The Train of Fortunate Events

The same old voice of the never tiring woman blared across the Chennai Egmore station announcing the arrival of the train in which I was to board. I wondered what my spoken-English teacher would have said if she had heard the woman break up the sentence into numerable pieces, pausing at all instances where she shouldn’t have. The trilingual announcer did the same mistake in all the three languages that she spoke in. Why Indian Railways employ people with speech defects is still a controversial question.

This question lingering in my mind I along with my mother boarded the train at noon, to be followed by a spectacular family which was to be our nearest fellow passengers for the next 8 hours. The family comprised o

f “The Father”, “The Mother”, “The Sister” and “The Younger Brother”. The last one had some intimate bond with a toy gun which when triggered would let off long plastic bullet with a sticky end. Needless to say, like any other gun, it could be shot at anyone you wish to - No Discrimination. Once in the hands of the shooter, you would be completely in the mercy of the shooter.

But, this one piece of a younger brother, (looked like some Attila the Hunsque Mona Lisa – short and giving everyone a knowing smile)had some considerable amount of grudge against me. Aiming at my caput became his favourite pastime in a matter of seconds. After some two to three hours of serious aiming( in the course of which he had gulped in some carbon based compounds to please his gastric juices), he finally must have remember Arjuna or who’s-that-guy, the one who cut his little finger while chopping onions.. and closed one of his eyes. The shoot was imminent and duly after aiming my forehead he shot me. He missed his aim closely and the bullet hit my stomach, a rather deflated one. Believe it or not, it wasn’t paining. I sat there thinking what I should do next. Whether to act as if my pancreas had burst and cry out loud in pain so as to entertain the kid or to just see here and there inside the train and say,”Hey, is there a tree inside the compartment ?? A leaf just fell over my stomach…!!”. My thought process was curtailed by “The Mother” who started to imitate a ferocious and savage dog, barking out in Tamil at his son. Later on, I found out that she was a teacher and it was quite natural for her to do so.

 The best way to escape such a thing is to go to sleep and the future Abhinav Bindra perfectly executed the act. All this while, “The Sister” and “The Father” were getting their extra three hours and woke up when our hero went to sleep. The Sister as you will see had the body of a weak girl but the mind of a criminal genius. The Father, The Mother and The Son went to sleep with the Daughter hatching a plot. (Click!!!). The Sister quietly and gently tapped the Brother with the means of a clenched fist. The Brother sat erect like some zombie getting up from its grave. He returned the force and felt happy about it. And what proceeded was what one would call “A fierce exchange of blows” . It continued for quite some time with the Parents still happy with their closed eyes and endless dreams.  At about 4’o Clock in the evening, “a voice so thrilling was ne’er heard in the spring time from the cuckoo bird” as Wordsworth would have liked to call it. People turned their heads to the small boy who was still unaware of the fact that he is now the centre of attraction and that he has to "use his wits and follow fashion" as the frog said. Fellows sleeping came alive and went back to their previous action, thinking – “(yawn) Yet another Brute”

The Brother badly wanted his gun which he sacrificed to his father after this issue and went and sat on his mother’s lap. The Sister (who wanted the toy gun too) on the other hand was sent to the Father’s lap after getting a slap from her mother. A week before, our English teacher had completed the Drama - Julius Caesar and I still held the beautiful remarks and dialogues in my mind. I thought to myself the conversation within the family –

Father : Why did you hit your brother ?

Daughter : Why sister hit his brother ? here is my answer .Not that I loved him less, but that I loved the toy gun more!

Mother : Why did you scratch your sister ?                                                             

 Son : Thrice did I refuse the old Toy Gun for a newer one and yet Sister says I was ambitious

 But still she is an honourable girl, so are they all, all honourable girls.                                                                                                                                                          

The woman after blithely hitting the daughter saw my mother and smiled. Phew !! what a smile it was.. all her teeth was facing my  mother, mind it all 67 of them. The father refused his son the gun saying, “You will kill someone with your bullet and then that guy would come running to me to complain about you”. I was reminded of the joke wherein the father says to his Son, “Son, don’t go near that lawn mower. You will lose both your legs and then come running to me for help.”

Apart from all these silly things, they were a happy lot – “The so-called head of the family Father”, “The shark –jawed ever-shouting teacher Mother”, “The upcoming Irene Adler (The woman criminal genius whom you would often come across in Sherlock Holmes ) Sister” and “The ignorant and aiming for the 2016 or 2020 Olympics Double Trap Gold medal Brother”.

As always, after this happy account of things, I felt as I always have that -

“A Long Journey in the Train is worth two in the bus”