I love traveling and despite the fact that I travel sparsely, I jot down some of my memorable memoirs. A layman’s legacy to the society has been the regular addition to the soaring population figures. This reflection could be best felt in the unreserved compartments of trains, PTC buses and not to leave aside Ranganthan street, the shopper’s seventh heaven.

Agli gaadi….

How to sleep inside a 45.76cm x 32.58cm rectangle (sitting, squatting, leaning, etc, any of the ways)??? Better you should have travelled in an unreserved weekend compartment of the Indian railways. The real Indian population mass could be seen in this 30 feet stretch .I once had this awe inspiring experience as I had to attend a competition in Coimbatore and so I along with my comrades decide to take a trip by the friday night bound train in an unreserved compartment .

We as a precautionary measure reached the station very early hoping that we could have individual seats and have a nice slumber at least sitting but the scenario was completely different. We lingered on the platform 10 as per the same age old voice announcing “Coimbatore jane waali agli gaadi dus number platform par…” ,I suppose this voice sounds the same from time immemorial ,might be from the inception of the railways, the agli gaadi was really UGLY!!! Not to mention the stinky railway toilets (No, no I’m not ambi rules ramanujam here, just a mention for name sake)

Then we somehow made our way through and settled for the window seats but the nastiest part of it was when we came to know that the train would depart two hours behind schedule and finally it moved and soon gained impetus. Everyone around started yawning announcing the onset of their siesta and here starts the struggle, with almost seven or eight people on a four seater, the amount of space you get is directly proportional to the size of your butt with no little extra space even to let your fart escape. The space between your legs would also be best utilized with someone lying like a cadaver with a news paper spread beneath and they won’t even mind if you use their head as a foot rest. Now the whole cubicle looks like a necropolis which has attained saturation but left uncovered.

The next best part of travelling in such an atmosphere is to attend the calls of nature or to piss!!! We were caught up in the center of the compartment and going on either side would mean the same uphill task. If you are able to cross it with ease then you would be the strongest contender for Tatyana Lebedeva or Anju bobby George at the Beijing Olympics. Somehow performing a 2 ½ somersault and then a 90° right maneuver in mid air (I deserve a place in the IAF’s suryakiran team with this rich sort of experience). I suppose I stood on my toe (oops…sorry) toenail and at last stamping the last man’s balls, I reached the destination i.e. the toilet gate before he could recognize and ask me to f%$& off.

But still say shit someone is there inside but there is a western style one on the other side and I reluctantly opened it and to my dismay ‘chiiii woooaaak’ someone has peed on the seat and I wait for the moron inside to come out but soon realized that I am the crack pot here seeing that the door was ajar and realizing that there was no one inside .I swear railway toilets really tend to cheat you in this facet.

I then got back to my erstwhile position which was already half invaded by the big butt aside who was pretending to sleep, I gave him slight shove and made my way .When it dawned we had interesting conversations with the co passengers and then got off with our bags as we reached the junction.

I love traveling and despite the fact that I travel sparsely, I jot down some of my memorable memoirs. A layman’s legacy to the society has been the regular addition to the soaring population figures. This reflection could be best felt in the unreserved compartments of trains, PTC buses and not to leave aside Ranganthan street, the shopper’s seventh heaven.

Agli gaadi….

How to sleep inside a 45.76cm x 32.58cm rectangle (sitting, squatting, leaning, etc, any of the ways)??? Better you should have travelled in an unreserved weekend compartment of the Indian railways. The real Indian population mass could be seen in this 30 feet stretch .I once had this awe inspiring experience as I had to attend a competition in Coimbatore and so I along with my comrades decide to take a trip by the friday night bound train in an unreserved compartment .

We as a precautionary measure reached the station very early hoping that we could have individual seats and have a nice slumber at least sitting but the scenario was completely different. We lingered on the platform 10 as per the same age old voice announcing “Coimbatore jane waali agli gaadi dus number platform par…” ,I suppose this voice sounds the same from time immemorial ,might be from the inception of the railways, the agli gaadi was really UGLY!!! Not to mention the stinky railway toilets (No, no I’m not ambi rules ramanujam here, just a mention for name sake)

Then we somehow made our way through and settled for the window seats but the nastiest part of it was when we came to know that the train would depart two hours behind schedule and finally it moved and soon gained impetus. Everyone around started yawning announcing the onset of their siesta and here starts the struggle, with almost seven or eight people on a four seater, the amount of space you get is directly proportional to the size of your butt with no little extra space even to let your fart escape. The space between your legs would also be best utilized with someone lying like a cadaver with a news paper spread beneath and they won’t even mind if you use their head as a foot rest. Now the whole cubicle looks like a necropolis which has attained saturation but left uncovered.

The next best part of travelling in such an atmosphere is to attend the calls of nature or to piss!!! We were caught up in the center of the compartment and going on either side would mean the same uphill task. If you are able to cross it with ease then you would be the strongest contender for Tatyana Lebedeva or Anju bobby George at the Beijing Olympics. Somehow performing a 2 ½ somersault and then a 90° right maneuver in mid air (I deserve a place in the IAF’s suryakiran team with this rich sort of experience). I suppose I stood on my toe (oops…sorry) toenail and at last stamping the last man’s balls, I reached the destination i.e. the toilet gate before he could recognize and ask me to f%$& off.

But still say shit someone is there inside but there is a western style one on the other side and I reluctantly opened it and to my dismay ‘chiiii woooaaak’ someone has peed on the seat and I wait for the moron inside to come out but soon realized that I am the crack pot here seeing that the door was ajar and realizing that there was no one inside .I swear railway toilets really tend to cheat you in this facet.

I then got back to my erstwhile position which was already half invaded by the big butt aside who was pretending to sleep, I gave him slight shove and made my way .When it dawned we had interesting conversations with the co passengers and then got off with our bags as we reached the junction.