a class of its own

[updated 9-Nov-2005]
Some photos from the general class train on the way to Hyderabad…

My train was delayed by 4 hours due to heavy rains, better than another one that tragically got derailed in the vicinity of Hyderabad!

One can see all kinds of different unexpected things in the general class. More details some time, but some comments for now….

One guy was trying to solve a puzzle in the newspaper, while listening to mp3 music from a hi-fi cellphone.

This kid unfortunately seemed to have the smile permanently wiped out of his face througout the journey. Even showing him his photo on the camera’s LCD screen which usually works didn’t work this time.

This picture shows the kind of congestion – though nobody seriously minds and everyone’s kind of gotten used to it!

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Its not that I want to glamorise the general class or something like that 😉 but these are just some observations…

With so many people and so little space is one world view, atleast of a country like India. So this compartment I felt represented the entire country, in a fractal kind of way. Every square foot was like real estate. There were occasional arguments and tactics for gaining space just like people engage in them in the real world for wealth or power or real estate. And as in the case of the world, some people were dominating and some were submissive, and some used somewhat interesting tactics, and some had no say in the matter at all, and for example if you look at the man seen solving the puzzle – a bigger puzzle would be how he managed to get so much of space in such a congested place – he actually managed to sleep very comfortably through most of the journey! (just like a landlord manages to somehow accumulate a lot of land and grains inspite of a draught in the region!).

There were others who came in and shouted at several people who were occupying more than the least possible space and they had to make way for the fellows who were shouting. These occasional intermittent verbose arguments went on for a short while – in short bursts of verbose violence – and peace was soon restored, sometimes with external intervention who just wanted everybody involved to shut up 🙂 so that they could continue to sleep whatever excuse of sleep they were sleeping.

There was one instance where an argument (mostly comprising of meaningless threats and shouts) went on for a much longer time with much some high pitched screams as well – and word through the grapevine came that a man had produced a dagger threatening a lady because her feet touched him and he found it extremely abusive. The chaos went on for quite a long time, and it looked like a very dangerous situation but even that somehow got resolved.

There was one really touching scene, where in the midst of all this a kid (the smileless kid shown in the picture) was sleeping on the lap of his mother, who was sitting on the floor of the train. Inspite of all that congestion, I was really amazed seeing the the tender care with which she made the child lie down on her lap and carefully wrapped him with a shawl – it seemed as if the child even in those circumstances was so comfortable and secure. For a good amount of time, there was no electricity in the carriage, and people while walking (well squeezing through actually) around though dark, carefully stepped around her and her child not disturbing them at all. One of the passengers, an engineer, helpfully switched on his cellphone to provide light every time she (or anyone else) seemed to be looking around for something.

If the United Nations or ever wanted to make a video of harmonious cooperation in spite of contention, they could take a video of one journey in a general class compartment of the Great Indian Railways. Where people inspite of differences somehow resolve everything. Sometimes the entire neighbourhood collectively involve themselves to resolve some problem. It was clear that everybody had one common objective – peace.

Even at smaller personal levels of contention, they somehow mutually cooperate, and not just coexist but often even help each other in small groups in a symbiotic way. Each compartment unit becomes a sort of small group where everyone knows, recognises and acknowledges each other’s presence, even though there may or may not be much of a conversation.

There have been several instances in my life when I have had the clear and easy option to migrate, and have actively chosen to avoid it. Sometimes people have wondered if I have been irrational, naive or blindly patriotic. I could never really come up with a good explanation.

Now I think I have a slightly more logical one: Somehow when its all too easy to take things for granted when living in a nice polished place (not that I have anything against nice polished places), there are plenty of places in India where where one is constantly reminded of ground reality.

There was a blog entry I read some time ago where the writer kind of echoed this idea in a better way:

In a way, India is a filthy place — cow dung everywhere, smelly beggars on the footpaths, polluted air, bad water. Yet in another way, this mess is a manifestation of our collective mind that harbors inequities, chaos and dis-satisfaction; many parts of the world offer cocoons to run away from this filth but India, to date, still offers straight-up reality.

source: Nipun’s blog: Shop Till You Drop

As I had commented earlier…

The West is a place where beauty first becomes immediately obvious, and the ugliness is very subtle. In India ugliness is immediately obvious, and beauty is more subtle, and more powerful.

To really appreciate India, one needs to move beyond the obvious into the subtle.

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see also: rediscover india…