I have loved travel and I am here with a travel story for you today. It just so happens that my job takes me to a lot of places, places I did not know existed. I find myself catching buses and wandering the corridors of an industrial park and I thank myself for having used the pandemic wisely and gotten myself a little fit. I find myself following a newly asphalt lain road somewhere on the shoulder of a highway heading for a train station.
I find myself thinking as I walk, about how to get to the station- do I walk the six kilometers? Do I wait for a rickshaw that is going that way? I stop for a paper cup of cold tea and a locally manufactured biscuit while I sort out this issue. The tea is sickly sweet, the biscuit is crumbling. I finish it in three bites and the tea in four gulps. Now I can't procrastinate anymore. Have I not seen Peter Jackson's adaptation of Tolkien's books? Was it not a walk that the Fellowship undertook to get to Rivendell?
So steeled, I set off, walking towards what Google Maps calls Belmuri railway station. I am confident about my walk. I make a brisk pace and it is only six kilometers. I can do this easily. The actual problem will be when I reach the station. Why? Good question. Let me swing the pendulum in reverse and talk about one of my fears.
I am terrified of local trains.
Feeling a tad like Frodo and Sam as they set off for Mordor to find Mount Doom, not to mention the bit where Frodo falls into the clutches of the orcs, I too find that as I walk, there is a nagging at the back of my mind. My mind whispers to me as Smeagol was whispered to by the voice of the Ring, "Do not get lost, Gutu". Sam enters Cirith Ungol. Belmuri station looms in front of me. Google Maps informs me that I have reached my destination. Little does Sundar Pichai know that his service has merely shown me the portal back to Kolkata proper. It is up to me to muster the courage necessary to get on the right train and to go back home.
However, I am nearly thirty. In the Middle Ages, I would have been expected to have taken a wife by now and sired an heir by her. Surely I can board a train? Surely I can make my way back from Howrah Station? As my mind is assaulted by these doubts, just as Sam picked up Sting and stabbed Sheoleb, I find Google Maps buzzing again to tell me that I have inevitably reached Belmuri. I see before me a large board and quickly snap a photo of it for the Instagram account.
Then, throat dry and hands slightly shaking, I cut a ticket to Howrah. At this point, my mind is bargaining about how many human sacrifices I will make to the Old Gods and the New if I am able to not board the wrong train, with an attractive bonus of more sacrifices if they only deliver me to Howrah station in one piece. All of this, while trying to figure out which line the train is going to come on- Up or Down.
The train chugs into the station, a sixty ton angel of metal and electricity. Thankfully, a kind traveler tells me that this is indeed Howrah bound. On I get. It is now only a matter of time.
In my mind's eye, I have reached the Cracks of Doom. I recall vividly how Frodo and Gollum struggled on the precipice of Mount Doom. One final hurdle lay before Frodo, just as this hurdle lies before me. I find a seat on the train after a station whose name I hear incorrectly as Kamal Kumro (Amazing Pumpkin). Frodo loses a finger, I lose a one rupee coin. The train pulls into Howrah.
I catch an S7 from the bus stand outside the station. Frodo catches a ship to the Gray Havens.
Suddenly, travelling by a local train doesn't seem impossible anymore. I unlock the door of my flat with my key and greet my father.
I am home. Belmuri, I owe thee for taking my fear away. Google Maps, I owe thee for making me find Belmuri. I guess you could say that the app can do more than just help you find a destination. In my case, Google Maps helped me overcome fear.
The Bilge Master
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