I got the lower side berth. I placed my backpack at a comfortable place and took deep breaths. I caught the train just on time. I looked around hastily. It is my habit to check the people around me when I am travelling alone.
Two girls were sitting on one berth with their laptops and opposite to them a guy was watching some animated movie on his laptop. Another middle aged man was reading magazine sitting beside him. I settled down and the attendant came with a water bottle. After a while a 25 year old guy came to share my berth. His was upper side berth.
I memorised my earlier college days and train journeys when I used to travel from Pune to Delhi and many a times in non-AC sleeper class. At that time the 28 hours journey was covered at drop of an eyelid. I met people playing musical instruments, singing songs, debating, discussing politics and law. In one journey I had met few wrestlers from Kashmir who took care of me like a child and in another I met struggling actors, and the journey used to end listening to their stories.
However, things have changed now. I have changed now. Earlier I used to talk to strangers as if I knew them since beginning. But now I think a lot before initiating a conversation. Probably now I want to spend maximum time with myself. The best time is to have lone time. And what better than a train where no one knows me. Book, camera and view outside with food coming every now and then, I was delighted.
The girl with the laptop was wearing a purple colour T-shirt and was continuously working and fidgeting in tension. It seemed that she was working on some office project and while I was enjoying my journey I wondered that all our life we keep running behind something which is inside us- our own happiness.
A train journey is never complete without a book. I was reading and they switched off the lights. I was curious as to what would happen next in the book, waiting for the sun rays to enter soon. The train stopped for few seconds at Surat station and though I could not click any pictures but Surat station has some amazing and meaningful graffiti. It was full of colours.
The next morning when the sun was at its peak and the Western Ghats had started and the cows were gazing on open lands, I saw a boy waving at our train. Probably that was his daily routine to wave at all the trains. I knew he could not see me but I waved him back. I remembered a line I read in the book:
"The world follows its own course. Each possesses his own thoughts, each treads his own path. It is with everyone. The world follows its own course."
I could feel and think more when I am travelling. I was hoping that the journey never ended. I kept sitting near the window with sun rays touching my face, with book in my hand, with headphones on listening to my music, sometimes looking outside the window watching the passing rivers and the mountains in Western Ghats. It is true that a journey never ends.
