The curse of the single male - Travel woes

Every since I was a kid, I have been marginalised because I am a male. More particularly because I am a single male. I have been marginalised everywhere. Be it the limitations in choosing a fashionable dress or ordering an electric blue coloured mock tail in a pub or renting a decent place to live. It is abandoned territory everywhere for the single male.

While my curse-of-the-single-male experiences could bulge up to a book, I am limited to write about my travel woes today due to another curse of having to work 8 hours a day to earn my daily biryani.

It all started way back when I was a kid. Even if I bought a full ticket for a bus ride, I always had to share my seat with an oversized smelly adult. Girls did not have to go through the agony as their mothers looked at it as a blot in their pristine female sanctity. I had to wait for years before I could grow up and fill the entire seat by myself.

But when I grew up, I had to content with another problem. I was travelling long distances and had to use semi-sleeper buses. A single male is always and automatically allotted a seat at the back. It does not matter even if I reserve the ticket a month in advance. When will I ever sit in seats numbered 2 or 3 and stretch my legs for an entire night?

An optimistic mind always found a solution. I found a way to stretch my legs. I started to use sleeper trains for these overnight journeys. But the curse never left. There invariably was an elderly woman or a young mother who can not climb up to the upper berth, and they invariably spotted me. I was requested to swap berths. And so the claustrophobic little hole between an iron mesh and a couple of rattling fans became the eternal berth of every acrophobic single male.

The fear of looking down the window and realising that I am kilometres above the ground and a weak bladder that is to be deflated every second hour forces me to choose an aisle seat when I travel in long haul airplanes. But here again, the plot is well set against me. Women with children and elderly people board the plane before any (un)able young man does. And so when I look to take my seat, the seat is already taken. 'Please would you sit by the window. I have a kid and he needs to go to the toilet quite often. He has a weak bladder. You know.'

'Mine is just as weak as your son's, only a little bigger'. I wish I had said that to her. But then the curse remained and I sat in a corner looking down the window.

How I swallowed a thousand eggs

Calcutta has not changed. No, it has. It is Kolkatta. But that's pretty much it. Or well, that's pretty much for most part of the city. But there are ofcourse these new additions, now in every Indian city, - swanking new cars, plush apartments, wide roads and glittering malls - that have become the symbols of new age urban India.

But otherwise, it has remained the Calcutta I have seen - The yellow Ambassador cabs with a honking problem, an omnipresent stink, the crowd, the traffic and the carefree trams amidst it, the rossogollas and the Howrah bridge.

What was different this time was an unexpected shower of hospitality from one of my colleagues. I was invited to his parents' place. For the next 3 hours I spent my time watching Tom & Jerry and eating the innumerous sweets, delicacies, fruits and the many more things that were sprawled across the table. That was probably the first time I ate a Lichi fruit. Tastes just like the Lichi drink from Real. Or is that supposed to be otherwise!

What followed next was a sumptuous meal with rice, dhal, and fish curry. It was kind of queer to find fish and dry fish used in the same curry. And I being a gourmet had to ask.

' No, no, no. That is not dry fish. Those are fish eggs!'

That is when the head goes spinning for a minutest moment. Eggs of fish? How many did I eat? Won't they hatch inside my stomach and make a pond out of it? There must have been hundreds of them? It is psychological thing when you eat something new and something that you have not imagined to eat. That is exactly how I felt when I accidently boiled ants along with maggi. The noodles tasted just like usual until I saw the first dead body. I couldn't push another spoon of it.

'So how do you like it.'

'Oh, it's fantastic!'

(Is it? Dry fish is fantastic and this tastes like dry fish. So this has to be fantastic. But this is an agglomeration of a thousand fish eggs!)

'So you should eat more of it. May be you should try the fried ones. They taste even better.'

When Antony Bourdain can eat sheep testicles, can't I eat fish eggs?

Costly affair

Doc: Which part of the country is clothes cheap?
Ananth: I don't know. May be Calcutta, Bombay. No Surat.
Doc: I then have to plan an official trip there to purchase uniforms for my kids. Clothes have become very expensive here.

Just in time

I reached the Kharagpur railway station at 5:30 in the morning - 25 minutes before the train's scheduled arrival. The information board did not specify my train's platform number. I therefore went up to the enquiry cell and asked for the platform number.

'Riybpt'
'What?'
'See riybpt' (See right)
'Yeah, but the board does not work.'
'Waibt. It will work.'

I went again to him; this time at 5:50
' Waibt, it will come.'
' Come on, the train arrives in 5 minutes. And the board does not work. There is no information from the PA systems as well. And look at those monstrous steps I might have to climb.'
'Waibt. I will conbpfirm.'
He picked up the phone and spoke to someone in Bangla.
'The train will come in platpform two or pfour.' 'Or pfive.'
'It is another minute or two for the train to arrive and you tell me it could be in 2 or 4, or 5?

The PA system intervened. The train will be arriving in platform 2. I lunged towards the stairs.

Platform 1 >>
Platform 2, 2a, 4 >>

What?? How can one set of stairs lead to 3 platforms? What the heck? Let's go.

And there it was. I was standing on the world's longest railway platform. Three platforms in one platform. Each separated from the other by an iron partition.

The platform did not indicate where the AC compartment would stop. So I stood somewhere in the mid-section of the platform. And as it always should be, I had to walk, jog and run a bit to get to the coach before the train started again.

The TTR checked the tickets.
'The other two who were to travel with me are not traveling.'
No response.
Then he said, 'Get rebphund' and walked away with the ticket.

'Hey. Wait. why are you walking away with my ticket.'

By then he was gone. I had to endure being bumped, cornered and crushed by many suitcases and fat ladies before I found the TTR again. (Praise the guy who brought in the rule that TTRs wear coats. How else would I have identified him.)

'Sir, you took my ticket away. And I can't get down without a ticket.'
'I am giving you rebphund. Two people did not come know.'

There is a saviour everywhere. Or did I mumble too loud to let the TTR know that I have little money and was looking for an ATM.

'That is very nice of you.' Money always makes me smile.

He filled in a form as I waited to sign at the bottom and collect 'my' money.

'Here, gibve the pform in railway istation and get rebphund.'

I didn't ask for paper money? I want real money.

Speed limit

Have you ever wondered why several motorists drive at hair raising speeds in the road abutting the Elliot's beach? I have; several times; until I solved the riddle this morning.