The train journey of patriarchy

It is said that at any period of time over 5 lakh people are traveling  by Indian Railways. India is a big country and we have one of the largest railway networks, connecting rural to urban India and connecting north to south, east to west.

There have been lot of bollywood movies where trains are seen playing a leading role especially in love stories. But not all mad girls traveling by train find love on train. And no Sharukh Khan comes and gives you his hand.  Well if you see it’s not a bad option , where can you get a variety of  500 -600 men and say 18 -20 hours to judge longer than the time you spend on facebook chatting.

I won’t say girls are pampered on railway journey but surely there are enough men who take the responsibility of becoming fathers, brothers and boyfriends , if a girl is traveling alone. You will close your eyes at night just for the fact that your train father tells you to sleep its late, yes late its 10:10pm and when you wake you will have atleast 5 sets of eyes staring at you. And that awkward moment when you manage to smile but you just don’t know how to get out of the smelly itchy blanket.

The train helper is a sweet guy, he will give you extra tea kits, soup sticks and in return  he asks you is your internet is working? You with that blank look remembering god, just keeping fingers crossed that he doesn’t ask you to add him on facebook. There are already 500+ friends on the list and some of them just sitting there .

But one aspect of Indian railways is, it is Patriarchal. The men in this train feel  like real men, all thanks to bollywood. They will stand on doors and for sure wait for some Deepika Phadukone or Kajol to come. Sadly no one comes, so they become Shahid kapoor, but no Kareena Kapoor comes to rescue them hence in this sadness they smoke cigarettes there.  No matter what class you travel, people are mostly classless, why I say this look at the toilets and the bins. Women just dread to use the toilets and men hate using bins.

One such man is sitting right opposite me when I am writing this post, he has assumed the role of my brother I think, a concerned brother, khana khalo, chai peelo, laptop charge kar lo.  After half an hour when we got onto the train, he took out his comfortable pyjamas and changed from his formal shirt and pants. Thank god that he used the washroom to change pants, because not so salman khan he took his shirt in public view. And when he came out he proudly carried his pants and underwear. Before packing his pants , shirt and underwear, he proudly in full public view dusted his underwear, not less than a John Abraham. Nowwhat can I say?

Anyway Indian railways have pampered Indians by giving them Amul butter with soup sticks and cockroaches with food.  But some men traveling by train make sure that every paisa of their ticket is vasool. So they pack some items for home. The height can be seen when the uncle didnt wanted to waste the butter served with bread omelet, so he added butter to his tea.

This man sitting on the other side is an excellent example of a patriarchal mindset. He has proudly bought his daughter and wife on the train. And because its cold he has locked his hands under his armpits and unlocked his tongue. So every few minutes you will hear him calling out his wife’s name and asking her to do something, such as keep the sweets in the bag, give the daughter cough syrup, don’t use tea bags, wear your duppatta. And the lady is obediently following orders, she couldn’t sleep the entire night because the daughter was coughing and I couldn’t sleep because her husband was snoring.

Just like Indian Railways we have miles to go…..