Remembering a train journey with a close friend...
It was 4 o clock in the morning at CST, Mumbai. We were pushing crowds towards a small board which has a white chart of reservation list stuck up. We carefully checked the list and smiled to each other. We are going home... going for Durga - Puja. While stepping back we encountered a crowd ogling at the chart with anxious eyes, everybody wants to go home. Its the Pujas.
We swiveled past a huge cue, which was for the general compartment. I always wonder how do these people travel for 33 hours, but I guess its the spirit of the Pujas which beckons every Bengal soul on earth making them do stuff like sleeping next to the lavatory.
The long wait starts. The wait for the green fields, topped with white flowers (kashful), children running errands around pandals with toyguns aiming at friends only to erupt a small noise and some smoke. They compete who got the best cracker and they pray very hard, they have only one thing to ask from God ... 'Please dont make it rain during the Pujas'. For these five days to come, there is nothing to worry about. It doesn't matter whats happening in the rest of the world. They have the Goddess on their side. Who cares about anything?
The train comes to a halt at a big station. Its the neighbor of kolkata, called Kharagpur... The language on hoardings have turned from Hindi to Bengali. Both of us look at each other and smiled. We need no language to express our happiness. The pace of the train seemed infinitesimally small, we want to go home as quickly as possible but everything seems to be moving slow. When we reached another station, named Santragachi, half of our body and the whole of our mind was out of the train and finally we reached heaven, HOWRAH station.
As we stepped out, we cursed, the pre paid stand being closed by the local taxi wallas, but then we thought that its pujas who cares even if we had to spend a fortune to reach home. As the taxi enters the locality I pop my head out of its window to see how good they have made the face of Durga-thakur this year. I did not need to knock at the door of my house, somebody seemed to possess a sixth sense, she opens the door with a big smile and two letter word 'eshe gechis'. Its my Mom. I do miss her so much and would have traded anything to be there for these five days...
The screen has become too hazy... Got to stop and step out for a smoke... Nothing is real anymore for am typing this down from a Kingdom of Far Far Away...
It was 4 o clock in the morning at CST, Mumbai. We were pushing crowds towards a small board which has a white chart of reservation list stuck up. We carefully checked the list and smiled to each other. We are going home... going for Durga - Puja. While stepping back we encountered a crowd ogling at the chart with anxious eyes, everybody wants to go home. Its the Pujas.
We swiveled past a huge cue, which was for the general compartment. I always wonder how do these people travel for 33 hours, but I guess its the spirit of the Pujas which beckons every Bengal soul on earth making them do stuff like sleeping next to the lavatory.
The long wait starts. The wait for the green fields, topped with white flowers (kashful), children running errands around pandals with toyguns aiming at friends only to erupt a small noise and some smoke. They compete who got the best cracker and they pray very hard, they have only one thing to ask from God ... 'Please dont make it rain during the Pujas'. For these five days to come, there is nothing to worry about. It doesn't matter whats happening in the rest of the world. They have the Goddess on their side. Who cares about anything?
The train comes to a halt at a big station. Its the neighbor of kolkata, called Kharagpur... The language on hoardings have turned from Hindi to Bengali. Both of us look at each other and smiled. We need no language to express our happiness. The pace of the train seemed infinitesimally small, we want to go home as quickly as possible but everything seems to be moving slow. When we reached another station, named Santragachi, half of our body and the whole of our mind was out of the train and finally we reached heaven, HOWRAH station.
As we stepped out, we cursed, the pre paid stand being closed by the local taxi wallas, but then we thought that its pujas who cares even if we had to spend a fortune to reach home. As the taxi enters the locality I pop my head out of its window to see how good they have made the face of Durga-thakur this year. I did not need to knock at the door of my house, somebody seemed to possess a sixth sense, she opens the door with a big smile and two letter word 'eshe gechis'. Its my Mom. I do miss her so much and would have traded anything to be there for these five days...
The screen has become too hazy... Got to stop and step out for a smoke... Nothing is real anymore for am typing this down from a Kingdom of Far Far Away...
