Weeping and wetting by Puneet Rajhans

Weeping and wetting

As the threats that one face while travelling get reduced with the passage of time, travelling becomes more soothing and one vows to take note of exchange that takes place in the train coach. Two staff members were debating the harassment the cells in their homes were causing to them and the bills they had to foot. One member elaborated the pain and agony he was subjected to at home when his son went on cell arguments and his daughter went wild with the laptop she had secured. The laptop to the daughter had been gifted by her foe-turned-friend who had tried all wild games that laptop could offer.
As the daughter had just stepped in the college the first wild posession being the laptop she went wild and expressed her desire to come good by getting into live-in mode which so many of her seniors and peers had got in and got out at will. This desire of her to take immediate steps to realise her dream has got us in a state of periodic shocks, the staff member maintained. He went on to elaborate further.
The boy takes no less than 15 to 20 calls on cell each day giving traffic instructions on the route to be taken and the mode to be tried to reach their prized destinations to seek peaceful private moments. Later i realised that he had been booked for a traffic offence and his inability to pay the penalty led the traffic inspector seek his cell number and told him to dutifully guide people who sougth directions to a particular place and how best to reach them. Though the reprimand was for 15 days, he put his skills on the internet and as a result he gets calls at night and day where he provides his instructions for free with the rider that his skills should be advertised to their near and dear ones. As this has led to a lot of commotion in the family with unwanted visitors visiting and urging us to clear his cell bills failing which they won't terminate the cell connection but would easily terminate the power and water connection.

Earlier i had to settle for food, laundry, water and power bills. The landline instrument i had surrendered to the government long time back given the calls i got from the station to report for duty at unmanly hours. That threat i was able to take care of but this new threat of snapping water and power connection has led me to my inordinate delay in reaching home when my duty hours are over.
His tale on cell and its ripple effect wasn't the only one i was witness to

There was another guy speaking on cell on the need for him to be on the cell to tell the company vendors that the company intends to launch a new product. The cell duration that lasted for over an hour and could easily go beyond two hours made the other boy sitting in other party cry foul. For the duration the man was on the cell with company vendors, the boy would ask his father any call came on his cell. This act he repeated for unlimited times. Even after the man had stopped speaking to the company vendors, the boy was putting the same query to his father. As a result, the father rushed to attend to nature's call as no call came on his cell but his son's persistent nagging made him sweat out in the cool surroundings and gave the stomach the upset it didn't deserve. Seeing the repeated intrusion of his father to the train loo and the state of affairs in the train led the company man weep for hours as he entirely held himself responsible for this mess. His urge to speak on cell for long and the temerity of the boy to ask his father whether he received any call well after he had stopped conversing could have been avoided had he not spoken for that long. After sessions of weeping he followed this by wetting the bedrest he had slept on and the boy going one step further answered all forms of nature's call on the coach bedrest. Seeing all this the train driver brougth the train to a standstill and sougth immediate explanation from the boy and the company man.

As for me who had no immediate neighbours in the coach till then this inadvertent adventures of the boy and company man made me do a rethink whether i should check the mental and physical health of the co-passengers before boarding the train? Well such amenities are not there before one takes a decision to board the train.

As for the train staff member who had been mauled enough by his son and daugther, he could not make out where he should park himself: in the train which had become inhospitable for long or the house where the son/daughter whom he had asked to vacate had threatened to take him to court for the meals he was not providing. So caught between hard and more hard surface, he decided to bide his time and seek solace in the company of his train staff followed by a long session in the loo when the train had deposited itself in the yard. Here the freedom to weep and wet was there.