An outlier on the train

I was on a totally packed train from Chennai to Bangalore. I lacked a reserved seat and was forced to travel standing. Tired of standing for a while, I was relieved to find a teeny bit of space that I could squeeze into. The guy next to me very generously gave up his seat and asked me to sit comfortably. I thanked him and pulled out a copy of “The Continuum Concept” from my bag and started reading.

To kill time people usually get chatty on long-distance trains and if they read at all it is either a cheap magazine or the daily but not much else. Since I was reading a book, my co-travelers thought that I was going to college. The woman in front asked me which college I went to. I said I was done with college a long time ago. My slightly-puzzled neighbor asked me where I would be getting off and if I was working in that town. She was surprised to hear that I was not working and that I was a stay-at-home mom with two kids. I was wearing no special marks that would readily identify me as a married woman. Nor do I wear much jewelry. 

I could see that I had much confused my fellow passengers. By this time two men in the same seating area couldn’t contain their curiosity either. Now three, the questioners started firing questions that would be considered personal in any western country: “You don’t look married! Why don’t you wear the marks and accessories that we women do?”, “We thought you were hardly eighteen!”, “Which caste do you belong to?”, “Are you a Christian?”, “Are your folks okay with your ideas?”

After my sojourn in the US, sometimes I have to remind myself that in India there is nothing personal about these questions. In fact I liked that these questions were genuine and that my co-travelers were not hiding what they thought about me. I went on to answer each one of their questions. A few minutes later, I heard them talk among themselves, and not so discreetly either. I am pretty sure that I heard the woman say, “I don’t know what to make of people these days”. Obviously, the whole experience was unsettling for all of them. They started looking at me as if I was an animal in a zoo. To avoid their gaze I started reading my book again.

This conversation had somehow made me a part of this very temporary community. During my trip to the toilet my questioners helped me hold on to my seat and made sure I got ready on time to get off at my destination.

-- Hema