya bhavana maga #### companyli iddane… monne monne US ge hoda…blah.. blah.. blah…” (Oh! My brother’s wife’s brother-in-law’s son is in #### company. He went to US… blah… blah… blah...)
Your co-passenger may then spend his/her entire journey in describing the stay in US, though he/she might have never visited. If you are lucky then he/she may shut his/her mouth.
Uncle Sam’s country has influenced Indian economy a lot. If US sneezes, India catches cold (read this some magazine.. :D). If you are in some IT company people usually think that you would some day make it to US, the land of Nirvana…
I almost forgot to mention one important thing. The train from Bangalore to my hometown is always filled with people, most of them working in IT companies returning to their home during the weekend (Like me ;)). So the conversation described above somehow does makes sense…
Hmmm… as I said earlier there are many funny moments… will write about it some other time.. I could not go home this weekend. This blog entry is the result of that..
This is all for now…
Sometimes the Ticket Collector catches some people who are traveling without ticket. The victims usually pay fine and leave silently. There are others who are courageous and argue with TC (God knows what for…) and end in creating a scene in the compartment. (Anyways, it is sometimes good to have some entertainment ;)) There are other people who try to be too curious about their co-passengers. Most of the time my co-passenger starts the conversation like this…
Co-passenger: “Neevu yenu madthiddirra?kelasa na?” (What are you doing?working or studying?)
Me: “kelasa madtidini” (I am working)
Co-passenger: “Yelli? Bangalura?” (where? In Bangalore?)
Me: “Houdu” (Yes)
When you say that you work in Bangalore, the next question will be
“IT?”
(These days Bangalore has become synonymous with IT. You say that you work in Bangalore and it usually means that you work for some IT company. There is a joke which is been circulated since many days…
“In Bangalore, when you throw a stone it will either fall at a dog or at a software engineer” )
The next question will be about the company. And then your co-passenger will give the most awaited response…
“Oh! Howda?? Nanna tammana hedatiya bhavana maga #### companyli iddane… monne monne US ge hoda…blah.. blah.. blah…” (Oh! My brother’s wife’s brother-in-law’s son is in #### company. He went to US… blah… blah… blah...)
Your co-passenger may then spend his/her entire journey in describing the stay in US, though he/she might have never visited. If you are lucky then he/she may shut his/her mouth.
Uncle Sam’s country has influenced Indian economy a lot. If US sneezes, India catches cold (read this some magazine.. :D). If you are in some IT company people usually think that you would some day make it to US, the land of Nirvana…
I almost forgot to mention one important thing. The train from Bangalore to my hometown is always filled with people, most of them working in IT companies returning to their home during the weekend (Like me ;)). So the conversation described above somehow does makes sense…
Hmmm… as I said earlier there are many funny moments… will write about it some other time.. I could not go home this weekend. This blog entry is the result of that..
This is all for now…
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4 comments:
Nice description of your experiences poori. I can continue the part 2 in mine ha ha ha. Coz I have loads of such moments to quote :)
Friday evening 6:15 train means, Mixture of IT companies moving on to Mysore just for 2 days to get away from this B'lore population, pollution, traffic, crowded maals etc etc. Of course the passengers from Non-IT background have such opinion. :)
Good going Poornima. True, the weekend trains and buses are by default filled with IT people ( I mean we ;) ). Infact a new word has been invented in US, guess what.. its "Bangalored". Its coined for the layoffs in western countries due to outsourcing of business to India(mainly Bangalore). Just type Bangalored in Google and you can see.
Happy blogging dear :)
Good one Poornima. But hey, you forgot to mention the one-thousnad-ringtones all playing at once in these local trains.One playing "Aa ante", another "Baare baare", another "Tujhe dekha to" and one playing the Brian Adams. Gosh. It has become the nuisance of any journey. Even the air-buses not spared.
Also the stinking bathroom, which reminds you of the pain in living in India. No wonder, we want to move to the Place of Nirvana,as you like to call it.
The dirty window bar, where you have to think thrice before placing the hand there.
People eating ground-nuts n other indi and non-indi beverages n throwing the wrapper, peel or paper on the very same floor of the compartment where they sit and walk. Reminding me of an age-old extremely enriched, great culture, that we have.
Though we are changing, our life style is changing.Earlier we used to feel proud in calling us IAS n IPS officers, now changed to an IT worker. There are still few things at the core of this place called India, which still I feel needs to be changed. Changed at the earliest.
The sooner, the better.
Good article, anyways.
@sady: ya, sure.. will waiting for the blog entry.
@komala: you r absolutely right. I googled the word just now.. guess what.. got around 17500 hits!!
@ankit: hehehe.. forgot to write about the ringtones.. good thing you reminded me.. :). yes, few things have to be changed...
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