Hiii,
I am anyways going to tell you about my travel with my father, as I write his I realize this trip was in a way played an important role in moulding my life the way it is today and I love my life! Oh I so love it.
We started our travel from Bikaner to Jaipur in an intercity that runs in the morning and we reached Jaipur somewhere around 12:00 noon. The next train was from Jaipur at 7:00 PM, the Jaipur Chennai Express covering almost 2184 kms in approximately 37 hours starting from Rajasthan, crossing- Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and reaching Chennai Central, Tamil Nadu almost at 9:00 am the third day. The same day we took Vaigai Express from Chennai Egmore at 1:30 pm that took almost 5 hours to reach Tiruchirappalli Junction at 6:30 pm. That’s about the logistics part, now coming back to the journey part.
My father had always been a workaholic and not so much of a family man, we used to think like this for many years. But after I actually started seeing the world raising my head from the books and studies till my 12th standard, I realised how wrong we were. The first encounter was this travel with him where for the very first time I spent 3 complete days with him. Usually, we would carry just one meal from Bikaner and with that many packaged food items like- variety of Bhujia, rasgulla, pickle, khakhra, Sangri Pickle, etc. The rest of the food for travel and the “gond k laddu” would be prepared by my grand mom who lives in Jaipur. So we started with lots of emotional moments from my grandparents, lots of food almost everything to start a small home in a new place and an entirely new world to be explored for my future. There was not much to talk with my father and maybe he felt the same awkwardness and that’s when he started talking to me about the places that were going to come in between, how the landscapes were changing and the second day in between my father would vanish for long durations from our designated berths. Me being me on one such time I got up and went to look for him only to find him standing next to the train door holding those long bars and looking outside while barely being able to keep his eyes open due to the wind pressing against his face.
I asked him aren’t you afraid? In response he asked me to join him near that door stand holding those bars and for the very first time I wasn’t afraid as this wind gently passed through my hair and pat me lovingly on my face, I realised the fears aren’t fears really until you face them and you could some times enjoy these lovely encounters with nature. Post that me and papa did that a few other times as well and I learnt to open the train door mechanism too!
I wish I could share a picture here, but unfortunately or fortunately there were no mobiles in those days and I am so glad for that as otherwise I would have never really understood my father. I think in Nagpur he asked me if I wanted to have something from the station (not even once in the last many years he would have asked us for any such thing!) as he would get down on every station and come back with either a book or a newspaper. I said not really and he still went out and got some oranges and Poori sabzi from the platform, the engine would change there and the stoppage was longer there. That day I understood something about human nature- only when you are hungry you would ask anyone else if they are hungry too! This awareness has helped me in life at many places, as people are different and their body needs are also different and I became more empathetic towards that human aspect.
He was always around me talking to co passengers and figuring out more about the city and people, Marwari market and the travel patterns usually of the passengers on that train. For 5 years after this very first travel I did everything that I learnt from that travel with my father. Met many people on train, still in touch with them, travelled across many cities, ate different food items that were locally found on the railway stations, drank water from different stations, ran sometimes to catch that moving train, stood at the train door and felt the wind, experienced the way people’s complexions, clothing styles, dressing styles, talking styles changed as per the locations they belonged to, landscapes, changing architecture, local houses, local crops, local dialect, and sometimes even handled eve teasers too, learnt so much more about kindness, empathy, sharing food with co passengers, most importantly trusting people of different faiths, making friends and actually living the “Unity in diversity of INDIA”.
That travel changed me forever and on most of the occasions I have never shied away from taking on new challenges and facing my fears head on! That day I also learnt something about my father, he was a very different man, a kind human who is very emotional and yet kept his emotions to himself mostly and slowly he was getting me ready to leave this nest to fly and explore my own world on my own conditions and taught me to listen to my heart no matter what (this has happened on many occasions earlier also)!
I guess I would stop here as I am finding it difficult to manage my water filled eyes here!
Do let me know if this resonates with you too, I would love to hear your stories too and share.