An Unexpected Train Ride

This summer break, I went on a trip back home to India with my family. Not expecting anything out of the ordinary, my thoughts went back to the drab old trips to the same place that took place every year. However, the trip turned out to be one of the best decisions I've made this summer break (I've not made many...)
I landed in India, during the first week of August, and could smell the rain right as I got out of the airplane. The strong monsoon winds hit me in the face as I descended down the stairs,  and I thanked the Gods for saving me from Abu Dhabi's heat. Now I was in Mumbai, and I had to take a train to my hometown, Bhusawal, in order to pick up my mom. The train ride, lasting around 16 hours, brought along some unexpected conversations.
My berth was far away from my dad, the only one accompanying me on this trip. A slightly old person sat across from me, lying down on the bed made out of rough leather. He wore a brown half-sleeved sweater and a pale blue shirt under it, along with neatly ironed khaki pants. His eyes betrayed little, but the ages of wisdom that he had gathered throughout his life were unmaskable. We shared a quick glance, smiled at each other, and went on with our respective lives. This took place at midnight: he went to sleep, and I continued satiating my thirst for John Green books. Every two hours, men in faded grey shirts and pants continued to peddle eatables in their usual loud, raspy voices. I always got tea, which helped me keep my eyes open.
After flipping through An Abundance of Katherines* for seven hours straight, I decided to go to sleep. Since I was thirsty for tea, I waited for the next round of beverages that were going to come at 8 AM. During this period, the slightly old person- let's call him oldie- decided to wake up. He smiled at me again. I knew he was very old due to the infinite lines above his bushy grey eyebrows, and the ancient thin round gold-rimmed glasses he wore. When the next round of tea came around, he paid for me. I was surprised, and asked him why he did so. Through his stained teeth, he replied in a thick Hindi village accent: "How else would I get to strike up a conversation with a young lad? Especially with your types, you city people. NRI**, are you? I thought so. I identified by looking at those loafers and that very snug hoodie you're wearing right there. Anyway I bought the tea for you because you remind me of my daughter."
Okay, so I was on the train, sitting across an old man whose grey eyes bored into me, looking to me to respond to him. A small amount of sunlight streaked in through between the  iron rods that barred the window and illuminated both our faces ever so slightly. What was I going to talk to him about?! Okay oldie, I remind you of your daughter....... so what?! I am not your daughter, and I certainly am not a GIRL!!!! What do I talk to you about?! I just wanted to sleep and cuddle with the girl of my dreams in my head. Why did oldie have to strike a conversation with me at this point in time?! What he said next will stick with me for the rest of my life.
Resume old man talking and me listening to him with curious glistening eyes: "Okay, I guess you probably don't have any reply to that. So listen up. When my daughter, Deepa***, was a little kid, she was the most carefree of people. Her mom had sadly passed away due to lung cancer when Deepa was a baby due to lack of healthcare. I was a farmer back in the day, and made just enough from my profession so as to provide bread for Deepa and I . At first, everyone around me was very supportive. We would get up early in the morning, go the cow that we had at home, and milk her. I still remember teaching her how to take the milk out from the utters. She failed miserably the first couple of times, but when she succeeded, oh how sweet was her expression. She had this smiled that resembled her mothers, those straight white teeth embedded in her perfectly carved out jaws. We used that milk in order to make tea. We would take the milk back to our next door neighbour, who would make the most beautifully spiced teas ever. After that I used to go to the farm to work. For the first few years, our life was ever so beautiful. We did nothing but frolick around in the vast green fields that surrounded the village. I enrolled her in the nearest school, and used to pedal around 10 kilometers in total every day in order to get her there and back. She studied there until she was in tenth grade. In tenth grade, she ended up topping the state in the board exams****, and coming fourth in all of India*****. It was very fulfilling to see my daughter achieve such results, considering the fact that she was forced to help her dad in the farm, and only got around 4 hours to study under the street lamp post every night. We were a very poor family back then. Everything was fine and merry, and the whole village celebrated her achievment like there was no end to the night."
So where had his daughter gone after that?
