My Train Travel With Foreign Dude

Yesterday was indeed a hot afternoon. I had to travel to Chennai from Coimbatore. Ticket was booked in Shatabdhi Express and my journey towards Chennai started with two of my best friends, a book and my headset. After about three hours of the total seven hour journey, I felt sleepy and dozed off. Suddenly, there was a jerk and the train came to a halt.The engines hissed and the brakes squeaked. I woke up with a start and looked out of the window. We had not reached a station. I smelled something wrong.. The smell of a wire burning. Yes. There was a spark in the coach because of a short circuit. The attender of the coach rushed fast and asked us to vacate the coach pro actively. AC was turned off, lights were blacked out and we all were shifted to different coaches. There was a very good coordination exhibited by the railway technical staffs. Kudos to them !! Three minutes later, the train started moving again and accelerated gradually until it was traveling at a constant speed.

The real nightmare was waiting for me next to my new seat. A foreign return dude wearing a coat that was no way matching his shirt and having a Mac book in his lap greeted me with a smile. He asked on what happened in my coach. Hearing about the incident, he started describing about trains in so called "his" country and was scolding everyone under the sun for the spark in my coach. I said about how people acted swiftly in the scenario and appreciated them for their work. 

He claimed himself as a computer engineer from one of the top most colleges in India. He said that he is now settled abroad after doing Masters degree there as India could not offer the nature of job he is looking for. He spoke about how work is in "his" country, how intelligent people are in "his" country and how dumb Indians are. 

I wanted to divert the topic and spoke about computers as he may be interested in it. Again he started a 10 min lecture on how IT is bad in India and good in "his" country. I then spoke about cars. He spoke about how bad cars are in India, about the high technology cars in "his" country. Whatever the topic is, his conclusion was how India is bad at it. 

Don't take me wrong. I don't mean to say that India is good at everything. Yes, we fall below the standards in many things. A constructive criticism is OK ! A meaningful debate is awesome. But these were just bashing and senseless allegations. What will NDA do for spark in a coach ? The staffs handled the situation so well and ensured all our safety. In fact the TTR handed over the complaint form and feedback forms to everyone, asked us to fill them and assured tat the technical glitch would be corrected immediately. 

The foreign dude asked me on how many miles (get my point.. Miles) I will have to travel from Central station to reach home.  Oh.. I was exhausted. I thought sleeping would solve the problem. I could avoid his bad mouthing. But my attempt went in vain. Attender woke me up with food. Yet again he started scolding the poor attender as he did not know that the yoghurt and curd are one and the same. There was a lecture on sub standard Indian education, about top most universities in "his" country.

I could not take it any more. I wanted to slap him on his face, but couldn't. I gave him a lot many chances. I diverted the topic several times, slept, kept quiet. He didn't change. Now the threshold had reached and I had to erupt. I politely got his permission to know more about how bad India is. I asked him 30-40 questions in a row to enhance my knowledge about India. These were the points I learnt from him. Only highlights are presented below
  1.  Capital of Madhya Pradesh is Indore. Wow
  2. Nepal Bhutan and Myanmar were part of India before 1947. Ada.. Ada ada..
  3. Renault Nissan cars are bad as it is an Indian company. Jaguar is good as it is owned by someone in UK. Pinriye PA..
  4. GDP is a score given by UN.. Next finance minister in the making
  5. Gold rates are decided by GRT and lalitha jewellery. #kudos GRT
  6. Our Railway Minister is Lallu #InnumEdhavadhuIrundhaSollu
  7. Moto G copied Samsung design #Kelappu
  8. There are about 32 States in India and the poorest are the 10 NE States. #RipGK
  9. Vice President is selected by Modi. #AttrocityOfNDA #FamilyPolitics
  10. RBI is just a printing press who prints money and supplies other banks #Vera level
I could not ask any further. I corrected all his answers with facts and gave a big one hour lecture on technology, finance, geography, International Relations to tell him how my India is better than "his" country in many ways.. No... I was not talking to prove that he is wrong. Neither I wanted to tell him that I know more than him. It was my way of expressing anger. I wanted to refute back and I had no other option. I said that I doubt whether he really studied in the college he claimed to have studied in, said that I questioned him just to shut his mouth up and requested him not to talk this way in future without knowing the facts right. I also added that he is a standing example of how intelligent people are in "his" country and I am the example of  how dumb people are in India.  I was not aggressive, but assertive and rude to some extent. I feel sorry for the rudeness now.
I came back to my senses only after I completed my lecture. When I saw around, I realized that the whole coach was smiling at me. It felt so embarrassed. It was only then I started eating my supper. To my surprise, almost the whole coach started eating only then. Ayyo.. They were listening to my lecture all that while. Think they were also equally pissed off with his behaviour.

But... Did I over react ? 

There was a pin drop silence for 20-30 seconds. I could hear the rattling sound of the wheels when someone opened the doors of the AC coach. Then suddenly a man in his late 70s stood up from his seat in the other corner of the coach. He walked straight to me, touched my head and said " Thanks beta. You did what I wanted to. I am happy that my country is in safe hands. God bless you. Do you think you over reacted?" He never waited for my reply and before I could respond, he said, " You did what had to be done. Don't feel bad dear child." He saw me nodding my head and moved back to his seat. Everyone in the coach congratulated me. But deep inside the heart I still feel sorry for cornering the foreign dude in front of the crowd. The dude never spoke a word after that to anyone. But.. how did that grandpa know about me doubting whether I over reacted? I still feel like I know that grandpa since ages though I saw him for the first time only yesterday. I am still confused ! 

After I reached home, I had a sense of optimism. There are so many in this country who are incurably optimistic like me. As Verrier Elwin said, Yes... India's angry young men and disillusioned old men are full of criticism and resentment. It is true that there is some corruption and a good deal of inefficiency; there is hypocrisy, too much of it. But how much there is on a credit side ! It is a thrilling experience to be a part of a nation that is trying, against enormous odds, to reshape itself !

But one thing is for sure. Not just me and the dude... None of them who travelled in my coach will forget yesterday's travel ! And the dude will never talk nonsense again in his life. He must be scolding me since yesterday night !! He he he :-)

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