How drunk can someone be?

(Trigger warning: Some disturbing/indecent incidents)


Few weeks back, I was traveling to Chennai with my sister and brother-in-law. Usually, I am very excited to visit because everything about Chennai feels home. Truly, whoever said it,  said it right – Vandharai Vazhavekkum Chennai.

But on that particular day, I felt a wave of sadness wash over me, and no matter what I did, it stayed. I decided to leave the office  10 minutes early, went home, dug up my cupboard, picked random pairs of clothing, and started packing  as fast I could. I was hoping I could read and write a little before I caught the train, as  it always helped me cope. My train was at 10:30 and the clock read  7:00 pm which gave me nearly two, maybe two and half hours to do whatever I wanted.

Moments later, my hands flipped page after page mindlessly. My eyes were fixated on the words but my brain really couldn’t articulate anything I was reading. In an attempt to distract myself, I wrote and wrote and wrote about how I met this person, and every time we tried to kiss, their dog would bark. It was funny and I thought it would cheer me up.

Only, it didn’t. Instead, it reminded me of how much things had changed, and how much I ended up hurting people I love, which was also the reason I felt an intense sadness to visit Chennai this time.

Time kept running.
The clock now read  9:00 pm.
Nothing had been worked out.
So I let it be. I let it stay for how much ever longer it was going to.

I went down, and listened to the long list of instructions my parents were giving  as we had dinner, as if I were  traveling to Chennai for the first time. Nevertheless, it was a tradition and it was very cute. I booked a cab, and the minute I stepped out, it started raining. Was I surprised? Not really, but I was definitely irritated. I rolled my eyes, hugged my parents quickly , waved a very dull goodbye, and ran.

For years, from when I started traveling alone, I always reached early because I’m anxious like that. My friends had already started to joke about how I would be the first to arrive to clean the station or something like that. I smiled.
Again, tradition. Again, cute. .

I wanted to tell them I was feeling sad , but lately,  I’ve been feeling like I’m a burden to my friends. They are dealing with their own things,  personally and professionally, and have like a million things on their plate. I did not want to add one more. I shrugged it off – “keep your trivial issues to yourself, Soundarya”.

I caught the train at Bangalore City Station. My sister and BIL would get on  in the next stop, Bangalore Cant. I entered hoping there would be no one. But at the first look of my compartment, it was exactly the opposite. I felt so suffocated looking at the compartment. There were four people. On one side, a man had already latched the middle seat to the upper and slept in the lower bottom, which technically only left the other side free for sitting. There were two guys who were sitting on two ends which left me only the middle seat, which was also my seat. One of the other side seats was also occupied by a man.

I sat in the middle seat, between those guys – sad and awkward. The guy on my left was deeply engrossed in a book, and I was curious to know what he was reading. I sneaked a quick peek and found out that he was reading “Waging War”. The guy on my right was watching a video.

The silence was killing me.

I scrolled through IG reels and teared up a little. First, I was reluctant. Then, I messaged Akka 

Sound: “I am feeling little sad” 

Akka:  I am getting chicken for you, sadness will go. 

I was not hungry but I appreciated akka’s understanding of me as a person. 30 minutes went by, and we reached Bangalore Cant. Akka and Athaan (BIL) had come with Chicken as promised. We immediately climbed up to our seats. I was lying down on one side and they were eating on the other. Everybody was getting ready to sleep. The lights were left on for a long time and we kept chatting – about the schools we went to, gossip about mutuals, new movies, how weird families are, jokes that went on for a phase in our lives, and what plans we had for the trip.

I was finally beginning to feel a little better.

The train had stopped at a station, but we continued talking. It was at that point a large family of about 10 people entered, taking up  three different compartments and a compartment in a different coach. Right as Akka was speaking, our conversation was interrupted by two men who were loudly swearing at each other.  What followed was disturbing as they aggressively shoved an elderly man who happened to be sitting in the only empty seat in our compartment.
The elderly man did not do or say anything. He just sat there, still and quiet.
We looked at him and then looked at each other and it almost felt like we could hear our mind voices. It was clearly disturbing for us to see how he was being treated. The two men left to their seats in different compartments, but we couldn’t help but fell that it was incredibly unfair to treat him like that.  We continued talking.

A while later, the men returned. One of them pulled the old man’s collar and made him stand while the other combined the two lower seats for him to sleep. The elderly man was swaying with no control over his body. Until that moment, none of us had realized that he was piss-drunk. They put him to sleep and left again. He lay there, again, still and quiet.

We continued talking.

