“Nitish to haar rahain hai is baar” said my co-passenger sitting in the seat next to me. Is he talking to me? I gave him a confused look, and then he said it again – “Nitish ji to haar rahain hain” with a confident look. I realized he was commenting on the front page of a local magazine, I was reading. The magazine had Nitish on its front page, with title, “Change of era in Bihar” or something like that. I gave him a curious look and he tried to explain me why he thinks so. Look, the way Nitish government has done the recruitment of illiterates (?) as primary school teachers, the way he reopened Bhagalpur riot case, and got only Hindus arrested, we won’t leave him.

Wow, he seems to be a political expert… before I could say, the gentleman sitting in the corner confronted him, how can you bring religion in that. Those who were culprits got arrested. … Well now who is he? Before I could make any guess, he himself came to rescue; I am ex-student leader of Tilka Manjhi bhagalpur university. “I am a supporter of Lalu Yadav”, he continued, but still I am not against Nitish govt in this case. I closed my magazine, after all who wants to read a magazine when you have live Lok Sabha going on in your compartment. It was indeed a Lok Sabha session going on, with heated exchange of arguments and counter arguments going on. Suddenly they moved from State politics to central politics.

Kia baat karte hai saab aap, president has no power in India.
What rubbish, president is the supreme commander of defense and is the most powerful person in India.

Burbak jaisa baat mat kijiye, president kuch nahee kar sakte. Prime Minister is most important person.
Hum budbak jaise nahee baat kar rahe hai, aap senseless baat kar rahain hai, waise to Prime minister sab bhee minister ke bina kuch nahee karte…

Dekhiye aap baat samajh nahee rahain hai, president is like a non playing captain..
Chaliye choriye aap se kia bahas karnaaa…

I felt no, this should not stop so early.. train has started and I have already started enjoying it. I said well captain se yaad aaya – Dhoni is doing great as captain. Isn’t it? And there the experts went again..

Yeah, Dhoni is proud of India, specially bihar and Jharkhand.

Yes but what he has done to ganguly was not fair..
What he did to ganguly, he took retirement himself..

Not really, it was dhoni who made him retire …

Before we could continue the discussion, we heard unfamiliar voice. Ye kia le kar jaa rahe ho – I saw the Ticket collector is grilling the person sitting on the side berth, about his big sac. Kuch nahee sar (sir), chaawal hai… Suddenly TC’s civic sense came to senses and he yelled at the passenger – “Its only because of these act, you invite rodents like rats in the train…” What? Is there rodent in train compartment? TC replied – Aur nahee to kia, ye log chaawal daal le kar chalte hai aur baad me badnaam sarkaar ko karte hai… In between, a guy who was going for the first time to Dhanbaad enquired to TC – Sir, raat me dhanbaad utar kar jaana safe rahega naa? And then there went our experts again on law and order, and security issue in Bihar and Jharkhand.

Such is an environment, in a normal compartment of Indian train, especially in my home state. You got experts from Indian Politics, to Kashmir, Iraq to Afghanistan, Sports – Cricket to Tennis. You fill find people full of emotions, full of energy and not ready to loose on any front…

No wonder, I always enjoy travelling on Indian train and I make sure, I commute by railways as far as possible.