Today’s chair-car coaches are classy. Compared with the earlier “individual window” provision for a seat, they have windows spanning two seats. The window is as though stretched to cinemascope proportions. However, it is now a shared resource.
The moment you grab the window seat, you hoist the sunshade. The late afternoon sun streams in, and as the train picks up speed, it is a pleasure to leave the teeming metropolis behind. Just when the mind eases into a reverie, lulled by the images of a pastoral landscape, it is jolted by an unexpected interruption. The man from the adjoining seat pulls the sunshade down. He makes a frontal attack, “Why did you pull up the sunshade? It is so bright outside!” You answer, “I wanted to look out of the window!” He stares at you incredulously, on the verge of questioning, “Are you a five-year-old child?”
“I get a headache when it is so sunny,” he says. Eventually, you arrive at a compromise — the sunshade is pulled three-quarters down. Still he mumbles that the sun is in his eyes. And all you can see is the adjoining track and a few pebbles.
Curiously, you peer through the gap between the seats. Our man is watching some memes on his mobile. You realise that is why he wanted the sunshade pulled down, to watch his mobile without the glare.
“Why can’t he reduce the volume? What if everyone in the compartment did this? How cacophonous it will be?” One part of your mind pleads with you, “Leave him alone. Why can’t you put up with him?” The other half is itching for a fight, “No! It is a matter of principle, Bad public behaviour must not be condoned!”
The more you focus on him, the more he provokes you. Eventually, you accost him, “Sir, can you use your earphones? The sound is disturbing!” The offender looks back and grudgingly lowers the volume by a couple of notches.
All is quiet. But you suddenly realise it is just as noisy as before. Without your notice, our man has slowly cranked up the volume, back to the original level. You didn’t even realise it. This is what “salami slicing” is all about. You grab land in such small portions; no one notices, and soon, a huge swathe is usurped.
You decide to use the same “salami slicing” trick. With your hand on the sunshade, you pull it up one centimetre at a time. You can now see the meadows and a hint of the distant hills. Some more centimetres, and the whole sky will be visible. By the time our man has completed watching his memes, the sunshade has been pulled up entirely!
Suddenly, he looks up and then back, his eyes bulging, as though, he has been tricked. You avoid eye-contact. As the sun goes down, the hills are rosier. So is your face, now lit with a wry smile. It is a smile that arises from an impish delight that you stumped him and paid him back in the same coin!
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