PLANNED PARENTHOOD PROGRAM BY INDIAN RAILWAYS

It was going to be a 30 hours trip and I was travelling by what is called A/C 2^nd class. The Indian railways have several classes of travel starting by the A/C first class all the way to what is called the unreserved class. Train travel in India is cheap and people of this country like to move so it works for everyone a true democracy when it comes to this. When you try to book tickets on the long distance trains you have to make sure that you not going to be traveling during any of the national holidays, or during school holidays or during the beginning of the academic year when students are moving around to write the hundreds of entrance exams in the various universities of the country. But if you have to travel during these times then you better book at least a month in advance to be assured of a place or you would have to brave the unreserved class - this is a system that allows you to buy a ticket even if there is no more place on the train because there is one boogie (I do not know who decided this was the terminology for a wagon of the train but this is how it is called) that is for passengers with an unreserved ticket. Even if there are only 56 places in this boogie you could be holding a ticket that makes you the 218 person privileged to travel in this boogie.

Anyway, when I was travelling it was not during any of these times when the population of India decides to move around the country. I got in to my boogie at Chennai, which is a major city or to be more appropriate a metropolis and found my seat which was part of a boogie with an aisle that has 6 bunk beds perpendicular on one side and 2 bunk beds parallel to the aisle. I had made sure that I was not on the 2 bunk side but on the 6 bunk side with a lower berth. As implied by the name of the class the compartment was air conditioned but that is not all that is implied. You have curtains, and when you get curtains you get them where ever it is possible to hang one. Over the windows, along the aisle and along the bunks so that when you are lying in one of them you can clean your belly button in the privacy behind the florid printed, mustard coloured, musty smelling fabric that is pleated and ruffled for your pleasure. The windows are brown tinted and are made of double glazing, only issue is that it is not air tight double glazing. So over time dust and humidity has settled in the gap between the two sheets of glazing such that you can only see a dim image of the world outside. Maybe the curtains are to hide this slip up in tendering of the windows to a company that made its fortune by getting the life long contract to supply double glazing to the A/C compartments to the biggest railroad network of the world that employs the largest number of people in this great country.

There was a family in the same alcove of 6 bunk beds with me, a set of parents of the appropriate sex and age with two boys of appropriately spaced births 6 and 8 years old. They looked normal. And across the aisle there was what you would call an obviously newly married couple. They were shy but at the same time making sure that all the signs of their newly acquired status was exhibited. So out of the eight of us there was a family of four, a couple, my travelling partner who was not a native of this country and me. We, between us covered the major ethnic and demographic groups. Till it was time for the train to shunt out of the station there was the regular onslaught of the hectic people running in and out of the compartment, vendors who sold biscuits, fruits, locks and chains (to chain your luggage in the night so that when you are asleep no one can off load you bags and the thoughtful builders of the carriages have provided steel hoops under the lower bunks for this), magazines ranging from the gossips of the major movie industry of the country, fashion magazines for lower, middle and upper class, thrillers in multiple languages and toys that looked like someone who was mentally challenged decided spend his time manufacturing these plastic products to see if it touched a chord in anyone else and whoopee! He found out that there were millions of chords that trilled at the sight of his creations.

Groups of people comprising of both sexes and all age groups would tumble into the compartment at regular intervals and then scream at each other which seat?, is this it? is this the right compartment? Where is Dubbo? Where is Dubbos mother? Where is the green suitcase? The grandmother, is she still on the platform?

 Then they would work as a family try to prevent the other groups who would also want to tumble into the same compartment with emotional cant you wait? The train has still twenty minutes before it leaves; we have also a valid ticket but are we pushing like rural folks? While muttering loudly of what they think of the social and cultural status of the tumble cum lately, they would all then lug the many suitcases, bags, baskets and cartons which have pictures of boom boxes, household appliances printed on it sides, up and down the narrow aisle where there was half the population of Chennai trying to either move in or out. To help the situation you have the obligatory pompous, over weight gentleman supervising a red shirted Indian railways registered coolie on where to place his luggage while the coolie would try to negotiate the cost of his effort before he would take orders. The overweight gentleman would then question the character of the coolie and wonder aloud at the general level of depravity of the underclass that continues to exploit the poor travellers. Someone would then suggest that it is a wonder that a big enterprise like the Indian railways cannot have a printed list of what should be paid to the coolies, like with the taxi drivers. At some point in all this you would start to wonder if it all this is such a good idea?  If the whole idea of taking a trip to visit some temples and old towns was not an enterprise that was more foolhardy that going to a galaxy far far away and you do not even get to travel with Darth Vader in a room full of gizmos!

