Travels and Encounters_Episode 5:Disneyland in train

It was a 5:00 am train to Vellore that day. I had only known the previous night that I had to head towards Vellore for an official meeting. My father manged to book a train ticket and boarded me in Central. Meanwhile amidst the hurry to board the train we surprised a couple from another compartment enquiring about our seats being occupied. After finding my seat in another compartment I waved at my father, thinking about "why should a couple board to Vellore for a honeymoon? wouldn't  they have a better place on earth? or may be they are heading back to their home town after honeymoon".But neither Chennai is a  better choice.Concluding my speculation I turned out to find another interesting family beside. A couple with two children nearly about 4 to 5 years old. The younger one creating a scene to gain her mothers attention, while the elder was trying to distract the younger one. The father was trying hard to fall asleep amidst the tantrums. The chip munks,  did their best to overpower the noise in the train."Could try to pacify them? You are having a nice time sleeping while I don't get peace even while going on a trip" pounced the wife. The next moment the husband was up with a jerk and tried convincing the kids living behind his trials to fall asleep." Is this the train you bought us for birthday?" asked the kid. " then why is it not this big?" enquired the kid again." well it is a train set. how would we accommodate a big train in our house? how will you play with it if it is so much big? that's why I got a smaller one for you both" said the husband. While my thoughts drifted backwards hearing them speak.
Trains really fascinate people around the world. I had a real fascination for trains when I was a small kid. I used to look around for some marvelous train sets with lots of rail attachments , compartments and engine working as that of the real ones. I loved train sets which had extra fittings and miniatures like a bridge, a station master ,traffic signals etc. But I was only bestowed upon with a mere skill that could convince my father to buy an engine with round rails that covered one foot tile. Later when my friend's brother was  six, people asked him what he wants to become, he replied to everyone's astonishment that he aspires to be an  " engine driver". 'Poor kid why trouble him with the future prospects?  Anyways everyone is going end up being professional one or the other day.' I thought. I still don't know why people around ask questions about their future profession to kids when the deciding authority lies ultimately with the parents. "Don't worry kid they will never let u become a engine driver" your destiny is already planned.We both headed towards the toy room which had 3-4 train sets covered all over the room. No doubt the boy wanted to be an engine driver. "May be that's why my father never bought me a big train set, else even I would have wanted to be a engine driver. Well, nothing is so different now I am an engine-eeer".I convinced myself.
It had become 8:30 am, I grabbed the bun inside my bag my mother managed to prepare in a short time. While I looked around to offer them, they were busy calling out a vendor. The chip munks started to jump from one seat to anther, while their father and mother tried their level best to keep them normal." Now sit down, if you would behave I will buy you eatables" said the father." we do not want those bananas and groundnuts, anything else would do good" said the children. The deal was finalized and a vendor was called for service. "I want chips" said the younger one." " Two chips" said the father to the vendor. " I want cake" said the elder one. " ok then, one cake packet and one chips" corrected the father. The vendor looked pleased at his sales and moved on anticipating that I wouldn't buy anything from him, as I already had a bun in my hand. Well I never had a good deal to buy from him. Dejected the vendor carried on further. "Now you both should share" said the father, while the mother was busy opening the packets." Here you go", the elder one gave a piece of cake generously to the younger one. The younger ate it with gratefulness, and offered a piece of chips in return. " Just one? I gave you a piece" said the elder one." Yaa. How much did you give? even you gave only one. One - one tallied" said the younger." But that was a cake, I gave you 1 out of three I had" said the elder one." you don't lie, Radha miss thought me enough to count up till 20 numbers. Even I gave you one" said the younger. seeing them fight the mother came to intrude upon the matter and settle it, while the Vellore station came up to my rescue to get down. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A forceful holiday

It is not the usual scenario in the households of southern Chennai region to have vociferous discussion on a topic. The voices were too loud that it penetrated the neighborhood houses, deafening all the others in the street. One high pitched voice especially was ear-splitting. Everyone from opposite flats peeped out through their windows out of curiosity. Rather me out of embracement shut tight those old wooden windows and sealed them. It was anyways futile, but I was a little Panglossian those days to accept the harsh reality. I couldn’t believe the fact that, a sudden arrival of a confused clamorous family would stir a curiosity in the whole neighborhood. Being in nearest proximity I was technically the most affected of the serendipity. “Baaalaaaaa! Baala!” shouted Kamala…. She was wearing a long nighty kind or a night gown. She panted heavily, with a panicked expression came running down, her dress was dangling very similar to how a tent would dangle in a forceful wind. Well is it...
Read more

The drama around the skit( silapadigaram struggles)

It is been a tradition that all of us in our high school need to perform a skit for our language assessment. The best play would participate in intraschool competition. Our Tamil class had always been very perticular about staging a play for the assessment and narrowed it down by giving it a topic “kapyams and idhihasams”. There are 2 Idhihasams( Ramayana & Mahabharatham) and 5 kapiyams in Tamil. Quickly there were 3 groups which was formed out of nowhere and choose Ramayana, manimegalai,and valayabathi. Only sevaga sindamani , silapadigaram and  kundalakesi were left in the topic of kapiyams which we had no clue about the storyline to make it a script and stage a play. Mahabharata play on the other hand had too many characters to be staged which could not make a justice with just 7 of us remaining. Hence for our Tamil skit, remaining group of girls left out , finalised to stage silapadugaram.  Silapadigaram tells about the protoganist merchant named Kovalan w...
Read more

An encounter- a close shave

Image
Being brought up in an urban city , it is nearly impossible to have any sort of wildlife encounter. It is mostly  dogs, cats, crows, pigeons, sometimes cows and buffaloes are the only species that we were in contact with. In Chennai, though places like Guindy park, Vandaloor zoo, IIT-M promise you of a fabulous encounter with the kingdom of Animalia, it is quite difficult to encounter a monkey outside these places as evolved species(of monkeys) are quite dense. Perhaps the later evolved species(the humans) are rather too busy to notice it. My first encounter with this interesting animal was when I was an year old. It was when we went to Solingar hill to have my hair shaved. As a kid, it was so confusing to differentiate between a saloon and temples, as most of the time I was taken to temple with long oiled hair, and return back shaved. My Paati had preyed to the Lord, that she would shave my hair in five different temples and Solingar temple on the hill top was my first(encount...
Read more