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General Coach
By O.P. SOMANI, Sat Dec 10th
GENERAL COACH A short story by O.P.Somani Damodar was standing at the platform number two of Gwalior Citystation. He was patiently or partly impatiently waiting forDelhi bound train known as Punjab Mail. The platform was full ofpeople with a mix of passengers in wait and beggers in job. Damodar arrived to Gwalior last week on account of his transferfrom Delhi where he continuously served for a span of ten years.Subsequent to transfer he chose to stay at Gwalior and continueto live his family at Delhi with an arrangement of weekly visitto his family.
The train arrived about thirty five minutes late though it wasrepeatedly announced that it would arrive on scheduled time.Damodar planned to board in ‘general' coach for the sakeof his pocket and also he had minimum luggage with him. He knew it very well that most of the trains have two generalcoaches one in the front side, just behind the engine and theother at the end. He chose to board the front coach. When thetrain stopped he was happy to note that there was no crowd nearthe general coach. He comfortably entered into the coach. He sawthat Army men were sitting in that coach. One Army man asked him"Are you an army personnel". Damodar quickly replied " No, but Iam a government servant". He also took out his identity card andshowed them hopefully. His reply created a buzz amongst the Armymen and they said " No, no...no government servant is allowedonly army men are allowed in this coach, you have to get down".He was told that the coach was reserved for army personnelthough it was purely under unreserved category. He was helplessbefore the army personnel. He argued and requested a lot forretaining himself in that coach. They were not interested in anyargument therefore he was quickly thrown out of the coach. Hehowever sustained the fall and gained momentum for reaching thelast coach. He regretted for entering into the front coach. He began to worry. The other coach was situated after a gap offifteen bogies. There was little time left for the departure ofthe train. He therefore took up a marathon run not really caringabout hurdles such as carts, porters, vendors and passengers aswell. He, however, could reach to the coach but this time it was notany easy task to embark. Both the doors of the gates werebulging with multitude of passengers most of them were ruralpeople with huge bales on top of the head consisting of theirentire household items and small children dangling in theirhands. Those small children were endeavoring to slip down fromthe grip of their hands. The crowd clinging at the doors tryingto enter the already overcrowded coach disappointed him. Hemanaged to go into the coach purely because he was not havingany big luggage. The train soon left the station leaving behind many passengerswho could not board. Inside state of coach was horrible. Aboutten people occupied each bench with the capacity of fourpassengers and still the standing passengers were insisting themto make space. Small fights were taking place in such matters. One Army man was sleeping stretched out on the upper berth. Thisirritated many people but they were apprehensive to ask thatArmy man. Damodar already fuelled with anger initiated and shookthe Army man. He woke up. Damodar said" You can sit up insteadof stretching, making some space for the people already introuble." He did not listen to him and remained stretched. Theother passengers now encouraged asked in a collective voice "This is not night time, this is day time and how can you sleep?"The Army man said impatiently " I am an Army man and coming froma long distance, I hope you all do not disturb me". Damodar saidwith equal irritation "If you are an Army man there is aseparate coach for the Army men at the front of this train andwhere civilians are thrown out." The Army man could not argue further and unwillingly settled inthe sitting
position. Damodar quickly occupied the place.A younglady also followed him quickly no body else claimed the placethinking that she would be his wife. Still some place was vacantwhere the standing passengers opted to fix their children. The young lady gratefully looked at Damodar as if she wasthanking him for the creation of vacancy. In the other sectionsof the coach some fights were still continuing but seemedreceding. People were hopeful to occupy sitting place in Agrastation where many people would get down. Many came into anagreement for replacing the passengers who would get down atAgra station. The passage was completely jammed and the passengers weresquashed. It seemed that those passengers were squeezed back toembryonic order amidst the voluminous luggage surrounding them.It was very difficult to move and change their position. Damodar was lucky enough to get place for sitting and abeautiful companion with the squeezing phenomenon. Damodarthought it would be unfair if I did not speak to a beautifullady. Damodar found out that the lady too was heading for Delhi.They exchanged the names of the areas they lived as usuallyfellow passengers do. She also uttered that her husband was alsoa government servant. However, any thing about her husband didnot create any interest in Damodar's mind. Whenever they weresqueezed his mind turned dirty. A popcorn vendor appeared after some time leaping like a monkeybecause there was no space for man like walking. Initially noone was buying. The vendor became slightly desperate and he wascalculating the losses in his mind. Damodar was in fact lookingfor something to buy solely to offer to the lady. That was thefirst vendor to appear in that coach. He ordered two pouches ofpopcorn. He happily took out from the bulky haversack he had andpolitely supplied to Damodar. The buy was triggered and soonmany orders were coming. This is also a usual phenomenon that"buying is mostly copying" and that is why advertisements dohelp in the multiplying sales volume of many consumer products.The vendor was not polite now. His response was reversed toharshness in selling, he would impolitely say to wait if anybody reminded him twice. He entered now into monopolisticcommodity. Damodar offered one pouch of popcorn to the lady. The iconiclady shyness appeared on her face. She refused first. Damodarknew how to offer. He repeatedly endeavored and succeeded. As amatter of fact other passengers were enjoying the popcorn couple. The popcorn vendor jumped to the next compartment of the coachopenly thanking Damodar. The rest of the passengers realizedthat they were fools. Those who did not buy the popcorn wereproud enough. Damodar was not comfortable for some time. He wanted to go totoilet but was not daring to venture. It was a Herculean task tolead towards toilet. Many difficult hurdles were obvious. He,however, gathered courage and took the challenge. He appliedsome cues from the movement of the vendor. People did not like his movement. They angrily allowed him toproceed though he was carefully jumping. He saw no sign of thetoilet. Only thing was people and people and the luggage. It wasmore difficult to intrude now into the people and luggage. Hehad to struggle as a war victim. He strived and did not knowwhen and who pushed him towards the toilet. Outside toilethuge household bales were heaped. People were crouching on theheap. Damodar heard a boisterous sound of pump stove andwondered. When he peeped into the toilet he saw two ladies werecooking rice, tea was already prepared to serve their kinmounted on the heap of luggage. The another toilet was alreadyjammed with luggage. From this point he lost all the courage togo back to his sit. He was praying for the power to fly out ofthe general coach. He could not get such power but swore for notto enter the general coach for the rest of his life. About the author:None |
