The Rail Tale: Part 4

Continued from The Rail Tale: Part 3...

It is five past nine, and you can see half the coach dark already. People here sleep at nine. They want to utilize the sleeping seats fully. You are not going to sleep just right away. You need to process what happened since the time you got on the train. Now is the time when you can finally think about your journey in peace.
There are still some uncles yelling and laughing in the adjacent compartment. They might as well replace Dracula in the movie Dracula. They can scare the bejesus out of people when they laugh. Wonder why they don't put up signs saying, "Keep children away."
Anyhow, let them scare whoever they want to. You've witnessed worse.

People eat at really odd times when they're on a train. One odd family started their dinner at exactly 6:33 p.m. One particular individual sat idle, looking at his watch, and then, out of the blue, started eating at exactly 7:19 p.m. He took out a wafer packet and started chewing. Then, he stopped eating after five minutes, and resumed the process at 7:47 p.m. Why? You don't even wanna know. What's worse is that you are actually noting these times.

You are looking around. People are sleeping. Some are snoring loud enough to produce seismic activity in Japan. You sit and watch. This journey was tiresome, to say the least. You met uncles, aunties, creatures, and children -- you practically had a great deal of experience in just a day. No wonder you used so many of your skills. Yoga skills, conversation skills, smell blocking skills, facepalming skills, yada yada.
The drama is not over yet. It will be over once you get off the train. You pledge never to travel in such a train. But, you instantly realize you're not so rich as to travel in an A.C. coach everytime. You think it's better to handle a buttload of crap in a day than to waste your money. Fast forward to the next journey, you are regretting your decision.

You finally have nothing to do except for going to sleep. Just as you hit your pillow, you hear two men fighting. One of them has a 'waiting' ticket and wants to sit, while the one having a 'confirmed' seat wants to sleep and is hence, removing him from his seat.
On that, the seat-snatcher turns akin a red hot iron bar, and starts shouting. He says he also paid for a seat, hence he 'deserves' to sit. A monologue along the lines of human rights follows. Then, it goes on to the point where the seat snatcher wants to call the T.T.E. and the person with the seat says something about calling the police.

After approximately ten minutes of yelling, they reach an agreement - the one without the seat will sleep in the passage between two sides. Everything goes down to the same calm state as before - except the uncles playing cards, of course.
You keep lying down, and soon, go into a mode of deep sleep. Just as you're about to reach the pinnacle in your dream, the train stops at a station and you are awakened by the noise of the people running and screaming outside. You open your eyes like a vampire who's just been disturbed in his grave. You look at the time. It's just 10. It is going to be a long night, you think.

Hours pass the same way, with you getting up at intervals of roughly two hours repeatedly. While you're sleeping after waking up for the fourth time, you are again awakened by people yelling in the adjacent compartment. Not again...
Apparently, one of the men has a small daughter, who was sleeping in the middle seat, while the man without the ticket was sleeping in in the passage between the seats. In her sleep, the girl fell down from her seat and on the man. With this, the man picked up a fight saying, "She did it intentionally."
This fight is louder than the previous one. The man without the seat threatens to call the police, and the police actually arrives. When the story is narrated to them, they almost laugh out.
Who wouldn't? They are fighting over something so dumb, it's like they're three-year olds.

The fight subsides after half an hour. You finally get up and go to brush your teeth. There is a long queue near the washbasin, and the toilets are occupied. People have started taking baths inside those toilets. How they do it will be a mystery foever.
People turn perfectionists when it comes to brushing in trains. They might not even brush on regular days, but in trains, they take full five minutes just moving the brush inside their mouths. So, basically, after fifteen minutes of waiting, you finally get a chance to brush your teeth. You do it as quick as possible and go back to your seat.

Back at your seat, you finally think you're done now, when three eunuchs come stand beside you, asking for money. Calling you epic names, and giving you blessings like you'd have never heard before, and thus, embarrassing you, they cause you to want to give them money to have them go.
You take out your wallet to give them 10 rupees, but aren't able to find the money.
"Arrey, beta, give me ten, I'll give you change if you don't want to give more," says the eunuch.
You are super-embarrassed. Everyone is smiling.
"Actually, I was going to give 10..." you try to say, but no one hears you.
You end up giving 10 rupees anyway. They go away after pestering other people of the compartment. You have a sigh of relief.

The train goes on forward, and in no time (kidding. Every second feels like an hour), the train is finally arriving at your destination. You take your bags and go for the door. But, you aren't the only one to get off. There are more than 10 people complete with luggage, who have to get off the train. Everyone starts pushing the next person in line just for the fun of it. You almost fall while trying to control yourself from the sudden jerk.
The train stops at your station. As you try to get off, people selling food items climb inside the train. On top of that, those who are boarding start getting inside like it's their only chance. You struggle more than you did when you got in, and finally, are thrown out of the train with your bags. Never before in your life have you been so happy on being thrown out.

A unique experience is the only way you can describe the journey -- a journey that taught you so much in just a day. You met different characters, you encountered awkward situations, you talked to all sorts of weird people and finally, you witnessed some really cool fights. In the end, this experience was like none before. Just a train journey can change you in ways you couldn't even imagine is what leaves you surprised.

You feel the fresh air, and walk away with your bags into the distance.
And thus, ends your journey in the sleeper coach of a long-distance Indian train, but you know it's not the last one. There will be many more to come, each one as exciting as the other.

