Train Diary: A Journey to Remember on the Shatabdi Express and the Burden of Muslim Stereotypes

The pre-recorded message crackled over the din in the compartment: ‘Welcome to the Shatabdi Express. Train No. 12040 from Delhi to Kathgodam. The distance of 250 kms will be covered in five hours 35 minutes. Smoking is strictly prohibited, even in the toilets….’ Ten minutes to departure people were still struggling to find their seats and haul their luggage onto the luggage racks overhead. A hefty woman in an orange sari instructed her porter to fit two large canvas-covered suitcases into the narrow space left on the rack, one seat ahead. The faces of all other luggage—trolley bags, duffel bags, backpacks, boxes, baskets, cartons—were turned around to accommodate her cases till she was satisfied, before she began haggling with the porter. A passenger’s trolley wheel got caught in her sandal. The haggling streamed into loud exclamations of dismay till it was time for the porter to accept with relief whatever money was dropped into his waiting palms.

There was the buzz of things finally settling down. Passengers were waving their goodbyes through the thick tinted glass when he entered. Wheeling behind him a hard black trolley bag, he looked for some space on the luggage rack, finally finding a spot at the far end of the compartment. He was dressed traditionally: a cream-coloured kurta with large wooden buttons, loose churidar, a cream net skull-cap with ascending patterns of an X design, cream and gold juttis. His dark hair curled like his beard, thick and unruly, strands of grey appearing here and there. He had the aisle seat, diagonally opposite.

A school text book open on my son’s desk, Class 8: Muslims were ‘medieval foreign invaders’ who pillaged the land and dominated over Hindus for centuries. They destroyed temples, massacred Hindus. Even the great Mughal Emperor Akbar allegedly massacred 30,000 people in the siege of Chittorgarh. And his victory against Maharana Pratap in the Haldighati battle in 1576 cannot be certified.

He refused tea and biscuits but got up twice to check on his bag. When the bearer came to collect the tea thermoses, he leaned back to ease the attendant’s reach to the third tray table. A baby cried incessantly from somewhere behind. A few people eased out of their seats and headed towards the toilet. The woman in the orange sari in the seat in front stretched up to push her boxes back to the curving wall and to roughly push other luggage away. Her blouse was green with a scalloped strip of orange lace at the sleeve ends. Her orange bindi fell off as she stretched. She searched for it on the floor, emerging breathless, the bindi stuck askew to the right of her forehead. The baby had stopped crying. Several passengers dozed off to the soothing sound of instrumental music; a gentleman snored, making a whistling sound.

There was an eagerness for breakfast. As the pantry staff wearing light blue shirts and dark blue pants entered the compartment with the food trolley, there was food fragrance and wakefulness. Served in disposable containers, a choice was given: aloo parathas cut in quarters and served with curd and pickle; vegetable cutlets with peas and bread; omelettes with peas, finger chips and bread. Passengers ate hungrily, waited for hot water to be poured into white porcelain cups so the tea mix could be stirred in, then promptly dozed off.

The lady in orange got up several times to check on her luggage and did not eat or sleep. He did not eat either, but unpacked a steel tiffin box from his distant black case and ate silently. It was yellow rice with vegetables and potatoes.

In Padmaavat, Ranveer Singh had played Alauddin Khilji, his eyes dark and heavy with kohl, his face scarred by two evil slash marks, his hair and beard dense with growth, his manner of eating meat gluttonous. Every time he entered a scene, there was violence. Instances of Khilji’s betrayal or aggression towards the brave and upright Rajputs filmed against the backdrop of a prominently displayed green flag with a star and crescent. His blatant promiscuity, disrespect of his wife on their wedding night, his murder of his nephew even as his trusted companion recited verses from the Quran... Shahid Kapur as Raja Ratan Singh also had a beard, a long scar on his face and eyes lined with kohl. But his eyes held the tenderness of love for his wife, the chivalry and fortitude of Rajput blood, Hindu blood. He fought Khilji like a lion... till the betrayal.

The ticket checker came in, wearing a white shirt, grey trousers and a loosened red tie, his fixed pleasant smile at the head of the compartment, fading slowly. In his hand he held an I-Pad which he kept at a proud tilt.

He moved quickly through the rows, smiling as he asked people here and there for their Aadhar cards. At his seat, the ticket checker asked for his Aadhar card. He showed it to him on his phone. The checker said it was good to have a hard copy on hand. The man fumbled and said with trepidation that he hadn’t carried one as he had understood that a digital version was enough.

