There is something very beautiful about a good train ride. It can send you into a world with a lot of possibilities. You can meet your old imaginary childhood friend or maybe a lovely story can come up in your mind and build its way to completion, sometimes you are reminded of times you would never think of in your everyday life or maybe you might just feel the touch of love.
On Such a train ride some days back I experienced the first and the last of the things mentioned above.
The Imaginary friend bit-
Being a kid from an army background, I got my fair share of Bharat Darshan and Trains being the Classical mode of travel then , the army does provide a certain concession to its men. During many of my numerous such trips, some which lasted 2-3 days there would not be a lot of things running in my mind as a child. Like every other kid i had my own imaginary childhood friend who would usually appear during my train rides and would always be riding alongside my train and I would watch in awe and wonder as he would negotiate treacherous terrains in a bid to stay close to the train and make sure i do not get bored.
After a long time, on the said train journey I decided to bring my old friend back and it was great fun thinking of the old days J
The Love bit-
Not a very big music junky that i am i rarely listen to songs while travelling (Whoa! Big revelation ) but when i do the occasional times i get totally immersed and do start dancing and going into a jig, which becomes a rather embarrassing situation later on when i remove my headphones, Hence i prefer going near the door while the train is in full speed, listening to music while the air breezes past. Like i said i am not a music junky and hence obviously do not have an i pod or mp3 player, neither do i have a collection of songs to die for in my mobile, i have a few tracks which i have not changed for about an year now. But since i am an occasional listener the tracks never become boring for me. This time it was a bunch of songs i hadn`t played in a looooong while and hence when you listen to Mundhinam parthene and ,Nenjukul peidhudum while standing next to the door with the train in full speed, you feel the touch of love.
If that wasn`t enough later on continuing on the tamil tracks listening to uravugal thodarkathai and Sundari Neeyum by the maestro Illayaraja while watching a wife sitting in the side berth serving food to her husband and exchanging sweet nothing suddenly sent me back in time 20 years(at least).It was as if my directorial frames were in position and a montage of such sequences all over the coach were being played to the tune of the said 2 songs.
Music has divine powers – it sent me back in time and gave me a 10 minute 1 shot video idea J
