A Journey with the pilgrims

Last Friday I traveled to my home town...as usual by train..Bangalore-Ernakulam Express. I had reserved a berth in the sleeper coach..

There's nothing unusual about it..I travel quite often..once or twice in a month.. But this time as soon as I entered my coach...I felt something different..its full of people in black attire..yes..I can easily identify them..they are pilgrims to the Sabarimala temple in Kerala. The people sitting in my coupe is staring at me..I felt little uneasy..but I gave a nice smile at them...one of them suddenly asked a question...I couldn't guess their language initially... but I understood the question..they are asking which is my seat..I told 13 middle berth.

Very soon other people with similar dress code surrounded me...they are looking at me as if I am a monkey in zoo..and I felt that they are not happy with me siting in that place...But I have no choice..I told myself...All is Well...All is well..the famous slogan from 3 idiots..

They started asking me weird questions...I figured out that they are speaking Telugu..but its not the standard telugu I have heard from my friends....I could not  understand many questions..and we don't have any other language in common....they know only Telugu...

One among them.a very young guy...looks like the most educated in their group... started speaking to me in broken English..but we used hand signals a lot to connect words..

He asked me "Job..?.Job..?." then he types on a virtual keyboard in the air..I got it ..he is asking what is my job..I told in the same way... I typed a in the virtual keyboard in the air and said..Computer... Oh! oh!...they looked at each other....Next immediate question....Salary..? Salary...? I replied.. No.. Salary...

Then this guy gave a lecture to the other guys..which I did not understand...may be he told...This guy is doing computer job without salary!!...This I could make out from their sympathetic look..But what I actually meant to say was that I can not tell you my salary..!!

Meanwhile other people started coming to the coupe and I figured out that these people did not have a confirmed berth....but they were not willing to move from here. Since nobody knows Telugu ...and nobody is able to convince them that this is not their seat...it was really funny...finally TTR came and asked them to move out....

I have never faced such a situation in India before...I thought I can speak to all Indian's somehow...Telugu is the only south Indian language....which I can not handle...and there are people in remote areas ..not getting proper education and exposure..It was shocking to realize this fact when India is growing at an all time high rate!!