Inside a Ladies' coach

Watch was tickling 1:55 of the afternoon when suddenly I came to realize that I was sitting in a ladies coach that too so silent and quite. Train was moving in its speed, the only noise I can hear was that of atmosphere and a child crying of hunger to which the mother was pampering. It was difficult for me t swallow the matter of fact

 at the point of time that a railway compartment full of ladies and only ladies was moving so quietly. One of the wonders of world I felt.

 The train named Begumpura express which I boarded while returning from the city of temples to the city of nawabs. Morning in Benaras and evening in Lucknow, both on the same day. Journeying more than 300 kms in a general coach of The Great Indian Railways in temperature measuring 45 degrees can be considered as a tough one.

 “how mean you are? How dare you put Ganga maiyaa on the floor” heard I suddenly when was feeling proud on the empowerment of ladies and their psychological growth. I was amongst those few unfortunates who traveled 6 hours without getting a place to sit even once. I turned back. Five ladies belonging to some typical “thakur” clan. Sorry for being involving into caste-ism but telling a true point that ladies are always ladies. Coming back; five women v/s one, wo oh what a cat fight or shall I say cow fight, but cows are shy as people say. Whatever.

 “tera pati- mera pati, tera baccha- mera baccha, sari, kapda makan” Oh God what was left they were not fighting for. The fight was started for a place to sit. The root was that so many of them were standing but “she” was sitting and also captured a place with a normal plastic coldrink bottle in which she kept the sacre “gangajal”. She was of the opinion that “ganga maiya k zameen par kaise rakh sakte hain”.

 Fight grew and within a minute or two she held the braid of a lady and slapped her. With all local abuses, all those “G” and “C” words I saw this rare scene for the first time in my life. How can one stop when somebody is being so much furious? The other lady held her bun tight and pushed her backwards. Oh My God I was seeing the live action in that over crowded, sweat smelling coach very next to me.

 Sometimes you need to stop your villainous laughter when situations are getting out of control. God forbade if somebody comes to me and hold my hair like this I would better cut my pony from the hairband and runaway. Finally someone pulled the chain and called the police. A man with supercool “veerappan” mousataches and popping out belly came and tried to hear both the sides. There was chaos all over the bogie. It was the same one whose proud member I was some fifteen minutes back. Train stood there for nearabout half an hour while the healthy “khata peeta police wala” was trying to resolve. A lady constable came ahead then and told him the exact situation.

 Miss Constable was there in the bogie while the whole action was going on and like me she too was worried of her hair that was not more than the shoulder length. Beautiful was the situation when two pillars of democracy; the executives and the press were watching the democrats fighting down for their land but can’t help as they have got to save their own collars.

 When the fourth pillar press was gathering the whole news to take the lead and was planning how to make it a sensation, the executive (madam police) came forward and said,” ye aurat hai na yahi jada pange dikha rahi hai, khud ke baithne ki jagah nahi ganga maiyya ko seat pe baitha rahi hai”

Incredible India, I whispered.