Our train departed on time and we were short of time. Adventurous. In fact, we touched the train just 2 minutes before it starts moving from Bandra Terminus at 1.30 pm. Still one of our group member (who was carrying our tickets) was not there with this, we were trying to call him but his phone was not being picked up. Somehow he picked the call and assured to meet us in the next month. That made the group cheer into joy but things didn't went very long when the group discovered that there was a shortage of money too. Only two of us were having cash in hand and managing a journey of more than 17 hours was something more troubling. Somehow going through our pockets and wallets we collected a specific amount and planned to spend it in an economical way. The passengers were keenly observing our activities but none of them asked anything. In my experience of five years of journey in trains, I have seen the impact of technology and its effect on long- lasting (sometimes frightening) conversations, discussions and dialogues with co-passengers. Nowadays, people are equipped with multiple gadgets and movies, songs etc put in that. Apart from it, social media led to radical changes have minimized the human behaviours limited to the smartphones. Similar things were going on in our bogie too. Though I was having continuous conversations with my classmates on the other hand, with other passengers I have some interaction only when we were sitting in their seats for having dinner.
Throughout the journey, the interaction among our group was regarding the expected environment of the field. Since two of our colleagues were from Rajasthan so it becomes easier for us to get answer of several questions, like; What is the nature of marble industry, how it affects the health of mining labour and why there are certain imbalances created by the industry. Apart from it, we discussed the food, culture and tourist places of Rajasthan. As our discussion was going on we were in Gujrat and travelled more than 300 km. We had our snacks by having some local eatables. After that, we discussed something about our personal lives and what are the problems are there. We exchanged suggestions and discussed how those can be solved. After two more hours, we reached Ahmedabad and have our Dinner in the cheapest way possible. Then we directly went for our respective seats and take rest with a 'sounded' sleep.
The train was on time and arrived Jodhpur on time and the scene in the early morning was mesmerizing. Since for the first time I have travelled too far of North-Western part of India with the imperatives built by the mainstream media especially through movies like shortage of water, sands etc. get destroyed in few minutes when I observed the landscape and its beauty. Finally, I realised that universalization only harms one's potentials to see realities differently and contextually.
Hoping for more Contributions,
Mohammad Imran
Interesting...
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