What Doesn't Kill You...

leaves you bruised. Quite literally!

Disclaimer: Please do not, under no circumstances, try this on your next train trip. This stunt wasn’t performed by a professional. And she shouldn't have done this.

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I JUMPED OFF A TRAIN.

Could I have died? Yes.

Do I regret it? Well… I had no choice.

So, this is what happened…

I had left Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) my organisation of five years in a huff. Huff yes, impulsive no. This was 2012 — I was 33 and I thought I needed a break. More importantly, I THOUGHT I would LOVE the break. Bake, read books (I was reading a book a year back then), watch movies, visit monuments, take photographs, and chill.

Within three months, I became that version of me that watched sad films and shed copious tears, baked and devoured screwdriver cakes (orange juice and vodka), cleaned the house and ushered Udit around so that the house remained spotless. I couldn’t spend on lunches with friends, lamps or books (so what if I read a book a year) because I didn’t have a salary. I barely stepped out of the house.

In brief, it was a terrible, terrible idea. I needed a job. So when I got this consultancy with Greenpeace, I jumped at it. I had to document and take photos of sustainable agricultural practices across India. This project took me to Punjab, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and West Bengal.

I was in Hyderabad and my next schedule was in Odisha — visit Living Farms in Muniguda and document their work on Food and Seed Sovereignty with the Kondh tribes.

The late Debjeet Sarangi, the founder of Living Farms, gave me very clear instructions — the train will stop at Muniguda only for a couple of minutes so you should be at the door with your luggage. In my head, I went “Oh, I have been travelling through the country. This is no big deal. Of course, I know all of this.”

It was an overnight journey from Hyderabad. I would reach Muniguda around 8 or 9 in the morning. The guy sitting opposite me, in the 3rd AC compartment, was also going to get off at Muniguda. My luck! He heads for the door, I follow him. Line up the luggage and get off the train. Simple. There was no chance I was going to miss this two-minute station. With a book tucked under my head, I slept a confident woman.

The next morning I woke up with an hour in hand. Checked my luggage, brushed my teeth, combed my hair (on a moving train, it is nothing short of a cardio), kept my book inside the laptop bag, checked if my laptop was still there, wore my shoes, and kept the big blue suitcase in the aisle. I was all set. It was all good!

We were still a couple of stations away, when I realised my cellphone battery had run out despite being on charge the whole night. In my experience, I have never been able to charge phones on trains, they just seem to drain at a remarkable speed. Like the trains running on my phone battery. Anyways. I panicked.

The guy opposite me offered his charger. We were now a station away. The train was gathering speed. I plugged the phone but it showed no signs of life. While we were trying to figure out why and how, we noticed a few passengers head to the door with their luggage.

“The stoppage time is less than a minute”, the guy said.

The phone refused to charge. Fuck it! The station was approaching. I gave him the charger, kept mine in, put the phone in my bag, wore my knapsack, and headed for the door with my suitcase. The guy was just ahead of me with his sling bag.

The train was now close to the station. The guy opened the door. This was his regular route, it seemed. We were the only two people on this door.

The train was still moving. And at some speed.

We passed the big yellow signpost with Muniguda written on it in three different languages.

Then the foot over bridge.

The wheeler cart.

The tea stall.

The benches.

The passengers waiting to board the train. Or to receive people. Whatever.

The train didn’t stop. It didn’t look like it planned to stop.

The people on the station now waving, at I am guessing the train guard, to stop the train. Somewhere. Close by.

The train showed no signs of stopping. It must have at the most slowed down to 20-30 km/h.

Panic hit hard. Like a gut punch. And it wasn’t just me. The guy ahead of me was panicking too but he was also thinking at the speed of the moving train.

He gave me his sling bag, took my luggage, gave some very rushed instructions in Odiya, and jumped from the train — with my heavy blue suitcase and my laptop bag.

He landed perfectly. Damn!

The instructions were a blur. (I hope they were instructions!). The train was going to pull out of the station in a matter of seconds. Damn. Damn. I panicked. I threw the sling bag on the platform.

And then, I jumped.

No physics, no nuances of jumping, no turning the body in a certain direction to put in motion etc, nothing. I remember a couple of people shouting and telling me not to jump while running along the moving train. The guy with my suitcase was also running towards me, with me.

As soon as I jumped, one of them grabbed me by the arm. Pulled me away from the train. We fell. Rolled a couple of times on the platform. Away from the tracks and the moving train. He was still holding my arm. Had it not been for him, the way I jumped I could have very well rolled onto the track under the moving train. Or at the least broken my knees.

I stood up. A little bit shaken but a lot more embarrassed.

“Welcome to Muniguda, Sabhi Madam”. My driver had just reached and had missed all the excitement.

I could have died that day but I got away with bruised knees, a torn pyjama and a lesson for life.

NEVER LET THE GUY AHEAD OF YOU JUMP OFF WITH YOUR SUITCASE!

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This was written during the

Ochre Sky Stories

writing circle with

Natasha Badhwar

and

Raju Tai

. The idea to illustrate the piece came from the husband.