Chapter 1: Berth no. 9
I never considered myself a traveler. Not yet, anyway.
Yet here I am, crossing thousands of kilometers by train, watching the world change outside my window while something even greater changes inside me.
People often say that travel teaches more than books. I used to dismiss that as another romantic quote people posted online. Now, after these journeys, I finally understand what it means.
When I was a child, I looked at air-conditioned train coaches with admiration. They felt like a different worldâa place for wealthy people, full of elegance, cleanliness, and sophisticated passengers. Riding in one seemed like a distant dream.
Eventually, I bought my own ticket.
A âč5,000 berth on the Duronto Express in 3A Economy.
The coach was exactly as I had imaginedâclean sheets, comfortable seats, cool air, organized compartments.
And the people?
Well, not what I had imagined.
I realized that an AC ticket doesn't buy sophistication. It simply buys a different seat.
People laughed loudly, argued loudly, left wrappers on the floor, and behaved no differently from passengers in any other coach. Thankfully, the cleaning staff kept returning, quietly restoring order with their mops and disinfectant.
That was my first lesson.
Money changes comfort.
Character is something else entirely.
---
Travel has another strange habit.
It puts you beside people you would never have chosen to meet.
When I first found out I'd be sharing my compartment with several Muslim passengers, I wasn't happy.
The truth is, I carried prejudice. I felt uneasy the moment I saw them. It wasn't based on anything they had done to me during that journeyâit was simply what I already experienced, saw and believed. Travel has a strange way of confronting you with yourself before it confronts you with other people.
Their stares, their signs, eye movements made me uncomfortable. Suddenly I stopped feeling safe.
Then, the night passed, they started cracking jokes like other humans usually do.
And I laughed.
Not because I was trying to be polite, but because they were genuinely funny. And I realised that humor doesn't ask about religion before making people laugh.
But that beliefe shattered when later, they began talking enthusiastically about beef biryani and its taste while sitting in front of me, fully aware that I was a Hindu. It made me uncomfortable again. Rage rushed. For a brief moment, I even imagined pretending to call someone and loudly talking about pork, just to make them feel what I was feeling.
But that thought disappeared almost as quickly as it came.
That isn't me.
My dharma doesn't teach me to answer discomfort with provocation. If I expect others to respect my beliefs, I have to live by mine first.
So I stayed quiet.
I remained uncomfortable, but I also remained myself.
That, perhaps, was the greater victory.
Whatever my beliefs are, they should guide my behaviorânot my impulse to retaliate.
That thought stayed with me.
---
My stay in Pune brought another unexpected lesson.
The area around my hotel had a large Muslim community. I heard the call to prayer several times a day. Urdu signs covered many shopfronts. Everything felt unfamiliar.
Women in Burqa. Even the minor girls.
Muslim men spitting whenever the see people from other religions.
But the harsh truth is the place wasn't in Pakistan, it was in India, my motherland.
It made me realize something curious.
Sometimes life places us exactly where our assumptions, fear, hate are strongestânot necessarily to change our opinions overnight, but to make us look at them, face the reality and sometimes teach us to be deplomatic.
Reality is always more complicated than imagination.
---
On my journey home, I booked another AC ticket.
This time, I expected nothing.
Not cleanliness.
Not sophistication.
Not comfort.
Only stories.
And the train didn't disappoint.
---
A Bengali man sat across from me.
At first, I simply noticed that he looked tired. Fragile.
Later, I overheard fragments of conversations that slowly revealed an entire life.
He had once held a high-paying managerial position, practically the right-hand man of his boss. He organized parties, handled important responsibilities, and lived a life filled with money, influence, and temptation.
He also carried secrets.
An affair.
Financial dishonesty.
A growing ego.
Then came the accident.
He had been driving drunk.
Everything after that disappeared into darkness.
Months passed before he opened his eyes in a hospital after being in a coma.
When he finally woke up, the people from work were gone.
The money was gone.
The status was gone.
Only his family remained.
Now he was returning to Kolkata with his brothers, speaking quietly about beginning again.
Not a richer life.
A cleaner one.
Sometimes death doesn't take us.
It simply introduces us to the consequences of how we were living.
---
There was also a Gujarati Muslim family in the compartment.
The husband appeared confident, perhaps even a little arrogant, but he treated his wife gently. Whenever she wanted something from a station vendor, he simply bought it without hesitation.
She wasn't wearing a burqa, though her head was covered. She spent much of the journey watching Pakistani dramas on her phone, just as many Indian mothers lose themselves in television serials.
Different language.
Different religion.
The same small comforts.
One moment made me smile.
His foot accidentally touched another passenger.
Almost instinctively, he gestured apologetically in a way that reminded me of how many Hindus acknowledge such moments with folded hands. I don't know exactly what he whispered, but the similarity amused me.
And if you think they,re so good to be true, lemme share another moment that still irritates me the most. The couple boared with their son but he was in diffrent coach. Just to be with him they started arguing with a minor hindu guy to leave his seat. when the guy refused to leave they went all bunkers. Its not even the end. They were alotted upper and middle berth but they wanted to sit on the lower so they forced another sick man to wake from his sleep. They only stopped harrasing the man when I stepped into the matter and explained the situation.
Human habits have a strange way of crossing boundaries.
---
Not every story was dramatic.
One woman kept complaining that she couldn't adjust to train travel.
Another passenger insisted that the dim blue night light should be switched off because he could only sleep in complete darkness. He sleeps like that in his home as well.
An elderly woman looked at him and replied,
"This isn't your home."
The entire exchange felt like a perfect summary of life itself.
We spend so much time expecting the world to adjust to us, forgetting that sometimes we are the ones passing through.
---
As the night grew quieter, everyone disappeared into their own little worlds.
Some watched movies.
Some scrolled endlessly through their phones.
Some stared silently into darkness.
And I lay beside the window, doing exactly what I had unknowingly come here to do.
Observe.
Outside, fields, rivers, stations, and villages slipped past without asking to be remembered.
Inside, strangers carried invisible battles.
A recovering man seeking redemption.
A mother returning home.
A husband expressing love through ordinary purchases.
Passengers arguing over lights.
People laughing.
People worrying.
People pretending.
People healing.
Each compartment held entire universes disguised as ordinary travelers.
---
Perhaps that is what travel really teaches.
Not geography.
Not history.
Not even culture.
It teaches humility.
It reminds us that every person is carrying a story we cannot see.
Every belief has a history.
Every smile hides something.
Every silence does too.
We often believe our struggles are the greatest, our opinions the wisest, our lives the most complicated.
Then a train compartment quietly proves us wrong.
Hundreds of strangers.
Hundreds of different lives.
Hundreds of different truths.
The world is far bigger than our assumptions.
Nothing is ever enough.
And somehow...
Everything already is.
