Thread by @chilluvandu

Thread.
I was raised in the 90s. I belong to a lower middle class family.
My father was the first generation to go to college.
We were raised with the privilege of having enough, while also being grateful for it.
The best experience from childhood was train travel.

A single salaried household working in pvt sector cannot afford holidays.
All our savings therefore would go towards our annual trip from calcutta to madras.
For the summer hols in May, conversation around planning would start in Jan.
Dates, any weddings, temple visits etc

Letters would have to be written to relatives asking if we can visit and then coordinated with my dads siblings for their arrival as well.
And i would be already dreaming about the hooting noise of the coromandel express and the sighting of the godavari and Krishna river.

Ticket would be booked in March and dad would bring the printed ticket, neatly in an envelope and leave it as the deity's shelf.
Between March and May, i would have memorised the PNR number, seat number, coach number, fine print rule printed on the ticket.

The might prior to the journey, i wouldnt get any sleep out of excitement.
My own bag would be ready. Comics, notebook to record stuff, pen, pencil,
2 kismi bars, hairclips, notes from last yrs visit, all sorts of stuff that mom asked to throw away but I saved anyway

Then comes the whole drama of who boards the train first and gets the window seat, between my sister n me, ie. . Forward looking window seat is a win. Backward is ok, not bad.
But we would have a deal, a timer of sorts, to swap. Appa would be the timekeeper. ( snoozefest)

I saw the first AC coach of a train when I was 21 yrs old or so. Sleeper class reserved ticket was a big privilege back then.
But we were told AC wud be closed, boring and you cant see anything outside.
I would wonder why the hell it is any costlier anyway!
But, Here's the deal

We would get an amazing snacks allowance for the journey.
Starting from jhalmuri in kharagpur, to bread omelette, to soup, to butter milk in vijaywada to getting idli vada the next morning, complete entitlement.
The wait of the whole year would be worth this snack fest!

The nights in the train were fun. We would eat the most amazing poori and onion thokku that would ve been packed from home. We wudve to carry bedsheets for ourselves.
Sometimes we got the side lower to just sleep in ( swapped with neighbours).

A cool breeze at 4 am on summer mornings, with twilight peeking in through the train window, a pacing train giving glimses of scenic landscape, is the best memory one can hold on to, gr8 experience for a child of 6 yrs.
The chai bhaiya wud appear,
Dip tea served with a smile.

Some of the best puns would be cracked, stories told and re told...
Train friendships made with no purpose or longevity, and finally when one is just about feeling enough of the sweat and dust, the trainnwould chug into madras central, the familiar karuvaad smell welcoming. Fin.