When we met Prema on the train to Chennai
In February I was in the Chennai Express from Mumbai for a
trip to Pondicherry. The plan had been impulsive but all my friends and I had
managed to get confirmed tickets at the last minute.
In the train, a lady in her mid-40s, Prema, occupied the
berth in front of us. When we woke up in the morning, we heard her talking on
the phone and realised it's her birthday. She was on her way home in Chennai
after meeting her son at his hostel and was disappointed that her entire
birthday would be spent alone in the train. I had bought a chocolate bar cake
the previous day for the train journey and we decided we would ask her to cut
the cake.
As the train passed through an area of huge boulders and
windmills somewhere in Andhra Pradesh, we opened the small cake packet,
borrowed a plastic spoon from another co-passenger to be used as a knife, and
put the cake in front of the lady for cutting. We hadn’t spoken a word to each
other until then. She was taken by surprise as we sang the birthday song and
with a huge smile on her face, cut the cake, overwhelmed.
The cake had eggs and she couldn't eat it. But the smile on
her face couldn't hide her exhilaration.
Just before we were to reach Chennai in the evening, she
told us that she had lost her mom a few months back. She showed us a poem she
had written for her the previous night when she was deeply missing her.
‘I was so disappointed
that I was not with my family today and that my mom is no longer with us, but
the way you guys surprised me, did the cake cutting in the train, and the fact
that we don't know each other at all, I don't think I can ever forget this. It
just made me believe that it's my mom's way of blessing me today. Thank you so
much,’ she told us.
The three of us sat there with absolutely no idea what to
say and just smiled at her. What had been just a crazy idea we had impulsively
discussed for a random stranger probably meant a lot more than that for Prema.
‘I might write about
this experience on my blog sometime. Do give it a read if you like,’ I told
her and handed over my card.
Travel may not pay us monetarily like a regular workplace,
but it does give us crazy stories to tell and sometimes knowingly or not, we
become a reason of joy for others. And perhaps, train travel gives the best
opportunities for tales like these.
I have always preferred taking train journeys over a flight.
Somehow the quick air journey doesn’t make me satiated that I am in a new
place. And in the last 6 months, I have had a lot of long distance train
travel. Most of these were tickets booked less than a week before the travel
dates owing to my unplanned and instinctive journeys and the IRCTC phone app hasn’t
always been the most user-friendly.
While IRCTC remains the go-to-place for train reservations
for the majority of online ticket bookings, I recently discovered that even mobile
wallet Paytm has begun to offer the service on its mobile app and website. All train reservation services including
searching for trains, booking tickets, canceling tickets are offered within the
site. The advantage of this is you can directly make payments from your Paytm
wallet for ticket bookings (in addition to the usual bank and card options) and
the Paytm app doesn’t crash as much as the IRCTC one does at times of high
traffic. You can also use various promocodes for cashbacks and other offers,
giving you maximum savings. In case of a cancellation, the money gets refunded
to your Paytm wallet directly. Do give it a try when you are booking your next
ticket.
Yesterday I reached home after yet another long distance
train journey. When did you travel in a train last? What are your best train
journey stories and fondest memories? Do share in the comments below.
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Great gesture!
ReplyDeleteIt just happened :)
DeleteThanks :)
ReplyDelete