In the Sundar bans, when the cyclone came un-announced-- nothing much was left in the fields and nothing was left of their home in North 24 Parganas. Trying to survive by catching fish and crabs, many families have lost their shelters and are falling prey to diseases due to saline water.
It was a plan, an unfamiliar one. I was accompanying a friend to a visit to her Grandparent’s home after years. To reach Thiruvalla, we had no train reservations. We knew the train number, its name and the time it would leave Bangalore City Station. So we found in on a platform and hopped on to the last compartment- the unreserved one, for women only. It was already full as we hesitantly got in to it. We were possibly very lucky to find a little space next to the door. So we kept our bags and sat on them as I refused to put my ‘Bob Marley- One Love’ spreadsheet on the floor and we had conveniently forgotten to carry newspapers. For a compartment that has a capacity of max 60 people, under normal circumstances, this one had more than double the number of people in it. An old woman sat next to us, embarking a 15 hour plus journey to Kanyakumari sitting next to the wash basin. As the journey progressed, our irritation grew. It was a fight for space. Every inch counted. You find it, you st...
Comments