Have Ticket Will Travel

Published in The Telegraph My Kolkata on May 8, 2024. You can read it online here or read the original below.

A regular traveller of yore shares his flippant though backhanded view of how we travel for vacations. Any resemblance to existing entities are coincidental and purely for fun.

“We are going on a Summer Holiday, No more working for a week or two” – sang Sir Cliff Richard, an Englishman who knew his India.

The 42 on Chowringhee would never have imagined that it would become the yardstick for temperature. With the mercury threatening to pop its buttons on our thermometers, people are buttoning down to the serious business of heading for the hills - or hols anyway, if they aren’t that lucky. While the new school year, mentioned earlier, has just about started, the tickets for the summer vacation have already been booked, by train, plane, bus or bullock cart. We gotta get out of here! That’s a Calcutta thing. Lock, stock, barrel and greater families will all go together when we go.

Over the last few weeks I have been noticing glossy magazines talking about Quick Getaways, Weekend Getaways, Places Near Me, and Staycations. Anything but sweltering at home with the looming threat of power cuts and CESC apologising through advance SMS. Many of these holiday locations don’t require much other than your own vehicle and plenty of money. So, I will avoid those and focus on the ones that require travel in all its glorious five letters - TRAIN.

Facebook has Meta-morphed into a travel guide in disguise. Various sites lure you with instant discounts interspersed with threats that it is going out of style or filling up fast or whatever is the terminology used. And though we are spoilt for choice, in my experience, there’s always something out there for everyone. The click bait will take you to a range of dotcoms with attractive names like Pagoda, TakeMyTrip and Blocking.com. In several of these sites, you can see the incredibly “low” prices, slashed from the unbelievable “normal” prices - discounts of up to 73% which is probably a record of some sort. And what’s common to them all is “Last Room Available”. To be fair, I did my research while travelling in South India recently. We didn’t book any online accommodation. But we had the list of “last rooms” and confidently walked into each of the properties. In one we were asked if we had an “advance booking”. Of course we hadn’t but naturally, they just happened to have a couple of cancellations and they could easily fit us in. We enquired about the slashed rate - it was ₹5000 on RobMe.com - and they informed us they could give us both rooms at ₹2200 all-inclusive. Eventually, after our little research we chose an excellent Last Room place, paid a fraction of the fare and enjoyed our vacation.

But getting there has its own excitement and challenges. With digitisation and Government ID we have thankfully gotten past the misspelt names, wrong genders and miscalculated ages. We are also, on Indian Railways, allowed to have families of six on one booking form. And once all the in-laws and out-laws have been counted and ticketed, we can board with a few “babes-in-arms” who are not counted for ticketing purposes. We also travel light. A good cruising number would be a couple with two kids, parents of both sides, unmarried aunts, younger siblings of the married couple, a grandparent or two, and we’re off. Multiply by 5. That’s the average number of packages that each person carries and does not include babies, air pillows and water bottles. Being a mathematical lot, we will insist on counting each piece of baggage after every few stations - very often at the top of our voices.

Once we’re all aboard we will start the negotiation process. After all, the family has been arbitrarily distributed across the compartment based on an algorithm that only the railways can fathom. So, we will convince people to change allotted berths with us, or “adjust” by shifting around the seats. If some stubborn, insensitive passenger refuses to change he will be given the “treatment”. Toddlers will be allowed to roam freely wielding chocolate covered hands, dangerously close to his new cream trousers! Strolleys behind his or her legs will need to be opened several times during the journey and the contents strewn around so that the uncooperative individual can cringe in the corner while the secrets, Victoria’s or otherwise, emerge from the packaging. And while that’s food for thought, I am not going to mention the food for the journey.

The family that stays together plays together. As soon as the wheels move, out comes the towel stretched at four corners so that the family can play cards. The game doesn’t matter as long as the rules are accepted by no one and the sound level can increase to drown any chance of a private conversation in the bogey.

No train journey is considered complete without the peanut gallery. The closest Darwinian proof of descent from the simian species could be our shared love for peanuts in the shell. In the first hour of the journey the peanut vendor arrives and displays his wares. Our family quickly assesses who will have a packet -- there’s the usual, “No I’m not hungry, I will just share with Babuji” kind of fake wailing. Babuji, of course, agrees though he knows he won’t get much. Packets counted, distributed and paid for, the shelling starts. The floor is quickly littered with shells and a few peanuts that missed the mouth when being flung upwards from lap position. As with any shelling, the warzone is devastated - but the little kid who moonshines as a safai will be around to sweep up and collect the coins grudgingly given. That in a nutshell is how it works. The rest of Darwinian theory can be observed in the monkeying around at various touristy places - a return to nature in more senses than one.

We need to get our money’s worth. After all that shelling, sharing and tanking up on liquids, it’s time to use the restroom - the one place where rest is not a given. You’ve all done that exercise. Hanging on for dear life in a rocking train while trying to ensure the railways’ aim to keep the washroom clean aligns with your aim. But use it, we must. I shall desist from describing the Dance of the Chained Lota.

And then it’s time for bed. After prolonged analysis of who gets which piece of bedding, graciously provided by the Railways, children will be inserted in various positions across the berths. Middle berths are lowered to further inconvenience Mr Uncooperative who didn’t change his seat. Lights will be switched off while you are identifying parts of your dinner, or if you actually tried reading a book. The roll-call of the baggage will be taken one last time, chains will be threaded through metal rings and locked in place - keys down a cleavage for safety.

You will sigh and retire to the sound of gurgling liquid sloshing into plastic mugs, as the boys top up with colourless aerated drinks. Just a little nightcap. Tomorrow’s another boisterous day on the rails.