Fear of conductors

Most of us have some irrational fears based on incidents from our past. I have this debilitating fear of conductors. Let me take you back to the summer of 1975.

The Kalka Mail took 32 hours to cover a distance of nearly 1500 km between Calcutta and Delhi. If you make a reservation, you travel in relative comfort with a berth to sleep on. As students, we didn’t have the luxury of queuing up at the railway station for hours, several months in advance, to make a booking. So, we often travelled third class unreserved.

Travelling without a reserved berth is fraught with suffering including sleep deprivation and every imaginable discomfort. The train conductor wielded immense power. He always had a few berths that he could release just before departure to the highest bidder. The innocent among you may be forgiven for thinking this was an auction. No, It was something else. One had to know the routine and play the game by its rules for any chance of success. Come with me to the platform where my train is about to depart.

Passengers surround the conductor. They tug at his faded black coat pleading with him to allocate them a berth. The conductor, all self important and regal, brandishes his clipboard of typed passenger lists, speaks in the coded language of the corrupt.
The hopefuls are obsequious and entreat him, “Sir, Sir, please do it, Sir, you are the boss.” He shakes his head, grunts his helplessness and declares the train to be full. He cannot squeeze another soul in. Impossible. The astute among them observe that his hand movements and words don’t match. While he says ‘impossible’, he gestures ‘maybe’.

“Unless,” he says gravely and continues after a long pause, “there’s a cancellation.” Then he says, almost in a whisper, “There is emergency quota, VIP quota, foreigner quota ..”

He has kept hopes alive. The word ‘UNLESS’ is hanging in the air like a ripe mango ready for plucking but just out of reach. He makes eye contact with only those who, in his judgement, have the capacity to offer him substantial reward. An implicit contract with the selected few, scripted with grave nods, facial twitches and direct stares, is set up. A berth is the prize. His reward has not been discussed, but that will be a whole different exercise conducted after the train departs, in the dark, in vestibules, in toilets.

The other supplicants are ignored. He looks through them or over their heads. The wise among them leave, having accepted defeat. But most tag on. He struts the length of the platform and they follow. They walk together as a body – a giant swarm of bees in a cordon around their queen.

The train is getting ready to commence its journey. It hoots. Guards blow their whistles, green flags are waved and green lights flashed. But the conductor and his passengers are still prancing about on the platform. Their pace has quickened. Quotas are finally released. Allocations to the lucky few will follow. Seconds remain.

Into this real life drama on the railway platform I enter, an 18 year old engineering student, unfamiliar with the world of train conductors and untutored in the art of bribery. I pull out a twenty rupee note from my wallet and offer it to the conductor in full and shocked view of those still on the platform.

“What’s this?” the conductor asks, seething in faux outrage and affront.

“For you – I want a berth,” I reply hesitantly.

“You are bribing a government servant? I’ll put you behind bars.”
The conductor is at his angriest and I am dismissed peremptorily, but not before my name is noted down.

The drama is in its final act – the allocation of a few berths released from quotas, real and make-believe. The lucky ones squeal with delight as they dash into the now slow moving train. The conductor marks their names on his list. He joins them.

Meanwhile, I, traumatised by the threat of imprisonment, exit the scene and dive into the unreserved compartment. It is milling with sweaty bodies. I spend the next 32 hours in purgatory – perching at the edge of overflowing seats, sleeping on the luggage berth when its unlucky occupant vacates it to get something to eat or use the toilet, standing when neither is available. I survive the sweltering heat, sleep deprivation, and arguments with co-passengers over what ails India and how we could fix it. Finally my journey is over. I am in Delhi, at home with my parents and siblings. Heaven.

I still have nightmares about being thrown into prison and, to this day, lower my eyes when a conductor comes around to check tickets in the train.