..And Miles to go Before I Sleep....

 When I take an overnight train, there is always uncertainty about things but the one thing that is certain is that I will not get a wink of sleep.

Let me explain: if there is a guy who has been featured on Tiktok because he snores like a mule with a fire lit to its tail while it is digesting bhoot jholakia chilli, he will be in the berth beside me (the snorer, not the mule).  The berth above his (snorer, not mule, pay close attention) and mine are generally taken by his two jobless brothers who join him in 16-beat percussion at 10 pm sharp because their family ritual post-dinner is a bloody drumjam.

A couple of days ago, when I took the overnighter to Bangalore, there was a noisy family with a couple and two kids, two moms-in-law and the husband of one of them who was stone deaf but kept laughing because he thought that the best way to keep everyone else informed that he was following the conversation closely.

The two kids had been given an injection of something with concentrated caffeine dipped in glucose as the base, because they kept climbing up, across and down, with the younger one weeping when he couldn’t swing upside down because I was in the way and unwilling to be the subject matter of particulate collision.  The other one had left his slippers elsewhere which prompted all of society as currently present and voting to search for them, while he wailed his head off.  The moms-in-law did not join the treasure hunt, being deeply engrossed in fluent Telugu on matters of gossip in which gold seemed to play a prominent role (the only other word I understand in Telugu is Cheppandi, so I generally say, Me No Cheppandi, and hoof it).

When we reached a junction, the kids’ dad got off to get dinner, which prompted the rest of this damned football team to rush up and down the corridor and the upper berth highway, asking him to return which he did with enough food for the Maratha Regiment.  They ate for about 45 minutes, during which the sounds of chomping were frequently subservient to burps from the  old fellow who had no clue, of course, that he was burping at 93 decibels like a lawn mower and he would combine a laugh at that volume to the kids’ delight.

After dinner, the kids took the upper berths and promptly fell asleep and the lawn mower found a berth in the next compartment, so I finally stretched out and yawned and clutched at the silver lining, which was, of course, that kids generally don’t snore.  Half an hour later, the dad hurriedly woke the kids up as the train slowed, who in turn woke up anyone who had just been dreaming of batting at Lords (that’s me), and this bloody football team-and-a-half exited at the next station.

They were replaced by three brothers.