Normally, in every alcove there is supposed to be seats that were equivalent to the number of berths but passing men slide one butt on the couch that you and 2 others are already occupying. They aim their smile somewhere above the eye level of the seated and the upper couchette the middle one is folded down to become the back rest of the lower couchette. Their body language suggests that this is temporary as they wait for the heaving humanity to settle down and they will then move on to their seats. Even if you know by experience that butt sliders will not move till the black jacketed TT comes around to check the tickets. I do not know what the acronym TT stands for but even a limited imagination can supply a whole gamut of words that could fit the job and only decency would refrains one from writing them down.

At some point all of us feel the jolt and then the train does it customary shunting back and forth to let the ones who on the train to add to the crowd scene to get off. We start moving and one will get to see the sights of the back of the industrial estates, unplanned low rise - high density lower middle class self help housing, masses of slums, rivers of sludge, mountains of smoking landfills, thousands of people defecating and millions of open mouthed children waving at the train on its way. I do not feel I am travelling in a train if this was not part of the start and end of every train journey. After sometime we hit rural India with vast open spaces of empty land and sudden clumps of precarious villages, where are the billions when you are in rural India? Have they all moved to urban India? If so why is not be announced on TV every night as breaking news? I am getting hysterical with every passing hour since we left Chennai because the two boys begin to make me feel homicidal and I have to hold back.

They squirm and push around; they wait for you to set your plastic thimble of tea to open your wallet to pay the dining car attendant to topple it over. They had spilled the dinner trays on to the floor last night and we still sitting with our feet in the mushy mix because the grime covered boys who get on at some stops do a smear campaign of the floor in the name of cleaning before they hold out their thin hands for the baksheesh. The boys box their mother while the sperm donor of the pair sits oblivious behind one of the gossip magazines. The bride across the aisle had smiled tenderly at their act when we were still few hours into the journey in an attempt to show that she was child friendly to the man who had tied the knot with her. The aim of the marriage for their respective families is reproduction of the clan she had to live up to the expectations. When one of the two torpedoes in the human child form would bang into her, she had patted it gently on the head and smile. The man would then smile at the rest of us to show that he had picked the right reproductive candidate. But after 20 hours of being shoved into, having your head scarf pulled and trampled on the grime carpeted floor, your tea spilt on your suitcase and your jaw aching from smiling at the bride you start to come apart. I could hear her thoughts she was contemplating a split, divorce, groom burning anything to prevent giving birth to any kids ever in her reproductive age. The husband was fast becoming an expert at being self-involved behind some printed matter so that he is not called to witness their future. He was starting to look like a clone of the father of the two sub-human children. The mother of these two had reached a state of catatonic suffering where she no longer chided them for anything.

At some point one of these two mutants, I think it was the younger one starts to pull apart my sandals that was lying on the floor. I was sitting with my feet up to prevent it from being stamped, crushed and/or have food, tea, snot or saliva dripped on it. The mutant was getting on the job better than any street mongrel. I looked at the mother expecting some help, but like hell! She was still catatonic. I looked around and realised everyone had spaced out for survival and there were still 10 hours to go before we could get off this moving nightmare. I quickly did another scan with my peripheral vision, yes! no one was looking. I casually lowered my feet to make it look like I was recovering my sandals while placing my hands behind the neck of the mutant for balance. While smiling in the general direction of the window I started to squeeze the back of the plump neck, trying to go for the artery. The boy froze in fascination, his left hand suspended with the sandals still attached to it while the other hand that was trying to pull the straps apart froze with the elbow pointed to the ceiling fans. I squeezed further and deeper, I could feel the throb of the pumping blood. The boy waited. At this point I realised that I was set up. This is what the parents had wanted, this is what the Indian railways wanted and this was what the country wanted but it was not allowed by the law because of the western imperialistic values of children rights. This was a well planned set up, I was supposed to kill one if not both of them and when the train reached the destination I would be lead away by the law while the parents would gleefully take the next train home. Finally they would be rid of the torture that they have endured for the last 8 years. The side effect of my act would be to shock the bridegroom so much that he would come out of the closet and get his bride to be the housekeeper for him and his boyfriend. And she would thankfully take this position because then she would never be impregnated till the mother-in-law would finally burn her for the crime of infertility.

In spite of flash of revelation, I realised I could not let go of the neck. The lure of 10 hours of peace was stronger than having to endure a life time of an under trail waiting for the Indian judicial system to call my case of child murder which was eye witnessed by dozens of people. I had to use my reluctant other hand to pry my fingers of the neck! The collective sighs of disappointment warmed the near freezing temperature of the air conditioned compartment for the next hour. I could feel looks of judgement being directed to my back while I kept my eyes focused on trying to see through the double glazed grime. I played guess what is that blur? with the images whizzing past and thanked the gods of Indian railways for helping me from falling into the temptation of the set up. I suddenly understood why families in India is always on the move, it is the only way to practice the one family one child policy of this country where the over the counter methods of safe sex are not always assured by the quality of the pharmaceutical products manufacturers or by the level of reproductive health awareness of the population it serves.