“I AM SORRY ‘COS WHAT I MEANT WAS I AM SORRY!”
I undertook the bravest (considering how brave ‘I’ could possibly get!) and unforgivably the stupidest of my adventures in China. Few friends from my high school are learning medicine in Wuhan University; the place Wuhan being 1200 km away from where I was residing, Shenzhen. My training period was supposed to be till December-January, but due to a financial crunch we had to continue training in India. So the news had come as a shocker; we were informed just one week before departure. Much like the no.1 postulate in securing a B-Tech (Thou shall leave everything to the last moment), we had a lot of unaccomplished ‘must-do/must-visit’ things in China. Eventually I was left with this drastic decision to make; a solitary trip to Wuhan. I was guilty conscious, and I didn’t know why. Maybe it was the fact that I had come all the way to China, and if I still didn’t manage to meet them, it would sting me later. But hell, I hadn’t even seen the Great Wall ‘cos of the remoteness! (Now now, before you gasp, let me ask you, have you ever seen the Taj Mahal? Well knock knock, China is a whole lot bigger!) Many conflicting arguments rose in my head…”You have been in bare touch with them!” “But that’s ‘cos they were in China!” “Is it necessary to risk it all?” Bah. All crap. I was going.
When I reached the station, I thought again, what’s the worst that could happen to me? Stripped off my passport, wallet and mobile? Lost in a place where none knew English? Hmm…oh no, oh drat. I wanna go back! But I was already right in front of the counter. The ticket lady looked on.
“One ticket – Wuhan”
“只有无座票可用。你要吗?”
“Oh…heh…err…yes yes, that one only!”
“154元。出发时间下午5:45。”
Now 5:45 is a time description and 154 had to be the price. I flashed the currencies and she paid the remaining amount. Hey, this ain’t so hard after all. I proceeded to search for the train. There were digital clocks that also mentioned the train standing at the platform. I was critically on time and as soon as the clock struck 5:45 p.m., one of the trains started moving; I took a wild hit and jumped into my bogey. It was the general compartment, and I noticed most seats were occupied, and many were standing. In panic I probed my ticket for the seat number, and didn’t find one. Realization hit me brutally; what the chinki meant was there were only standing tickets available! I looked again at arrival time; 7:00 am…hmm…over 12 hours standing?!?! The longest I stood was 4 hours for a Malayalam movie (Kangaroo) ticket! And that ended in disaster!
Two night-outs of shopping and clubbing, and I was onto the third one. My eyes were crying for some shut-time. The very thought of 12 hours ached my legs. Many looked at me as an alien who left his spaceship and chose to travel by their train. I remained silent and braced myself for the agony ahead. After a while, many fond memories started appearing out of nowhere; college, school, family…it was like death was fast approaching!
There was this comic salesman who kept walking up and down the bogey corridor. And he was beginning to piss me off. ‘Cos everyone were amused by him while I couldn’t understand, and I had to adjust every time he made a move. Besides I was wearing these huge-ass Woodland shoes; the soles kept stomping others’ feet. Now there was something like ‘ke-bu-chi’ or ‘bu-ke-chi’ (I wasn’t sure which) that meant ‘I am sorry’. I chose ‘bu-ke-chi’ and kept on saying that when the trudging occurred. But that was received only by colder snares and occasional swears. I wondered what was wrong with these people! It was only after reaching the destination my friend made me realize that the innocent exchange of ‘ke’ and ‘bu’ had an immense change in their respective meanings; I was saying “You are welcome!” all the time their poor feet underwent torture!
Hours later I could feel my knees dismantling by themselves. With an overly helpless look I asked one of the Chinese if he could give me a little space. As expected, he didn’t understand. I didn’t have the energy to do Dumb-Charades. But he all of a sudden got excited that I didn’t know Chinese, and passed this message to his neighbours. After a while it became the talk of the bogey. He offered me some place and a couple of Chinese moms even gave me fruits (My mom had said Never take stuff offered by a stranger, but here there were just too many strangers!) Couple of gals* who knew English came forward and chit-chatted with me; they gave me their QQ** and their mobile no.s (that was to date the easiest yet most excruciating way to get a gal’s no.!) They asked my age and I took a second useless dig at Chinese; I ended up saying I’m 11 years old. Point is: I was struck by their hospitality; maybe I had gotten myself into the luckiest of bogies…but would a foreigner in an Indian train be treated with so much of kindness? Only if he were to be robbed after that. What more, a cold storm hit that area and the temperatures fell below 12oC. Perfect timing, oh weather gods! Draped with only a shirt, I shivered my teeth out. The Chinese had seen this coming…maybe their meteorological department employed the Oracle; anyways most of them had spare sweaters. Looking at my misery, one elderly dude gave me his jacket. I was dazed by the generosity; I would have changed my nationality then and there if an embassy existed on the train!
*Chinese gals define the way God meant to make a woman; so friendly, so forward and reservation-less (well, that depends upon how you define reservation). Though they may not be visually extravagant, they sure do know how to look cute. It’s high time the Chinese’s outlook altered the Indian male’s mind-frame that goes something like: “Oh she’s so beautiful, I can never have her, but hey, I sure could stalk her!” (No? Do pay a visit to Brigade Road, Bangalore next New Year’s eve!) And the Indian female’s attitude: “Damn I look better than half of the girls out there, now I have to have an ego!” (Please, no male Vs female chauvinistic arguments here…the above-said traits do exist, let’s hope not in abundance) Perhaps it’s ‘cos they possess matching degree of beauty, ergo the chinkis lack ego!
**QQ is the Chinese duplicate of Facebook; but it’s fully equipped with a messenger plus video-chatting module. It’s also used for high-profile business video conferencing, but mostly for hitting on girls! On registering you will get a unique QQ no.; so if you want to add a friend, you will need his/her QQ no. So if you are able to interest a chinki, she will certainly give you her QQ no.; you have to be a storm to get her mobile no.! In the clubs, we would chant “I QQ? You QQ? We QQ!” for hours to get one…guess travelling by their trains is a slightly better option!
FAQ: Can I try and use it from India? Yes amigo, go getcha QQ today and charm those chinkis! Oh also one more piece of advice, don’t try to be too conspicuous or to-the-fore with them, or else you will be walking with a 2 metre radius Laxman-rekha!
