The train beckoned us all within herself with a whistle that, though the same as every other train, sounded cheery. The teachers caused quite a ruckus yelling out items as they cross checked all the stuff once again. ‘Now children,’ said our music teacher ‘please be quiet aboard the train.’ I remember cracking a joke that went something like ‘Sir, do we have to stand in queue to pee too?’ to which the boys guffawed with laughter, slapped their thighs and ruffled up their already untidy hair while the girls giggled in a harmonious, synchronized fashion, something akin to usually well-mannered, social wolves howling in tandem asking other animals to sit up and take notice. We did look at them and blanch, of course, so we might as well say they succeeded. With a giant heave, the train shook herself from the station and off we went, as part of the school team taking part in district level singing competitions.

It is a well documented fact that by the time a girl is 10, she tends to overlook the joys of hanging her head outside the window, washing her face in the cool, pristine water of a stream or hoisting herself up onto a dirty ledge to enjoy a sunset, all in the name of spoiling her neatly parted hair, well powdered face and exquisitely pleated skirt, so we boys got all the window seats. While we guys just plopped ourselves down on the seats, the girls painstakingly wiped their seats with paper that was exactly a week old and collected them together in a plastic cover to be dumped in a dustbin. The scene was picture perfect – the affluent beggar standing scratching his beard looking at gullible prospects, the small boy selling Channa popping some of his wares into his mouth on the sly, the master of one family heaved all the luggage on the floor to the top rack and contentedly sat down rubbing his brow, the wailing child stopping only to have a few deep breaths and then start wailing again, the US-returned desi swearing and cursing the politicians, the country and its culture for his uncontrollable sweat glands and the omnipresent transvestites putting up a grand show to no one’s enthusiasm.

The train gathered speed and we boys settled down to think of devious ways of irritating the girls, while the girls sat quietly as the music teacher had ordered. I used to play the Congo drums then, and as it was next to me, I tapped on it a little bit. The kanjira guy was a bit flustered and he reached out to his instrument of choice and tapped in the same beat. Not to be beat by some young upstart, I gave him a higher challenge and he didn’t relent either. Someone started singing something, a whole chorus joined in and the harmonium started lashing out tunes out of nowhere, when an individual of the deadlier sex of any species put forth an idea that sucked all the fun out of the evening: Antakshari. The usual Boys vs. Girls Antakshari culminated in a fight, started by the aforementioned female who maintained that a certain song started with Oh and not Ooooh!

As the train rattled along, we lost all enthusiasm to do anything at all and just gazed out of the windows longingly, while the girls took turns to go to the wash basin and freshen themselves up for the destination which was about 2 hours away. The golden sunset beckoned us as we saw a group of kids play cricket and envied them. The train hooted away to glory as we sat awaiting the promised light dinner before we graced our destination. My face pressed to the grimy window grill, the cool air rushing past my hair was soothing. The trains rushing in the opposite direction had quite a charm of their own, and their incessant hooting as they rushed past me gave me a heady feeling (Doppler’s effect does that, sometimes). Then began the mad rush to the wash basin, to wash our hands off all the grime and eat some food. The girls too joined in, though they hadn’t as much as picked their nose the whole journey. Maybe the feeling of being clean gave them a rush or a high, or maybe they wanted to compete with us in every little thing. School girls will always remain an enigma.

We got some Bajjis and sauce in a paper plate and it was delicious. My gastronomical senses were heightened when more of the delicious, lip smacking Bajjis arrived and I started devouring them. One more train went past us, and I couldn’t help but window my face and listen to it intently. That done, I resumed to my fast diminishing Bajji, when I saw that I had no sauce left. So, I poked the girl beside me and asked her for more sauce. She grudgingly passed it to me, and as I was tilting it in the favor of my plate, an earth shattering scream erupted from behind me. It sounded shriller than the distant hoot of the locomotive and I felt warm all over and started getting goose bumps. Like a 10000 wala, it set off a series of screams, each as different from the rest like DNA and each strong enough to turn a house of mirrors into shambles, as if it were struck by an earthquake. It was as if a series of dominoes of screams were falling down to create a pattern. It is said that when you know that you are going to die, life flashes past you. I was sad to note that just another train passed by and the screams erupting from within mine fully enveloped the train’s constant hoots for my attention.

I seemed to have achieved a state of sub-consciousness, where I didn’t know what I was doing. The screams suddenly didn’t bother me and I was slowly slipping into a vegetative state, when I felt something wet on my shirt. I looked down to see blood red sauce trickling down my shirt slowly. And as if to mock me further, the Bajji had fallen on the seat and the sauce dripping off my shirt fell drop by drop on it. I detected the epicenter of the holocaust and asked her why in God’s name she screamed. And the reply was a strangely shivering finger, pointed toward a cockroach on the wall. I then vaguely remember thinking of writing a letter to the PM, asking him to recruit women for the Border Security Force and when just in front of the enemy post, throw a fake lizard amongst them. That should do the trick and leave the post looking like a hurricane had just passed through it.

Why do girls scream?