A Moving Snapshot of India

It was roughly 8:30 am when I woke up in the train. My sleep had been fitful, mostly because of the loudmouthed passenger below and I would have ideally liked to sleep more, but the attendant with the pre-ordered breakfast was prodding me. Grumbling and mumbling (as I do every morning till I wash my face), I accepted it and did the morning’s business.

After breakfast, I needed a break from the stuffy compartment so I went to the train door, opened it and looked outside. Luckily, the weather was brilliant and breezy, and I had one of my most refreshing experiences in a while.

I wonder if you have noticed it, but there’s always a reassuring similarity in the moving scenery outside a train wherever it may be in the Indian plains. There is always farm land; it seemed to be paddy fields rushing past me this time. Clearly the area had been blessed with good rain, because the artificially scooped little canals for catching and transporting rainwater were full in complete muddy brown glory. Now and then a little village would whiz by and the children who were playing with their deflated tires and crude dolls would look up and stare; this being a universal instinct all kids share, no matter how many trains pass them in a day. There were several fruit orchards among the fields, something which has always unnerved me. There’s just something weird about full grown trees arranged in neat, little rows and columns, it deviates too much from nature’s chaos for my liking.

I was pretty lost in thought admiring these sights which we city folk take as mundane but in reality get the opportunity to experience rarely. I wondered what it would be like to live such simple lives in agriculture based villages and oddly resented them for having such clear priorities, pleasures and pains. Of course, a farmer’s life is by no means rosy, but then very few lives in general are. Still, it must be much more satisfying and refreshing to take a bath in a river or lake after a hot day’s work then in a shower or bucket. I remember how relaxing the river bath in Hampi was.

I was peering out and looking ahead when I noticed that the train was running smack into a storm. It was a good one too. Within no time, my exposed hands on the door handles were getting hit by the raindrops, and each of them hurt like a bee sting. I weathered it for about ten minutes but then beat a hasty retreat to my berth and under my warm blanket. I hadn’t carried my watch or phone with me so I didn’t know how much time I had spent outside. I had judged it to be a half an hour at the most till I checked my watch. I had spent close to one and a half hours looking outside.