[Reader-list] On moving on

[Aman Sethi]

Dear All,

It has indeed been a torrid time for the reader-list and I can
understand the frustrations of many with regard to the particular and
specific nature of some conversations over a certain period of time.
It has however, made for some very interesting reading - if solely
from the vantage point of watching a conversation that one can perhaps
never have anywhere else except in a train compartment.

While airplane conversations tend to be more personal - short, furtive
jabs at conversation "Where do you live?" "What is your job?" "Is
there much future in that sector?"; railway journeys tend to elicit
far more wide ranging and political arguments.  Perhaps it arises from
the knowledge that one has the next 24, 36 or even 48 hours (Delhi
-Trivandrum) to straighten out every kink in the discussion.  Every
station offers a point of departure - at Kanpur, one can talk to the
collapse of heavy industry, at Azamgarh one can reflect on the
fragility of communal peace, in Bhopal one wonders if the union
carbide case will ever be resolved and Nagpur offers the option of
oranges and the RSS.  On a Calcutta bound train my companion spoke
eloquently of how the marwaris were buying up all of bengal.  On my
way back, his stand-in gently suggested that the Punjabis had ruined
Delhi.  "What is your family name?" he delicately enquired after a few
hours. "Sethi? Ah and where are they from?"

Another possibility could be that the long forced cohabitation gives
me a sense (an illusion?) that I am actually now "close" to the person
occupying the bunk opposite mine.  Over the last so many hours, we
have eaten, drunk, burped, brushed and changed into our night clothes
in this constricted compartment.  The smell of his vegetables has
mixed with the smell of my chicken curry; I have split some tea on the
flip-out table that we both are forced to share; he -with casual
nonchalance- has taken both the bottle holders for his mineral water.
At times other times I find myself moved to speak solely so that in
the final reckoning, I say that i heard what I thought was prejudice,
and I did not stay silent.  Around us there are two more passengers of
undecided or private politics - much like our other readers on this
list. They spend long periods stretched out on the upper berths -
coming only for meals.

In the aftermath of these exhausting months - yes, it has been
exhausting - I find myself rather hopeful. Not of the fact that we
shall finally reach our destination and disembark, never tio speak
with each other again. But rather, hopeful that we reached that point
where the TTE has checked our tickets and assured us we are all legit
- some of us have paid fines, others have finally managed to get their
children, parents and aging in-laws in the same coupe', and the
attendant is now serving tiny paper cups of ice-cream as an
after-dinner sweetner. Of course it is hard to sleep with an argument
clawing at your insides. So we make a temporary truce for the night -
secure in the knowledge that the morning shall bring rubbery omelettes
and another set of conversations.

Now that the ice-cream has been handed out; and the heretofore silent
passengers are beginning to make loud "shushing" noises,  perhaps we
can all pause, take a breath and look forward to what the morrow shall
bring.
best
a.