He said: "Ah, after that, things got a little bit rough. The whole village began talking down Deepa's ambitions. They wanted her to finish grade 12 and get married to a handsome foreign ka ladka****** straight away. But my daughter told me otherwise. She wanted to prepare for the IIT******* exams, and major in mechanical engineering so as to improve the very poor agricultural techniques as used in India. Now, this was a hard choice for me, but it had to be done. In order for one to prepare for the IIT exam successfully, you must know that extra classes are required. So we had to move to a bigger town, so that she could get a good all india rank in the entrance exam. But you know what, she told me to not move, because she cared so much about my life. She wanted me to be happy, and didn't want me to sacrifice my happiness just for her. Then I thought to myself in naivety that she wouldn't rank high enough in the entrance exam, so might as well live this life than risking starvation in the city. She was just a girl I thought, but boy oh boy, was I wrong. I still wanted to do everything in my capacity, so I remember, I cycled 50 km that day to the nearest village in order to get the book supplies that she needed to study. That day was one of the hardest and physically demanding but best decisions of my life. Due to the drought that season, I couldn't manage enough to pay for the rickshaw********. So we cycled together in the sweltering, exhaustive heat, and brought back a whole lot of books that she required in order to successfully pass the entrance exam. She spent day and night, out of school, helping me in the farm, and studying in the night under the street lamps. She couldn't go to school since it was too far and I couldn't afford it. After two years of continuous study and hard work in the farm, she gave the entrance exam. I remember how we almost threw up before we went to the nearest online cafe in order to check the results. She ended up ranking 30th in India out of the 100000 students that had signed up for the exams. I couldn't believe. A girl, who I and the whole society believed couldn't do anything better in life than marry a man and bear his babies, had accomplished a feat thousands of males died to accomplish. By studying under a street light without any formal education in rags, my baby daughter had had the chance to work for her dreams. She had a platform where she could work with leading professors from all around the world!"
Oldie started crying. I couldn't understand why he was crying and in what way. They seemed like tears of joy and bitterness at the same time. The red eyed oldie continued:"But we had to pay a certain fee, and I was not able to pay it on my own, oh no. When I went to the neighbours that I once loved and respected, they refused to help me. They said I was building a glass bubble for my daughter that was going to shatter. Soon enough, her dreams would be broken and she would just be another beautiful girl married to another handsome foreign ka ladka******. One even went far enough to say that what he was telling me was for my own good. I would get enough double the money through dowry if I matched my beautiful Deepa with a rich kid. Then I'd had it. I went to a big bank, ran away from the village, never to return. These people were like monsters, their claws holding down my daughter's dreams. I ended up staying in Mumbai for a short while working at my own shop, while Deepa got her education at IIT-Mumbai. Eventually, she was largely rewarded when a company decided to buy her patent for Tractor engines, and we were able to pay off the loans. Now she is comfortably settled in a high rise apartment in Mumbai with her husband, and my beautiful two grandchildren. They are the most bubbly things I've seen in the entire world."
I then asked oldie why he was on a train to a town he had no idea about. He told me that he was now looking for a new purpose in life, giving motivational speeches to women in rural areas in India. He was one of the many men who stood for the cause, and that made me feel proud of him. Coming from such humble beginnings, it is quite hard to enable your children, let alone your daughter, to make it big. He stood by his daughter's side and went on to foster a very great mind. Just a girl, all of them had said. This was what I had expected from rural Indians. But then I realised, rural Indians aren't really rural by thought, they just have to be explained to the importance of equality. The change is coming. All we have to do is embrace change as a society, whatever it may be, in order for it to be successful. If you are an Indian lady, or a female of any nationality who have made it big, or have supported a lady in order to do achieve her dreams: congratulations. You are amazing. You are the ones that can bring more equality amongst the hidden gems of the youth After all, there aren't going to be a lot of oldies in this world, are there?
The next thing I know I wake up, and Bhusawal has arrived. Oldie is nowhere to be seen, and my dad is screaming at me to get out of the train. As I walk through the confusion in the railway station: the beggars, the pedlars, and the entertainers, I can only help but think to myself:"Dammit Pratik, you forgot to get his name. Maybe if you were Deepa you wouldn't have".

