The journey that life is...

They say LIFE’s A JOURNEY…but for me it was a journey that showed me a glimpse of what life can be for different people….
It was one of those train journeys from Howrah to Jaipur…must be for the 8th time….but with a difference…may be because of the nagging thoughts of the time ticking away on the last few months of my college life (that was a not-so-obvious reason )..
The immediate reasons being, I was coming back alone for the first time (generally I manage to get some group-mates to accompany me on all the other trips)…
And I was allotted a middle berth, that being a cause of concern because, I normally prefer the uppermost berth so that there’s nobody to knock me out of my slumber…
So this time I couldn’t sleep for too long and had to comply with the wishes of my fellow passengers, especially the one whose berth was below mine….
There were people in different phases of life…A baby(must be around one and half years old),her young parents(a Bengali couple), a young Muslim couple, a 40 something pot-bellied gentleman(Arjun Jain), a middle-aged Marwari lady who seemed a bit more aged than she actually was( her son was going to get married soon, as I could make out from her conversation with her would-be- daughter in law’s mother, who was making all possible efforts to appease her)…

As it was almost midnight when we boarded the train, there was nothing eventful that night. Next morning, I found the lady struggling to get down from her berth…she had arthritis and had to sleep in the middle berth opposite to mine…somehow helped her out…when she struck a conversation…she asked me ,why I was traveling alone and what was I doing in Jaipur…When I told her, all she said was, being a girl I should reconsider my decision of studying this far(this far?? All this while I was thinking…what would I do with a plain Btech degree ..now that my MBA hopes for this year were almost crushed, and at the moment- fully of course)….her rationale was- I would have to give up all that ( job or whatever career moves I make) once I get married! All I could say was “Aunty woh toh baad me dekha jayega”…she said she had so many experiences to support her view…I had those usual feminist thoughts stirring up in my mind…but then how could I argue with such an elderly woman..kept them to myself…my attention shifted to the Bengali couple with their baby..they could get just one berth owing to the huge rush for tickets at that time of the year..they were a Gen X couple..They were conversing in English..although there was that typical Bengali accent in it…Both of them were in western outfits and the mother was particularly beautiful..the father had a faint resemblance with Madhavan..the super-hero from south. I had the feeling that they were software professionals..The Marwari lady in her usual inquisitive manner asked the mother where did they stay and their occupation..She said..she owned a management institute in Salt Lake city,Kolkata.(whoa…that explained her getup..these B-school ppl are supposed to be smart) And her husband was some executive in a company…As usual,the lady put up the question..how could she take care of her kid while she has to manage her business…After listening to her, I could see the skepticism in the Marwari lady’s face(as if thinking ..she wont let her would be daughter- in- law do that)…The couple were talking very little to each other…the wife was looking out of the window…and the husband was busy reading a novel while listening to music,the kid was sleeping..On the topmost berth there was this Muslim couple busy talking to each other..quite a contrast to the ones I talked earlier about..they seemed newly weds..Does life have to become so mundane after few years of marriage..various thoughts kept crossing my mind,idle as it was..though sometimes I was reading a novel...
During lunchtime..I got to talk to that Muslim lady..she was of my age or may be younger(as she got married after her three yrs of graduation)…exceedingly sweet and well-behaved..her husband was lucky, I thought...She was a housewife and said how life was so different in Kolkata from that in Agra…yes, her parents’ place..that was where she was going to…She was all praises for her husband.. “mere husband mashallah bahut achhe hain..kabhi bore nhi hone dete hain”..good for her, I thought….she had mixed feelings ..of the excitement of visiting her parents after quite some months and the grief of parting with her caring husband (her husband had gone away for getting food when she was saying all this to me..Came back after sometime)….In the meanwhile a lad from Bihar had arrived….The old lady quite expectedly didn’t spare the Muslim couple of her questions…as soon as she got to know they were Muslims..out of nowhere..she started the discussion as to how the Muslims were hard core terrorists and were responsible for the then recent 26/11 attack on Mumbai…it was kind of embarrassing..the couple were decent enough to maintain their equanimity in such a situation…She was talking of the government inaction on not waging a war on Pakistan and such things…the bihari lad was supporting her…Meanwhile this gentleman..Arjun Jain(an ex-army personnel,who had fought in the kargil war) came into the scene or rather to the rescue of the situation..he said “Aunty aapki baton se train me communal riot ho skti hai” The lady protested on being called “aunty” by a middle aged man and continued with her points…He kept saying that it is wrong to generalize the behavior of any community..and brought forward the good points of muslims ..he said the good thing about them was..the Indian muslims were mostly united among themselves and a few other things…Meanwhile, the muslim couple who were sitting beside me heaved a sigh of relief..and the husband was asking the wife “aap kiske paksh me hain?” ..A full fledged group discussion turned debate was in progress…finally the voices had died down and a brief silence followed….the Bengali couple seemed to be pretty aloof from this discussion….after sometime the next discussion ensued ..it was on how the kids of today were being spoilt and not being brought up in the right way, initiated by aunty again.. Arjun Jain was again on the other side..he was in favour of bringing up kids in a friendly manner and cited the example of his son..there were many conflicting regional views being put forward..the Bihari lad advocated the use of corporal punishment to the extent of slaying one’s kids if he/she went against the wishes of parents..Arjun Jain went on to note down his mobile no. saying that he will ask his point of view again once the bihari(who wasn’t married yet) has a kid himself …The muslim couple were gradually drifting into their own world again..now that Agra was going to come…it was time to sleep again…and the discussion had stopped …As I closed my eyes , I wondered about the diversity of people and their thoughts…whatever it was.. the greatness of our country lies in it….i didn’t realize when I went off to sleep ..only to wake up when the train reached Jaipur…