It was back in the late 90s/early 00s that I was on a train with my parents and brother to Jammu. That was the time when I was curious to know why does the second shutter of the window (not the glass one) even exist? The train journey to me was an overnight journey which could happen only via limited trains in my knowledge; Pooja, Shalimar and Jammu mail.
I was a mere kid but what I still remember of the journey was an interaction with an old couple on the opposite berth accompanying a little girl. ______________________________________________________________________________Today when I came back home in the evening I surfed through the television channels. Disconcerted, I put on the bollywood movie Border. A chain of thought processes and I am in the train to Jammu.
Two years back I did some part time work with a design Studio in green park. Getting off the tube and passing through the service lanes everyday I noticed this huge ruined building with a shady corridor and a rusted structure of a car that was parked there some day. Later on when I got to know that the building I passed everyday was the Uphaar Grand Cinema, I was taken back to this conversation between the old couple and my father that had happened in the train to Jammu. An overnight journey in the train had always fascinated me. How come I get up in the morning and the train is moving in the opposite direction. Yes it did happen and it happens even today, just that today I know the reason! _____________________________________________________________________________ It was that time of the journey when going to bed seems nearly impossible because you find the opposite party is still waiting for the food they ordered from the pantry. The little girl accompanying her grandparents was least interested in food. Addressing to her grandparents as mummy and papa she was wanting to climb to the upper berth. The sad part is that both her parents had passed away in the Uphaar cinema tragedy when she was an infant. I remember her grandfather sharing with my dad that how in the years after the tragedy, the girl had sensed a mummy and a papa in her grandparents. With time she would have got to know about her parents and what took them away from her. ______________________________________________________________________________ All this could have been curtailed if violation hadn't taken place. Today when Restaurants in Hauz Khas Village are shut due to the violation of laws, the youth gets offended and retaliates by saying 'ye kya mazaak hai?' 'government ko kuch kam ni hai kya?' Illegal construction, over use of resources is so prevalent today that the dingy and tightly packed staircases of cafes at Paharganj and Hauz Khas Village seem off stream, cool and inviting, and then we question why did it happen in Kedarnath?
