A Tribute to Tripathi Ji

                               A Tribute to Tripathi Ji

             Long time back,in class 5th my Hindi teacher Mr. Chandika Prasad Vallabh Narayan Tripathi asked me to write an essay on,' Railway station Ka Drashya'.I bunked the lecture.Next year, in class 6th he again asked me to write that essay.I wrote some rubbish which fetch me a good lashing. After 2 years he died of stroke,on a rusted bench of 1930 at a local railway station.We did not bother much.

        

              But, today after about 17 years I feel like paying a tribute to him.I am writing that essay,with interest and the information based on experience and insight(if at all it remains after doing linguistic philosophy).On 8th June, 2012  I visited Mathura with a friend and junior from St.Stephen's, Siddharth.Both of us are generally happy with Economist,good marwari food and revolutions and sincerely depressed with stench, Delhi heat and middle-path type balanced opinions.So with lot of unease we boarded the train.The first noteworthy thing was stench, yes without any euphemisms the stench of shit, mal or vishtha.It began with Nizamuddin and travaled as a silent but most phenomenal and noxious passenger till Mathura.By the time we reached Mathura we no more wanted to discuss political theories but wanted only an air conditioned room.

             After doing the darshan we were back at the station at 5:30.Now the description is nothing but the picture of the station in language.There were 5 to 6 counters for buying tickets and all had big queues of at least sixty to seventy people each.But only 2 windows had a railway person selling tickets.He was working with a computer which was either directly purchased from Blaise Pascal or was found in Mohan-jo-Daro by Rakhal Dass Bannerjee.Anyways it's buttons were coming off and key board was strewn with bits of heavily oiled pooris and curd. It's sides looked as if a big treasure of lignite was waiting to be drilled.It took full 5 minutes in printing one ticket.In that duration the ticket man(he was a local jat or gujjar) asked many metaphysical questions to the people standing in queue.He gave many pieces of rustic wisdom like one should not travel much and stay in one's village only.Then he gave a complete lecture on the miraculous powers of Col. Kirori Singh Baisla and assured me that he will definitely get the reservation for gujjar bhais.

             After buying the tickets I was taking a stroll.I met three bulls who were 5 to 6 feet in height.They were roaming in the station campus with full authority, arrogance and wild grunts.The confidence and terrorising instincts exuded by them left no doubt in my mind that they were surely the re-incarnates of former D.R.M s of that railway zone.One of them was proudly sitting in the A.C waiting lounge with a good number of railway cops and clerks standing in service.

       

            Then I saw a couple of sadhus seeking moksha with their lewd gestures, bare feet, dirty hair, stinking clothes, unidentified skin diseases and the hidden histories.Some of them were Vamacharis with their female partners, practising sexual tantrik cults.Only neurotic foreigners could find thrill and mysticism in them but I could only see melancholy, suppressed wild sexual desires erupting in kinkiest and weirdest of the ways and a total death.

            I also met some mangy and diseased dogs distributing rabies and other infections with full generosity.With them,were sleeping some disabled man with their artificial limbs parked alongside,on the floor smeared with cowdung, dried urine and crushed rotten tomatoes.There was one rather interesting sight.She was a coolie carrying 2 bags of 50 kgs each,owned by two Delhi university dudes.The last and the most interesting sight was the tribute paid by a beggar child to the government of India.

          It was the office of the station master,some Meena Ji.It was locked for days.I saw a beggar child pissing on the doors of his office.It was a transcendental release addressed to big railway babus and other bada Sarcars sitting in Rail Bhawan, North Block and South Block.

          After all this, I just feel that there is not much substance in our double-digit growth rates, BRICS diplomacy and notions like shining India.The real problem is mental.We are a schizophrenic nation and now the disease has become irreversible.

         But, still I do not wish to end with out a solution and that is immediate privatisation of railways and firing off the corrupt and inefficient railway bureaucracy.

         Lastly, I believe that I have done my duties to make Mr Tripathi's soul happy.