The woman in orange stood up swiftly to her hefty height. Her voice rose above all other sounds, above the ad on Uttaranchal Tourism and the state’s picturesque Himalayan peaks. “TT,” she shouted. “Why isn’t he carrying a valid identity card? Can you trust a digital card? In these times of bomb attacks? In cars, trucks, trains?’

A car loaded with ammonium nitrate fuel oil near the Red Fort. Bomb blast. 15 killed, 20 injured. possibly linked to Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). Bengaluru café bombing… not so long ago.

A few people, returning to their seats, paused behind the ticket checker. The orange woman thrust herself to the forefront, grabbed the luggage rack for balance and glared at him. More people gathered, shaking their heads disapprovingly. A tie-less second ticket checker arrived wearing a grey coat. Both checkers conferred before turning to the orange woman: “Madam, kindly be calm. Please everyone… return to your seats,’ said the tieless checker. “Indian Railways accepts digital identity cards for verification.”

He made no apologies, just mopped the sweat from his brow. The small band of passengers that had gathered around his aisle seat dispersed, with a slight air of disappointment as if, with danger dissipated, so had the drama. Instrumental music now yielded to light classical music. Shehnai by Ustad Bismillah Khan. The passengers looked more awake, more alert. When the pantry staffer brought in a large aluminium tray filled with bananas, most passengers unpeeled them to eat the fruit immediately. The orange woman refused the banana, her head stiff and alert above the back of her blue seat. He kept his gaze on the window to his right, a gaze that looked both tired and hurt.

Moradabad station was announced as the longest stop on the route—five minutes. He got down. A vendor walked slowly down the compartment’s aisle announcing chocolates, juice cartons and canned drinks in a high-pitched voice. The man returned, went first to his black box at the far end, opened it, held it as he peered in, then clasped it shut. He returned to his seat, his walk slow and tired, the grey wires in his beard more visible in the fluorescent light.

The announcement welcomed the passengers boarding the Shatabdi from Moradabad. Breakfast was served, the food aroma less marked now as it mixed with the faint smells of chips, salted peanuts, bananas and spilt tea. Breakfast cleared, the coatless ticket checker with the red tie, now tightened, came to strategic spots, still holding his I-pad at an angle.

The orange woman leapt out of her seat. Pointing at him, she screamed: “He… he got down at Moradabad station. He was carrying something. He stuffed it into that black box over there… there. Get that box down. Check it. Check it before we are all blasted to death.”

There was pin drop silence. Only the public address system announced the Shatabdi would soon reach Rampur. The ticket checker hesitated and looked towards the heavy exit doors. Before he could reach for his mobile phone, the bearded gentleman rose from his seat, walked to the far end of the luggage rack, brought down his box and carried it to his seat. He placed it across both arms of his seat and unclasped it. Most passengers, including women, had lunged towards him and gathered for a look in tense knots. At the forefront was the orange woman.

He emptied the box of its pockets: socks, hankies, two chargers, two small diaries, a pouch, a toilet bag. He unzipped the toilet bag—toiletries and a small vial of ittar; loosened the pouch— prayer beads. The main compartment: kurtas and churidars, undergarments, two pairs of shoes in cloth bags, a pair of bathroom slippers wrapped in plastic, a sheet and a towel, four books including a gold-embossed hard-backed volume of the holy Quran. An I-Pad, an I-Pad charger. The round steel tiffin box.

He stood aside for people, pushing each other, to take a look. Passengers moved away reluctantly, even before the ticket checker’s instructions to disperse rang across the compartment. He removed the pouch, shut the box and pushed it onto an empty space on the rack, now closer to his seat, before sitting down. The orange lady was the last to retreat. The ticket checker loosened his red tie, crouched to whisper words into his ears. He looked indifferent, his face averted in tired hurt. The checker straightened himself to look at him again. He had closed his eyes, his fingers moving through his prayer beads. Black plastic beads on a short string, the brown knitted pouch slipping to the edge of his lap.

The man on the next seat muttered under his breath: “All the same. Fundamentalists. Anti-national cow killers. So many children they have. Still they lure our Hindu women into marriage, to convert them. Jihadis.”

I reached the washroom just in time. I could no longer hold down the bile choking my throat. The retching lasted through the bustle of Rampur, the banging on the door that went on. When I could no longer ignore it, I returned to my seat. His eyes were still shut tight, face averted, his fingers moving the beads feverishly. I pushed a mint candy into my mouth, closed my eyes, averted my face towards the window to stare at the makeshift homes along the railway tracks of Rampur.

Neera Kashyap has worked in newspaper and developmental journalism. She is the author of the short-story collection Cracks in the Wall and the poetry collection The Art of Unboxing