Mowrie - the sailor man!

It was Friday the 24^th of October 2008 and time around 6.50 a.m. when the whistle blew off and our Mumbai bound train from Chennai slowly started creeping.

This was the first time I had a known company during journey.Vivek, my roommate was going home after a year (I hope his parents recognized him).since we both booked separately, we got seats in different coaches and after checking his seat and most importantly co-passengers, I moved to my coach hoping to see a better crowd ;-).as always I am lucky to get the upper berth but to my surprise rather agony, there was someone already sleeping!! From his overall appearance & color he appeared to be Nepalese & related to some industry where there was lot of physical work required. Slightly offended by this arrogance and inconsiderateness I nudged him to wake him up and vacate my place so that I could keep my bag.

1^st shock: In response... He just looked down at me and said in English “I will vacate as soon as the TTE comes” (This guy seemed to be experienced in such matters) and left me silent & with many questions like, is this really my seat? Do I lack command presence? Or was my demand to ask for my seat, unfair? . Then I started analyzing him… average or slightly shorter height, very athletic body, a brown dusty T, a brown cargo and a very odd red cap and red bag. I was not going to lose anything in letting him sleep so I decided to wait till the TTE comes. Meanwhile Vivek came to my coach disappointed with the pack in his compartment and most importantly assured about his luggage. Both of us had breakfast(special 'Rubber-idlis' served by IRCTC pantry) and got into chat with other passengers.

After an hour and a half the TTE came and started inspecting. By this time this guy had come down and voluntarily put my bag on the upper birth and sat in the corner of the horizontal seat opposite & was continuously making some notes on colorful stick-on papers, very cool & calm awaiting his turn for ticket checking. By this time I was sure that he was some ‘jholjhal party’ (fraud - Mumbai slang), but to my surprise he paid the difference without arguing anything though TC did not assure him any seat. At that moment I thought this guy is not what he looks like, so I thought of knowing him more.

After basic introduction, we learned that he was from shillong and was a sailor!!!

‘Are vo saala paisa le liya aur bolta hai jaga nahi milega’ I always say there is a very thin line between honesty & shamelessness, we didn’t bother coz we had our seats reserved but one thing was sure we had an interesting company.

He started speaking and whatever followed was a knowledge enhancement session for all of us coz everything he spoke was new for us.

He basically belonged to Meghalaya…a place in clouds as they believe and rightly so as we could infer from mowrie’s description.

He belonged to a tribe called ‘Khasi’ who’s people are called ‘Khasi’ who speak ‘Khasi’ and who’s religion is also ‘Khasi’ and gods are the natural elements who’s divinity and miracles they can actually see. but his forefathers adopted the teachings of lord Jesus through missionaries who run schools and other institutions all over their state.. rather all over India. So the community is divided in Christians and ‘Khasi’s’ nobody knows Hindi but every child sings carols, along with archery and & other basic training of tribes these kids learn guitar as well, no wonder why it has become the rock capital of India. The only thing they don’t have is industry and obviously… employment opportunities.

But everybody seems to be prosperous… how & why even he didn’t know the answers ‘mujhe bhi nahi pata hum log ke paas paisa kaha se aata hai’ . Folks there have small businesses like garage or fishing and some others have farms.

But the most interesting fact about their society was I feel is the best example of our country’s punch line ‘unity in diversity’. Their society is completely opposite to the rest of India. It’s totally women oriented… there a Girl marries a Guy and not the other way like us… she inherits all the family fortune and the best part is the groom has to shift to the bride’s house after marriage, adopt her name & so on… the statement, ‘hajaar aadmi protest karega to bhi kuch nahi hoga, par ek aurat bolega curfew lag jayega’ said it all!

They even have a small ‘Khasi ’ kingdom where they have queen and princess and also have a royal army apart from the state government.

The society is very open… I don’t know really what attracts people, religion, teachings or the life style…but that’s just a vague thought not the scope of this blog. The Khasi’s have a very interesting ritual, only for young people who are pure... in other words...Not yet resorted to the raging emotions of young age. The belief is, if anyone participates who’s not virgin, loses life. He quoted a few examples as well...to prove the legend. I could see some hesitation to both believe as well as protest the fable owing to his link to the modern world.

Then he began talking about the life on ship… believe me... the word ‘life’ did not sound very lively from his description… after spending three years of life as a sailor and majority of the time away from land ,he seemed to be sick of the lifestyle..But it was paying him better than many of his age in ¼th of the lifespan he had seen almost whole of the world…& tasted different waters as well ;-) but few things can be excused considering the harsh life on the ship. He had all the luxuries on the ship a well furnished cabin, chef to cater to their moods...You name it & they have it. But somewhere he seemed to be tired of all that...Sort of been there, done that but with a humble attitude.

It was afternoon by this time… and it seemed like I was watching a movie because what we see in movies is something which we can’t realize rather experience in real life… though an Indian and of the same age group he had a lived a different life altogether, full of adventures and surprises he wanted to be a sailor and he lived his dream while we, in spite of having all the guidance & infrastructure are busy convincing ourselves what we are living was what we wanted. Unsure about our aspirations… many times I feel too much of exposure & information results in more of confusion than clarity of thought. After finishing our lunch… we moved on to the technical side of sailing… this guy had immense knowledge about almost all the aspects of ship…because of lunch or excess of knowledge content, I don’t know but I was saturated and fell asleep... for your kind information, I can sleep anywhere, anytime except for when a normal human being is supposed to..Of whatever he spoke, every word was an information for us coz, he belonged to a totally different world.

Now the unanswered question...why was he in Chennai train and why was he going to Mumbai?

Another piece of info for me… all those students here in Chennai we called ‘kancha-kanchi’ were from Meghalaya & Bhutan... Many of them were his friends, a few of them were siblings and one of them was his sweet girlfriend who waited for years to express her love and for months to hear his voice when he was on ship. His next trip was about to start from Mumbai harbor. This was going to be his 3^rd trip, this time for a lesser duration of 9 months and supposedly the last one may be coz he had started feeling an urge to settle down, now since he had found his love and having lived his dream of becoming a sailor. He might study or join his uncle’s garage or whatever… when he comes back. But one thing was for sure... he was going to be happier. What an irony the train which carried most of to us near to our families, to our people, the same train carried him to a place from where he was going far from his dear ones… he was not going to see them or speak to them for months to come and we cribbed about staying away from home and visiting once in few months.

This is life; your destination can be the starting point for someone. Your routine life can be privilege for someone… to me he was a great man, not that I was not happy about my achievements but on a bigger picture they were just a bunch of certificates and mark sheets. But the best we can do is to take life as it comes and try to realize our dreams… and most importantly… ‘Our Selves’!