Our Train Journey

Yesterday when I was talking to one of my new friends from the 5 am club (I joined a few months back), I realized something. He wanted to give up on the journey because something was bothering him within. Since I had walked the same path already I empathetically listened to him completely and then shared my views on it.?

He had a big relief, he shared, after our talk. I told him I was just two stations ahead of him in this waking-up-early aspect. In some other aspects he is ahead may be. The point is not whether who is ahead and who is behind.

I realized that this is a journey and we are all co-travellers. And by virtue of sitting in this train called life we have umpteen choices.?

The only choice which is beyond our control is the selection of the berth (birth :). The berth number is given by someone else. We fortunately/unfortunately don’t have that choice. Because of our sanchit finances we can choose the class 1st AC, 2nd or 3rd and sleeper. But the train is the same, we must not forget. It has to go to the same destination and through the same stations.? The starting point is the will and the decision to travel.

Also in this journey, someone might drop off at some station and we don’t know that. Good that we don’t know. His/her station might just come before ours. And so, what choices do we have till then??

The word CHOICE has sounded extremely powerful to me these days.

Some co-travellers may travel farther than us and what’s the use if they are not aware and fully present while traveling. They may lose out on some beautiful picturesque scenes of the rivers, the mountains, the sunrise, the sunsets, the moon and star lit sky. They might lose if they are busy counting on what they don’t have during the trip rather than using everything they have completely. So even though we don’t get to choose the berth, we can definitely wonder what all we can do while on the berth. Can we play some interesting games, can we laugh together on some silly jokes, can we have some deep conversations in which we forget what’s the time, can we connect with people on different berths in the same compartment and maybe with the people in other bogies too.? People in the bogies who are near the energy source that is the engine could share their wisdom with us so that our journeys become worthwhile. They could also share if they regret mishandling or missing on some important spot that passed by and they didn’t recognise the beauty of it.?

Or we also have the choice to share our love and connection with the people in the bogies behind ours. We can choose not to spoil their maza or experience so that they get the real joy, fun and thrill or maybe they will learn something new. But do you know there is a secret fun element we can capitalize on. We could sit with them for sometime and re-live the moments of innocence and purity by being with them, playing with them, chit chatting with them, experiencing the same childhood and innocence again and again before hurrying to? march ahead in our compartment where we are supposed to travel. Because we can’t run away from our current compartment and responsibilities associated with it. But the choice is there again. Do we run away or face them head on with not just courage but the wonder: what’s there in store for me here?

After all, it's our journey. Knowing/unknowingly we opted for it. We wanted to travel, explore, wander, wonder, taste. We had probably experienced such travels before this one too and knew that it’s worth the effort and therefore landed in this train too, maybe a different train each time.?

Now what about my co-travellers? Do they influence me and how? That’s quite interesting. Now what do we individually and collectively decide and choose? That decision and choice is important because that’s going to decide the quality of our journey.? What we are usually busy with in our journey is that we judge people in other compartments and classes. We have preconceived notions about people traveling in 1st class, 2nd, 3rd and sleeper class. The choice is to break those notions and just consider ourselves as mere co-travellers. There is a choice: first one: we can come together to ruminate over something which is beyond our control, think on all the possible should and coulds, gossip about people in the other compartments, pull legs of the people near us so that they don’t dare to climb the upper berths, complain about how the train is bad and ugly, complain that we have not been provided with certain facilities in the train. Or the second one: we also can decide and choose to come together to some center of the train for sometime at least so that we play Antakshari, playing cards, sing songs (local, folk and Bollywood, ghazals), can we play damsharards, can we act in role plays, can we write together, do collective Surya Namaskar, or eat some healthy salads, some bhel or kachcha chiwda. These are the choices we have or we can make. Then the journey will be full of warmth, happiness, hope, serenity and security and finally of interconnectedness and fulfillment.?

Love you all my co-travellers!