BANGALORE TO BHOD GAYA
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| TRAIN AT THE STATION |
The Sanghamitra Express to
Patna was only two-hours late. By Indian
standards, more or less on time for December when the mist delays trains on
main lines by as much as 24-hours or more.
So, our journey from the sunny climes of Bangalore in Karnataka to the tohubohu of Patna in Bihar took fifty-hours instead of the proclaimed 48-hours. Thereafter,
a 3-hour journey in a car took us finally to Bhod Gaya, the place of Buddha’s
enlightenment under the bhodi tree.
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| OUR FISHBOWL VIEW |
You have your books, your
crosswords, soduko (easy), a neighbourly colonel from the Indian army and a
berth with a reasonably comfortable bed – two-tier –with me struggling at first
to climb the ladder at the end of the bunk but at which I later became tip top. The feeling of being so enclosed gradually erodes
the natural proclivity to breathe fresh air and see open skies and spaces. There were windows, double glazed to keep out
the heat, in fact. Somehow, moisture had
collected in between the panes and the flashing views of neatly ploughed winter fields, the jumbled
houses of villages, people and animals had us peering out as if in a cloudy fish
bowl at the passing scenery.
The state of Indian rail
is symbolic of Indian’s decline since the first euphoria of independence, undampened
then by the subsequent massacre of up to 1-million people during the ensuing
partition of the country. The 1947
baby-boomers are all midnight children;
and the transition from war, rationing, the largest mass refugee movement in
the known history of the world, the slaughter of 2.5% (60m+) of the world’s
population, had induced a painful rebirth for all. Shackles imposed by austerities had to be
broken, but piecing together the jigsaw of life that comes with freedom has
left the world split into the haves, the hads
and the have nots.
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| NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED |
Now, as a rat scurries
about the baggage under the bunks and anopheles mosquitoes buzz around the ankles and the train rocks along with starts and
stops and I become increasingly habituated to the ubiquitous smell if urine
from the toilets, I try to piece together the early remnants of memory that
brought me here. But like a mote in the
eye, the more I look inwardly, the less I am able to focus on that early
innocence that instilled a sense of wonder and awe kept me spellbound.
When
I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the
corner of my eye,
I turned
to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it…
And I relax into the
moment feeling comfortably numb as a blind is drawn on the past and I climb up
the ladder to my bunk and nod off to the rhythm of the train’s wheels clicking
over the sleepers. History will take
care of itself: we can learn only from our own experience. That’s
wisdom, I think…but the thought passes like clouds in the sky.
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| PASSING CLOUDS |
