I
am sitting in a train, on the lower side berth, looking out through the window
not just right beside me but through the one that lies on my other side. The
aisle is bustling with chai-walas, 'coppy'-walas and many more
moment-based-defined walas. There is no one sitting next to me. However, next
to the window through which I was looking out, had a guy with turban from Goa
who kept ogling at me as if I were an alien and a joint-family with five women
playing antakshari singing the latest bolly songs and their kids who were
jumping like little monkeys exploring the natural wilderness of the Indian
trains.
Somehow,
getting a glimpse of the world seen through their window through all that commotion
was much more stimulating than looking through mine. A funny feeling struck me.
Looking outside of the train window suddenly felt as if I were holding a
video-cam, with the train driver directing the shoot by navigating through the
scenes and fellow travellers were the viewers. The difference is that they were
watching the movie along with me, while I was taking the shots. Strange yet
colourful thought. I could almost sketch out the reel.
Window
is an access to the external, access to a new realm of experience. A world
maybe you are unable to step out into but at least view and enjoy. With music
blasting in my ears, through the window I start observing the continuous snap-shots
of emotionally –rhetorically exciting frames of landscapes changing from green
to brown, crowded stations with each person playing his part in this epic movie
of either porters scurrying along with the passengers’ suitcases, late-comers chasing
the train, kin bidding good-bye, people at transit, beggars counting their
pennies and then again the chai-walas, ‘coppy’-walas. I am enjoying the
simplicity of the movie where the varying scenes are well knit forming a novel
art movie.
