Picnic in the train

Long distance travels just gives me hives. Train delays, slowing or stopping of trains for signals, unwanted conversation or too probing fellow passengers actually get on my nerves and especially when you are alone, boredom surely eats u up.
These and such things were there in my mind when I boarded the midnight train to Mumbai from Amit’s and now my home town.
As I settled down I just wanted to curl off to sleep. And which I did. it was the whole day of the next day that I dreaded the most. Traveling alone never gave me tension. But surely boredom did make me feel as if the time ends soon. The next day came a bit too early due to insomnia in the train.
There was a trio of teachers were there sharing the adjoining seats coming from Calcutta, attending a conference there. I don’t know how, maybe because of their being a teacher and me being an ex in the profession, maybe because of my talkativeness or the topics they chose to talk soon made me a part of them. Within no time their talks and coupled with 2 more other passenger’s contributions made us into a group. Sharing our chais and non stop chattering. I didn’t understand when morning turned to noon and then night. Now the growling stomach and less appetite made all of us wonder when a big station halt will come…it didn’t come for some time at least. Till one of us had an idea of removing some stuff, as snack? Soon all of us followed. And in the end we noticed that we collected quiet a bit. Remanants of potato chips and chakli felt like ambrosia for empty stomachs. A packet of moongdal and 2 cupcakes and a bit softned chiwda was all we had. We laughed and in full triumph started eating and sharing. The goods came to an early end. It surely didn’t satiate us but it did stave the hunger for some more time. In due course we had our small dinners but this time of sharing whatever we had for eating over lots of laughs, jokes and guffaws surely will stay in my memory for some time to come