The silence of the night was taking over and this time I was thoroughly enjoying it. They had all slept. The train had halted and moved with streaks of station lights entering and exiting. Athaan was cracking jokes on how it was best if we slept in the upper seats while he took the  middle seat, because god knows when this old man would get up and puke or pee. Akka was saying something along the lines of his puke or pee won’t reach the middle seat, as it wasn’t parabolic. We were whispering laughters, conversations had changed tracks, and a long way to go before we reached our favorite destination.
It was all going great.

Until, this elderly man suddenly woke up in the middle of the night. He sat up on his seat for 2 minutes, before he finally stood up and walked to the next compartment with the support of the bars placed in trains for people to climb the upper seats. He was standing diagonally opposite to me and I turned to look at him. He looked at one of those men and slowly raised his little finger.
I looked away.

We continued talking.

The old man who still couldn’t walk straight, somehow made his way to the seat. Now, he was facing us. He sat there unmoving for a long time.

We continued talking.

The next time I looked down, one of his hands had made its way to the insides of his pants. It was just a glimpse of a moment and it made me very uncomfortable. I called out to akka and through weird eye movements asked her to  look to that side. When we both turned, we were very taken aback by what we saw. He flashed, we immediately looked at Athaan and by the time all of us could process what was happening, he had started peeing. The situation had fully gone out of control and too many things were happening at the same time.

Akka called out to his relatives to check on the old man.
Athaan jumped straight from the upper seat to stop the old man and move our bags.
The old man’s relatives looked at him and just let the whole situation be, like they had nothing to do with it.
The guy who was reading “Waging War” was startled with all the noise.
The man on the upper-side-seat was infuriated with the old man’s behavior and kept screaming.
I was fully aware for the first time of all the body sensations that occurred when the mind got disturbed. The shivers, the numbness, all of it.
The middle seat guy still kept sleeping between all the hassle. (God bless him)
Lights went off and on and off and on.
People gathered.
Hell broke loose.

Amidst all of this,it was  funny how the old man peacefully went back to sleep.

What followed was quarrel – a lot of it. Athaan was questioning the man from his family who saw the entire thing happen and did nothing. It turns out they were all drunk. The women of the family turning around conversations just to end the whole drama, because clearly they were done with men. Akka was triggered by how they were changing the narrative. I was asking Akka and Athaan to stop screaming. Both of them respected my word. The waging war guy gave up. The TTR scratched his head cluelessly by this unexpected incident. Fellow travelers asked us to register a complaint.
All of us just letting it be.

It was a scarring, disturbing, and an eventful night for the passengers. But, like we move on from everything else, life goes on blah blah blah, we decided to sleep and rest a bit in our respective seats, wishing we had slept a little earlier. We would have got up casually, thought somebody spilt water and made our move.

Anyways, night turned to day. The darkness faded away and the sun was up. When we looked around, the entire family was gone. We assumed they got down somewhere in between or just changed compartments. The train had reached its final stop – Chennai Central. Akka, Athaan, and I  washed  our slippers with the bottle of water we had, carried our luggage and were ready to leave, when the police arrived.

“Who booked a twitter complaint?”, asked the policeman.

We thought it should be the man who suggested that we register a complaint during the night. One couldn’t be sure though.

“We don’t know, sir”, the three of us uttered in chorus.

He moved to the next compartment, found another old man still sleeping and hit the seat with his police stick making a loud noise.

“Which station are you going to get down in?”, asked the policeman. The old man had just woken up. He muttered something. We walked out discussing how the police came after the whole incident was over just like in the movies and how pointless it was.

As we made our way out, Athaan asked if we wanted tea, and as suckers for tea, we immediately hopped in.
First sip down.
Second sip down.
Suddenly, Athaan and Akka bursted out laughing.

I asked them what happened. They were recalling this particular instance from last night. When Akka started calling out to the old man’s relatives, none of them seemed to respond. The first person who woke up was the man sleeping on the upper-side-seat. He was too embarrassed and infuriated by the old man’s behaviour. He got down immediately and started shouting at the old man.

“There are women and children here, behave yourself.”
“Act your age, aren’t you ashamed?”
“This is a public place, why have all of you come drunk for a train journey?”
“You should be put behind the bars.”

………………………..

To which the old man, calmly, very sweetly, replied “En Pa Kova Padura?” (Why are you getting angry, son?)

The upper-side-seat man lost it. It was hilarious. We bursted out laughing again.

As we stood there and took the final sip of our tea, I thought to myself
“How drunk can someone be?”