-P.C.

References:
* An Abundance of Katherines is a book by John Green, an author who I absolutely fell in love with. You would know if you'd read my other blog post
**NRI: A non-resident Indian, typically considered to be fancy and rich
***I couldn't remember the name, so I made one up :P
****Board exams: 10th grade exams that are considered to be important according to the Indian syllabus CBSE
*****A lot of people, around 180000 give this board exam
******foreign ka ladka: In Hindi, means man from a foreign land. Usually used as a slang amongst parents in order to denote a healthy candidate for their daughter taking part in an arranged-marriage.
******* IIT's are the best engineering institutes in India, rivalled by none in terms of reputation in India. There are campuses in the major cities of India.
********Use google images if you actually don't know what this means..

On weird reading habits

Begin the summer break. There I was, at the beginning of July, thinking about how to spend my vacation. I was obviously going to travel. I was obviously going to get my school work done. I was obviously going to spend a lot of time working on a few side projects. Was I obviously going to spend time reading books? I thought otherwise, at least at the beginning.
I was relaxing at home, thinking of my plans for the break. I knew I had to read a book; it is a custom of mine. So I started off by picking up a copy of David Baldacci's book:"The Escape". For those of you that don't know, David Baldacci is a critically acclaimed author who writes a lot of very gripping fiction. I spent the whole of my first week reading this book. After I finished reading, I didn't feel satisfied. I felt the need to read.
So I got a few more books. These books, however, are quite different from the ones I usually read. On the airport, I got three of John Green's books: The Fault in Our Stars, An abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns. I ended up reading all of these in India and on my way there. Never before had I felt such an insatiable need for reading. I read while I was supposed to behaving food, while I was supposed to be doing school work, while I was supposed to be working out, while I was supposed to be doing everything other than reading. Yes, my mom did end up taking those very beautiful  and perfectly cuboid-shaped books from me, realising I was addicted to them. Why I was addicted to reading young-adult fiction, I had no idea. I had never before read such books. Perhaps it wass the fact that I will be a young-adult in the future, or the mysteries of that stage of life, when I would make much more meaningful emotional connections than my current ones.
Anyway, I had to find a way of reading more books. My mom in this case was the person I needed to avoid (for the very first time). So I thought and thought, and came up with a brilliant solution. I would use my laptop to read books, and my mother wouldn't even realise I was reading books leisurely. She would think that I was doing my school work, or reading the short stories that Mr Michael had posted on ManageBac.
And so it began. I began reading various John Green books on my laptop. I found all the books online surprisingly easily (Thank the internet pirate lords!). Although the idea of reading books on my laptop was ingenious and foolproof, it was sadly quite uncomfortable. The story was no more just inside the book. I had to come up with a comfortable viewing posture, taking into account the viewing angle and the straightness of the back, along with the strain on my hands. After a lot of experimentation, I came up with an ideal position. With the head lightly settled on a stack of two pillows, and the laptop in an upright position such that it is directly in line of sight, the most comfortable position was obtained! Needless to say, I continued reading quite a lot till I exhausted all of John Green's books.
By then, it was time to come back to Abu Dhabi. There were two weeks to go, and I had a lot of birthday money. I spent all of it at the airport, buying the all of the Game of Thrones books. I told my mother that I had finished all of my work (which was not true at all....), so she would let me indulge in quenching my insatiable thirst for reading different genres of books. But I still have no idea why I like the Game of Thrones book series. Before I started reading GoT, I despised the fantasy genre, dismissing it as completely unrealistic and unentertaining. However, I am now beginning to warm up to it, just as I did to the young-adult genre.
Now, it is the last day of the vacation. I have my English and TOK blogs left to finish writing up. I was supposed to do these back during..... when I was reading Let it Snow. However, I have read all of John Green's books and now am reading GoT, and guess what, I don't regret it! My grades hopefully don't regret it either... but whatever, that's a post for another time!