Holiday Bits and Bytes

Train travel is undoubtedly interesting, especially for a two-bit blogger like me. But it is also exhausting, both visually and olfactorily (no, there is no such word; I just created it😁) due to the endless filth and the shabbiness all around. Let me support my statement with an illustrative example: The toilet of the long distance train that I had travelled in was of the stuff of horror films: the panelling peeling from the walls, the toilet-paper roll a wet mush, the basin speckled with the rich red of pan spit, pan masala and all manner of human oral secretions, the water from the tap a thin, reluctant stream..and the crowning glory of it all, the toilet bowl...Dear God, the toilet bowl! It was a seething mass of human faecal matter that threatened to erupt from the bowels of hell right into my face.....With my lunch threatening to emerge out of my innards, I narrowly escaped back to the relative safety of my seat. Bio toilets which have recently been installed in all trains are in themselves, a good concept. But the authorities in their enthusiasm forgot to factor in the clockwork of our Indian brains that regard all openings as sarkari dustbins. And therefore, these bio-toilets are a colossal failure because people use them as dustbins, stuffing them generously with plastic bottles, pan parag/gutkha wrappers, baby diapers and not to forget, the old criminal, sanitary napkins.
Ok, now that I have clarified so picturesquely as to why train travel can be tiresome, let me digress.

To something better.

I was standing on the railway platform just now, waiting for the train to arrive when a crumpled piece of discarded paper rolled down beside me. I turned to find a well-to-do family standing next to me. One of them would have thrown that piece of garbage. I was about to roll up my eyes in exasperation when a little girl, not more than four, a part of that same family toddled behind that still rolling piece of paper. She picked it up and then stood contemplating where she could discard it. A set of three dustbins stood a few steps ahead, but the bins were at a height and well beyond the little one's reach. Her Papa, a slightly rotund, bearded young man scooped the kid up right to the dustbin's mouth where she happily chucked her litter into the green depths.

We were on the bus at Kolkata and in spite of the post Durga Puja rush, had managed to find seats. As the bus zoomed though the teeming streets of the city, it began to fill up at each stop. Finally, all the seats were taken and there was now, as they say in Bengali, not even space enough for a single sesame seed. A bespectacled white-haired old man, with the ubiquitous bajaarer tholi (bazaar ka jhola) in hand squeezed himself through the crowd and came to rest before us. Our cousin RR, a handsome and conscientious young man immediately stood up and offered his seat to the old man. It was a kind and responsible gesture but then with our cousin such gestures are nothing new. He has always been like this, brimming with the honey of human kindness. But my story is not about RR. After a stop, another young man who had been sitting next to RR and who presumably had been watching the little episode, offered his own seat to RR. I was kind of surprised for RR was a sturdy young man and definitely not in need of a seat. Of course, he refused the offer, smiling in amusement. The other young man then did a funny thing. He stood up at the next stop and pointing to his vacated seat, asked RR to occupy it. Thinking he was about to de-board, RR took his offer. But this chap did not get down immediately. When RR protested, he reassured him that his "stoppage" was near. He did get down at the next stop, much to my and I'm sure, RR's relief and as he exited, I purposely took a good look at him. Thin, slightly balding, blue shirt and cream formal trousers, he was no different from the thousands of young salaried men who make their living and their life in the City of Joy.

The Kolkata Metro is not as swanky as the Delhi one and because it is so old, it is rather shabby. Still, it is convenient and comfortable and I'd rather travel by the Metro than by those speed-maniac Kolkata buses. This time the whole family was travelling together and while we women easily got a seat each, the men were not so lucky. Other Half's Dad is 75 years old and definitely needed to sit. Though we women had a seat, we couldn't offer him one as these were in the Women's Only section. Our Masi, whom I shall refer to as HS or Honey Sweet , for she is sweeter than honey, even stood up but of course Dad didn't take her offer. Just then, a man standing before his seated wife, gestured to her (the wife) to get up, escorted Dad over to her seat and made him sit. Though this seat too was in the Women's Section, the whole thing happened too rapidly for Dad to react or resist and so the remainder of the journey, he found himself sitting between two rotund Bengali Kakimas with a beatific expression on his face. And what was interesting was that no one protested: not the women flanking him, not the women standing because they didn't get a seat, not the men who spotted an old man sitting in the Ladies' Section....no one.

Huda Kattan's lipstick range, sold under her brand name of Huda Beauty are a rage these days. Her shades are exquisite and if they had not been so expensive, I would have definitely gone for one. Her immense popularity has spurred a huge market of fake products in India that are sold with impunity, not just in the gullies of Karol Bagh and the pavements of Chowringhee, but also on Amazon India. This time I couldn't resist picking up one of these for myself, inspite of knowing that these were, without an iota of doubt, fakes. The runt of a young man from whom I bought the lipstick didn't mind when I tried out a swatch on my wrist. The colour was beautiful, a pinkish nude with hints of brown, a colour I'm in love with. It kind of resembled the original Huda Beauty shade called Trophy Wife. How much, I asked. सौ। He said nonchalantly. My purse was empty. Other Half's Mom who is my usual partner in crime in such shopping forays, helpfully handed me an orange note of 200 bucks. I paid the man with that note, picked up my fake Huda and got ready to jaywalk through the traffic.
O Madam, kitna diya, the boy yelled at me. I whirled round ready for war when the man said, दो सौ रूपया दिया दीदी.
Oh, I bit my tongue. He gave me back the hundred rupee change that I had forgotten to collect; and as I took it, I looked into his face, eye to eye and smiled my best smile. Something softened in his face and lit it up from within.
I don't think I'd ever dare wear that fake Huda for I'm wary of what toxic chemicals went into making it. But it will always adorn my dresser, hob-nobbing as equals with my M.A.Cs and Estee Lauders.

And so, in spite of the ravings and rantings on social media, I'm letting myself dare to believe that my country is changing.... if only one microscopic step at a time, still it is changing, and for the better.