The Shimla Trip- Leg One

Halfway through Pico Iyer’s ‘Video Night in Kathmandu’ I realized that it isn’t such a good idea taking along such travelogues while one is traveling. It isn’t a good idea especially if they’re travel books written by people like Pico Iyer, and more so if one happens to be an aspiring writer. It isn’t a good idea because reading brilliant writing makes you feel like a hopeless writer if you aren’t one already. Prose like that written by Pico Iyer makes one acutely aware of one’s own limitations. Pico Iyer has an inimitable talent of putting into elegant prose his laser like observations about everything he sees, smells, feels and experiences. One can read all the books he has read, travel to all the places he has been, have the same experiences that he’s had but one simply cannot write like him because he is a genius. After reading a couple of pieces in the book I am nervous about writing this post about my trip to Shimla not that I want to write like him.

Even upto the last day before leaving for Shimla I made attempts to put off the trip or thought of excuses not to make it. For the first time in my life I did not feel like traveling anywhere even if it was to a place like Shimla. So when my train ticket was confirmed which I had hoped wouldn’t happen, I had no choice but to go. I packed my bags and started early on Friday morning, embarking on a long trip that would last more than twelve days. It was a gloomy start because I felt a bit guilty leaving behind my family for such a long time. I would miss my kid very much and I did.

By some strange coincidence, on almost all my trips to Delhi by train, I find I have to share my berth with boisterous groups of people. The last time I traveled to Delhi by train my fellow travelers were a group of trade union leaders of BHEL who talked loudly, non-stop for the entire journey. This time again, I was in the company of a similar group except that these were members of the youth wing of a national political party. In addition to talking loudly, calling out to each other in voices loud enough for the train driver to hear they also gambled with cards all day. I had thought that cocooned in the comfort of the air-conditioned coach I would get time to read and also to think about certain things messing up my life in ways I had not expected.

Forced to sit with the boisterous group I abandoned my plans to read and tried to follow their chatter. They made jokes about their party chief and other office bearers. They were on their way to Jammu so their leader, a rotund guy, made calls ensuring all their arrangements were in place. The only saving grace was that they treated me with a lot of respect even after I revealed to them that I was only a government employee. Either it was the books in my hand or my salt and pepper beard that attracted such deference. If only they knew what I was really!

Only when traveling does one realize that the world is indeed very small. More than seventeen years ago, when I was working as a copywriter in an ad agency, I had a colleague, a Bengali, who had been on a retainer basis with the agency as an artist. He was a fairly senior person and had experience in reputed national ad agencies. Though we got to work together on many campaigns for the two years I worked in the agency I did not know much about him. When I saw him on the train in the same coach that I was traveling I was as pleasantly surprised as he was. He had not changed much but had that relaxed look of a person who had retired comfortably. He told me quite casually that Satyajit Ray, the great film maker, was his cousin. We talked for a long time and I forgot to buy Haldiram Sweets when the train stopped at Nagpur, which meant that I reached my brother’s home in Delhi empty handed.

That was the end of the first leg of my journey, reaching Delhi on my way to Shimla. The next post would be about the journey to Shimla and further to Mashobra.