We checked out of our hotel at 4 o’clock in the morning. Half asleep, with backpack in hand, we boarded a waiting bus. The temperature was still hot and muggy despite an overnight downpour of monsoonal rain.
It took us about half an hour before everyone was accounted for and the driver was then signaled to make his way to the railway station. The streets of Bangalore, a bustling city south west of India, had already been awake many hours earlier, if it ever went to ‘sleep’ at all! The streets were bustling with overladen trucks, men pulling carts with local produce and merchandise for the local markets, people on bicycles and motorbikes carrying three people, and in some cases two adults and sleepy children with tired eyes, which I’m sure were not within the specifications of the machine. There was also the odd cow or two ambling along the road with a confident sense of somehow knowing they wouldn’t be hit as traffic whizzed past them at varying speeds.
Forty minutes after we left the hotel, we arrived at our destination. The bus was ushered to its rightful bay, by someone waving a torchlight, and with that, the signal was given for everyone to descend from the bus.
As we stepped off the bus and stepped into a part of India we had only seen on TV, we experienced the smells, the colour, the abject poverty, homelessness and the seeming ‘chaos’ of the occasion, amidst the cacophony of ringing bells, whistles, shouting and tooting of car horns.
As we were walking towards the station, there was a big commotion as half-dressed porters were wanting to grab some of our suitcases, and having not experienced this before and being taught about ‘stranger danger’ from an early age, many of the young adults in our troupe were reluctant to let go of their suitcases under any circumstances. This was even after we were advised that these men were simply performing a job for the railways.
We finally got onto our designated train carriage around 7 o’clock in the morning and about half an hour later, the train, bound for Chennai, started to jerk forward. After a seemingly endless sequence of ‘fits and starts’, the carriages slowly started to harmonise and move in unison, bound for this coastal city south east of India.
Immediately after the train started its journey and as if choreographed, business on the train began. Out of nowhere, a haggle of vendors appeared and paraded up and down the carriage aisle selling newspapers and magazines, trinkets and souvenirs, the traditional India chai tea in paper cups and various local delicacies for breakfast. Not being a local, I decided to forgo the temptation unless really disparate which I wasn’t at that time.
With that thought, I closed my eyes. Having had only a few hours’ sleep the night before and with the rhythmic sounds of the wheels over the railway tracks in the background, I quickly fell asleep.
In my slumbered state of dreaming, I recollected a story from a bygone era when riding the railways was a romantic charm. There was a young boy who was aboard a passenger train attempting to make money by selling apples. With little skills of a salesman, he made his way through the carriage shouting, “Apples for sale! Would you like to buy an apple?” The story goes that he was doing this from one end of the passenger train to the other, crossing from one carriage to another. When he got to the rear of the train, he still had a bagful of apples and no money. Despondent, he took a moment to compose himself before starting again.
An English gentleman who noticed the boy’s plight took him aside and asked to see one of the apples. The Englishman proceeded to go to the front of the train, polish it conspicuously with a napkin, and then began walking down the aisle eating the apple and commenting on how delicious and refreshing it was.
Then he told the boy to polish his apples and try again to sell his apples to the passengers in the carriages. This time around he boy sold every apple. The difference? The apples had been made attractive to the potential customers.
Some folks are satisfied with mediocrity. From the little boy’s experience this didn’t get him any sales. His success only came when he polished his apples by presenting the best he had to offer.
Andrew Carnegie, the American industrialist of the late 19th Century once said, “People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.”
The story reminded me of my school teacher who always told his students, “In whatever you do, always make sure you put your best foot forward. Even if you are not an A-grade student or sportsperson, always give it your best and not let mediocrity keep you from your full potential.”
The whistle sounded, as the train to Chennai approached its final station. With that I woke up to continue the next leg of my journey in India.
You may be wondering if I bought anything on the train. Yes I did. It came in a familiar red and silver aluminum can. It was as refreshing as water from a mountain spring. Little did I realise how much that drink meant to me because we were soon to be confronted by the Chennai heat as we departed the railway station for the streets of the city.
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