toot! toot!

A train ride of closed minds.
Of astonishingly self-congratulatory tones.
Of loud unashamed hypocritical proclamations.
Of being the only protesting female voice amongst many baritones that insisted that golden were the days when rajasthani women walked miles balancing 4 pots of precious water on their head. "Guardians of culture", they called them, and were disgusted that the working taps they had installed in a few villages now were "killing tradition".
As I returned from Bombay (Mumbai’s is an insipid compromise of a name), as usual, I hoped that the train driver falls sick and does not arrive, thereby causing the journey to be happily cancelled (juvenile idiocy that stems from childhood prayers that Dad doesn’t turn up to pick me up after school, so I could explore that nearby park all by myself).
But as luck would have it, the signal turned green, last minute bye-byes turned frantic and teary, the stationmaster’s white uniform whizzed past, and the platform disappeared into green shrubs and incomplete railway tracks stuck up in defiance in the air. As if on cue, everyone in the compartment checked his/her bags, smiled weakly at a neighbour who seemed most likely to nod/grin in response. The perfunctory "where are you going?" and "why had you been to Bombay?" later, common ground was found and conversation shaped up over numerous cups of watery chai and kaapi.
A very young girl sat by the window; a hindi Amar Chitra Katha comic book lay open on her lap, but her eyes kept dreamily scanning the world outside the window. The two army men who sat by me tried to keep their erect sitting position, their hands neatly folded across their chest. But when everyone began taking off their chappals and slouching into easy-to-day-dream poses, they gave in too.
A pot-bellied middle-aged man sat by the young girl (who was being brought back from her in-laws home), noticing disapprovingly how she had scrunched up her saree so she could squat. "Must be her father," I thought. She caught his look too, and decided she’d change into more modest jeans and a shirt- she was going to her own home anyway.
As she left the coupe, her father began contemplatively, "Who wears sarees these days… It’s all western culture. We are slaves of USA…" Hmm… where have I heard THAT before? Of course, the desi man dishing it out was bursting out of his wrinkle-free pants and casual-formal shirt.
But this was the peg the old muslim man (who, hearteningly, was in crisp white dhoti-kurta with old pan stains and some tell-tale beedi seared holes near the seam) was waiting for: "Saree hi aurathon ki shaan hoti hai. Hamare zamaane mein ladkiyan saare gaon ki shaan hothi thi. Jab ek ladki maike chod jaathi thi, tho saara gaon rota tha… wo thi un dinon ki bath… aaj kal kaun kambakhth apne padosi ka naam jaantha hai?"
16 hours of tearing apart social change, bad-mouthing Pakistan ("their population is just as big as our fauj, so we can crush them like little dirty ants"), spitting on "cowherd" Laloo, playing up pristine Vajpayee, one-upmanship philanthropy stories (though every beggar who came around was shooed off rudely), occasional singing of "mere desh ki dharti" and "aye mere watan ke logon"....
I who choke up when Chaurasia plays the Jaya He of the anthem, suprised myself at how many uncontrollable giggling fits I had to muffle.
A software engineer (who lay on his tummy on the upper berth, sticking his head out from one side, and playing the perfect Shakuni catalyst to the whole debate), made sure that every time the passionate exchange dwindled or got repetitive, he came up with gems like "But aren’t the women of today equal to the mardh?",
"How can one wear a dhoti to work if one is a software engineer?",
"Uncle, this is the computer & Internet age!"
and the crown— "How come your daughters can go to a dhandia function at midnight, but cannot go to the disco at the same time?". (wah! wah! just doesn’t cover it)

A train journey of political speeches. I'm moved to laughs. My vote is in.