It all started with me going to Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, to visit my uncle. A second cousin of mine also happened to be there, leaving for Bhopal, his home, a day earlier than I was supposed to leave for Mumbai. He convinced me to come along with him to Bhopal to meet other relatves there, and with a spirit of adventure, I accepted, cancelling my Class II AC ticket on Pushpak express.
All went well and I reached Bhopal station, the next morning at 6, all fresh for the ride in the unreserved compartment back home, to Mumbai.
Now at this point, let me tell you, I am no stranger to unreserved compartments, with me travelling in them every month for 4 hrs at a stretch, from Pune to Mumbai.
BUT WHAT THE HELL!!!

I and my bag, a large handbag at that, were not able to proceed further than the washbasin, so full was the train, with, let alone sitting, no space to stand without stepping on someone's foot. And the whole compartment was filled with Bhaiyyas(people hailing from Uttar Pradesh), smelling and screeching God knows what to God knows whom!!!
I am pretty sure that I must have been the only person in the whole compartment seating 72, holding around 150, who was wearing shoes and socks!
I bravely smiled at my cousin, promising to call the moment I reached home, and saw his worried face grow smaller and smaller as the train picked up speed.

Though originally from Lucknow, I am more at home in Mumbai and speaking English comes easier to me than Hindi, and all these GAON WAALE bhaiyye, pretty much irritated me with their un sophisticated manner of speaking. By 11, I was ready to jump off the moving train, the only thing stopping me from doing that was the crowd of people standing between me and the door, 1 metre away.
The compartment was so full that a guy was actually sitting behind the pipe that proceeds from the was basin to the floor!!!! It was as bad as a fully loaded local train in Mumbai or Pune or any other metro in India, only, in this case the journey was to last 12 whopping hours!!!

I saw a pretty interesting, and to some, shocking thing on the train. Pushpak Express is a superfast train and time between stoppage is large. What I saw there really blew my pants off.An industrious tea seller climbed out of the reserved compartment next to ours, pulled out a hook attached to himself via a stout rope and flicked it onto the bars of our compartment, swung himself from the other compartment's door to ours, and calmly went on to sell his tea. All this happened with the train moving at 100 km/hr!!! I kid you not!

The first stop for the train Bhusaval came and went at around 1, where I got a pepsi to drink, the first thing that went into my empty stomach that day. I was not really hungry, what with the smell and all!!!!

But the real reason why i drank that pepsi was because i had almost fainted that morning, standing in such rough conditions for 5 hours at a stretch. But it was those GAON WAALE BHAIYYE that helped me, sat me down and got a banana from their bag and made me eat... Just a little gesture that touched me all the way down to my socked feet!!! I mean, here they were, packed in the compartment like sardines in a can, and they come to help me out in my misery.


After that they made some place in that crowded area ( I absolutely don't know how!!) and asked me, no, forced me to sit down and finish the banana, followed by plenty of water.
The rest of the journey was better, as I talked to them and they talked to me. I found out that they had their own problems travelling in this way, and not everyone in there was poor, to be travelling that way. We talked for 4 hours after that where I actually learnt quite a lot about them. They were skilled workers with families in UP and worked for 6 months at a stretch to send enough money to put their sons and daughters into decent schools and colleges. They were not doing this by choice and some were now pretty well off, to be able to travel in reserved compartments, but unable to secure the seats.
The train reached Kalyan station in the outskirts of Mumbai at 6 PM, 12 hours after the journey had begun, and I bade farewell to those people in the train who were good to me even when they themselves were suffering in the compartment.

I am very fortunate to have been born into a family where there was never a dearth of the necessary things in life, and some of the not so necessary things too. I have since then learnt the lesson about not to categorize anyone on the basis of their outer appearance, because more often than not, those very dusty bodies hide a golden heart.