Being Indian: the Roads & Rails (Part-I)

Your Indianness is established when you are rushing in the peak hours of traffic along with varieties of other vehicles, starting from tractors to cars, spread across 3/4 lines in the not so wide road, heading in one direction, few bikes & auto rickshaws wade their way exactly in the opposite direction & stare at you as if it's you who is violating the traffic rules.. 😳😳

As I was settling down in my seat in the train for an overnight journey, spreading the white bedsheet given by the railways on my allotted seat, my co-passenger from the front seat, spreads his legs, rests his feet right on the top of my bedsheet & strikes a conversation, "aur aap ki kahan tak ki safar hai"? (How far will you travel)...on learning I'll get down by early morning, he suggests "tab toh aap ko jaldi sho jana chahiye" (then you must sleep early)... I suddenly felt some apnapan (warmth) in that rawness of dirty legs still resting on my clean bedsheet, kind of feeling like being with own people... however a couple of hours later realised,  that "apnapan" has gone a bit too far when the competing snoring sounds of my co-passengers woke me up & didn't let me sleep for the rest of the journey 😰😰😰