Sonia’s not getting my vote

Lambi kahani hai, you’ve been warned.

The story is about a horrible weekend we had a few months ago. We decided to go visit my in-laws in Kerala for a few days with our 5-month old baby. Unlike the usual impromptu style of travelling, we planned meticulously, took a couple of days off so that we have an extended weekend and it’s not a touch and go trip, made a list of every item that the baby might need, booked third a/c tickets (a contrast from our sleeper class lifestyle). The aging inlaws travelled 40 kms each way, just to receive their grandchild and to ensure everything goes smoothly. And it did. We lazed and grazed and the ILs gushed over the baby and pampered him silly.

On the way back though, everything went wrong. We started from home with enough margin to reach the station before time. Now Ms. Sonia Gandhi chose the same day to have some all-party meeting in the usually calm and sleepy little town. Well meaning relatives had warned us about a highly likely traffic jam and we had accounted for that when we started. So as we started entering the city limits, all possible roads, in every fathomable direction were jam-packed. The poor driver kept looking for alternate routes, but every single route was jammed. We had lost a lot of time already and decided we would catch the train at the next station by using the highway. Just that half the city had the same idea before we did. We sat still in the car at the exact same place for a couple of hours. Little S started getting really irritated in my lap and started crying for no reason. So the departure time came and went, and the traffic started crawling after a while, and we thought we’ll give it a shot. We reached the station 40 minutes late. And its not unusual for trains to get delayed by 40 mins or so. Of course, the train had departed exactly on time that day. A good-hearted coolie told us we could still claim 50% refund (till 2 hrs after departure) which we did and in a sudden stroke of luck, found seats on the next day’s train – in sleeper class (not a/c).  I was supposed to resume work the next day, so calls were made to the office and 1 more of day of leave approved.

So we returned home (40 kms each way) and started back the next day to the station (again 40 kms each way).  We had two lower berths and by the time we boarded, everyone had pulled out their berths and were snoring away to glory. We noticed an army of small cockroaches, climbing up the sunmica walls and we were worried about letting the baby sleep on the berth. The baby had got cold and cough by all the traveling back and forth, and we needed to sit and hold him upright and feed him. So I swapped my seat with a guy on the side lower berth. He happily agreed, picked up his blanket and went to my lower berth and went back to snoring.

So after hours taking turns to hold the baby, soothe him and trying to give him some comfortable hours of sleep, he finally settled at 2 am or so. The husband slept at the lower berth and I was sleeping on the side berth with the baby, with the windows shut, dead tired and desperate to catch a few hours of sleep. At about 3 a.m., I suddenly felt a hand frisking my neck and chest in my sleep. Expecting it to be the husband, I opened my eyes in the darkness to find to my absolute horror that it was an unknown man standing right next to me *inside* the train, his hand still frisking my neck . I screamed out real hard. The husband rushed to me and held me tight. He thought I probably saw a nightmare or something. It took me a few seconds to recover and speak about what just happened. Meanwhile I saw the guy briskly *walk* down (not run) the longer side of the aisle towards the exit. I had screamed so hard that lights on the entire bogey came on.  By the time I could speak, that guy was gone and no one could find him despite looking everywhere. It turned out the train had stopped at a station and it would’ve been easy for him to escape. It was dark and I wouldn’t have been able to recognize him anyway. The railway police came in about 10 mins, but nothing had *happened*, meaning nothing had been stolen or anything. They just heard me out that’s all. I was burning with rage and slowly I was shivering when I realized that I was that I was intruded upon. It was probably a thief who came looking for some gold ornaments expecting lots of Mallu women loaded with gold. But the very thought that a random guy had the audacity to put his hand down my neck in a crowded place made me more and more angry. I was upset with myself that I did not *do* something to him. I should’ve hit him real hard, done something. Worse thoughts started occuring – what if he had taken my baby and ran away instead? He was right there sleeping with me. I couldn’t get over the fact that I was so vulnerable.

When we finally reached home at dawn, the baby’s cold had worsened and he also developed severe constipation and passed blood in his stools. It is the worst feeling in the world. To see your baby suffer like that. My tiny little cherubic baby. Everybody’s said this already, but I felt it first hand.

Later I recalled that at the last minute before starting for Kerala, I had decided against wearing a gold chain (I usually put on some gold, at least a chain to keep the relatives happy), because I wouldn’t have been able to manage all that with an infant in tow.  Two old relatives did enquire about the lack of gold on my body and I gave them the unsafe-in-train reason, just like that.

So after analyzing the situation rigorously, I have decided to blame Sonia Gandhi for all of this. You’re not getting my vote for sure.

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