Dream a little dream

As the scene unfolds, you are running on the roof of a building, with fear of the highest degree. Someone is following you - he is coming closer... He is faster than you are, but still, you cannot possibly give up. Your legs have started aching, and your body is now demanding rest. But the fear is consuming the pain - it is making you to continue nonetheless... You look behind but find no visible silhouette, but you know he is there - chasing you. You have run a considerable distance to save yourself. And as you try to run ahead, you see you have reached a dead end - you have reached the edge of the roof...
You are panting - it is now your mouth which is breathing. Your senses are alert, they have to be alert... In a moment of quick decision, you see that you have no choice. You jump off the roof to help yourself... And as you complete the jump, gravity takes over your body. You feel the mighty force pulling you down. You are short of air as you accelerate downwards. Adrenaline suddenly rushes in your body, and you are filled with a range of emotions - terror, excitement, thrill and pain... You continue falling downwards to what seems to be the end of your life... You are falling, and falling, and falling...
And then you wake up.

Dreams are no less than movies - with you as protagonists. For long, they have been a mystery - and unsolvable at that. People have argued over their purpose and their meanings for centuries now. But this mystery continues to be a mystery. They are unreal, but still, are so real - when we are dreaming, we don't even come to know that we are dreaming. Everything from images, ideas and emotions is present in our dreams. Stories seem to be real, but they don't make any sense. Characters are mixed, and plots are twisted - basically, we are transported to a wonderland, where anything is possible... And all that, when we are physically in one place, with our eyes closed and body intact...

According to the Indian text, Upanishads, dreams are our experiences when our soul leaves our body during our sleep. The experiences of the soul are basically our experiences - that's why our dreams feel so real to us. But yes, you don't have to believe that. The ancient humans were a fancy people. No wonder their imaginations had no limits.
The subject of dreams has always been a subject of discussion and debate. Many scientists and researchers have put forward various theories to explain the reason behind these virtual movies (if you see the irony). The first of those many theories was that of Sigmund Freud. According to him, dreams are manifestations of our deep, repressed desires - many of them linking to sexual desire. So, a train going into a tunnel in our dream is nothing but sexual symbolism. While this seemed to be a logical explanation; the way he proposed, everything could be traced back to sex.

During this time, Carl Jung, a student of Freud, proposed something different. He still believed in the psychological origin of dreams, but according to him, dreams were basically a means to solve our problems through the sleep and a reflection on our selves. We have noticed that sometimes - we have a problem in our mind when we go to sleep; and when we wake up, we are struck with a solution. (Although the solutions which I get this way often lead to more problems!) This theory seemed to be convincing, but soon enough, another theory came into limelight. According to researchers Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley, dreams are simply a result of random electrical impulses in our brains, with images and stories often pulled from bits of our memory. This theory explains why most of the time, our dreams don't make any sense - there is a random story, and there are random characters. And because it gives the answers to most of our dream-related questions, this theory is still one of the most prominent theories in the field of oneirology (the scientific study of dreams).

But these are all theories. No one knows for sure what actually happens. But, that doesn't stop researchers from pursuing this mysterious area. Scientists now know that most of our dreams occur during a phase of our deep sleep, called the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. During this phase, our brain functionality is so high that it resembles that of being awake. During this stage of our sleep, our body releases chemicals which essentially paralyze our body, preventing us from acting out our dreams... But, all our dreams don't happen during the REM stage. Some of our mild dreams also occur during our non-REM sleep, which sometimes causes us to act them out, because our bodies aren't paralyzed. That's why some people start kicking in their sleep... (That doesn't mean that you, kickers, are forgiven!)

But that is all okay, you'd say. Where's something fun? Okay then. Take this: Kekule, the chemist who discovered the structure of benzene did so in his sleep! He worked days and nights to figure out the structure of this molecule, but in vain. Until one night, when in his sleep, he had a dream about snakes, forming circles with their tails in their mouths. And then he realized that benzene molecule, unlike other organic molecules, had a circular structure instead of a linear one... Mary Shelly, the author of the famous book, Frankenstein, got the idea from a dream. Elias Howe, the inventor of sewing machine, got the idea of fixing a needle in the machine in his dream. And there is a skill that allows people to control what to dream about in their sleep. This is called Dream Incubation.

People have even come up with the meanings of dreams - like, being naked in public means you are trying to hide something and you fear exposure; falling down means your life is out of your control; being chased means you are running away from your problems; flying means you are in control of things; and so on... But who is to say what is actually meant by what you dream?
Amidst all this comes the concept of Déjà vu - the sensation that a currently occurring event has been experienced in the past, whether it has actually happened or not. One of the theories of Déjà vu attributes the feeling to having dreamt about a similar situation or location, and then forgetting it until reminded of the dream during the event in present. Maybe it is true. During a typical life span, a person spends a total of about six years dreaming. And out of those six years of dreams, can it not be possible that we dreamt about something that actually happens in reality?

Movies like 'Inception' add a completely new insight into dreams. The movie shows the concept of 'dream sharing', and it shows the concept of a dream within a dream. Characters are confused between the real world and the dream world, and without any indicators for the same (like totem), they could be forever lost in the abyss of the dream-world, called the 'limbo'. And all such objects make the concept of dreams and dreaming all the more intriguing...

Do dreams symbolize our inner desires? Are they hints to solutions for our problems? Or are they just random impulses which mean nothing? Do they express our fears and insecurities? Or are they prophecies? Is our entire life a dream? How do we know we are in the 'real world'?
There are many unanswered questions about these virtual realities, and rest assured, we may never know for sure what causes them or what they mean. But, dreams are a means for us to break free from the shackles of our lives - they can take us to places we have never seen, they can make us have experiences which we could never have, but above all that, they have the power to free us from the chains we are in, and to transport us to a world where anything and everything is possible... All that's needed is for us to close our eyes. And the rest is a miracle...