Snorer in the Train

He got on to the berth and began to snore

As terribly loud as an angry Bengal tiger's roar
None in the coach slept
Kids,women and men wept
They threw him out of the running train crying "No more! no more!"
Some of us are born luckless when it comes to train travel. We always get the
upper berth. If we get a lower berth surely an ancient lady will asks us as a
matter of right to give it to her. If we are brave enough to say no, all look
down on us as if we are child rapists. Or in the next berth there will be a
young inexperienced mother with a wailing infant that practices its crying
with all the variations, the whole night. Or we get girls as co-passengers who
giggle the whole night and keep sending and receiving messages, as if there
is no tomorrow.Or we get young guys in the nearby berths who often go to
the bathrooms not to do you know what, but to load C2H5OH and are more
boisterous then party men after an election win. Or we get a middle aged
socialiser who has an opinion on all subjects and makes sure to share it with
everybody in the vicinity. Or an obviously ill old woman with anxious relatives
who moans and coughs the whole night, and makes sure that everybody
knows the intimate details of her illness. The most irritating is the raucous
snorer. One night recently...
Our section of the compartment was peaceful and everybody of various age
groups had settled down. I was in the upper berth and next to me was a
rather loud gentleman who had advised everybody about reservations and
railways. After his lecture, my bad luck witches, my guardian angels are
always comatose, struck. This gentleman sacrificed his lower berth for a rich
stout woman and climbed next to me. Pax Romana or whatever it is called on
a train prevailed. I had settled in the soft comfortable lap of the angel of
sleep when suddenly...
A terrible blast of sound assailed my ear drums and I nearly fell down. I was
jerked from the soft twilight zone of imminent sleep into the maws of a
roaring tiger. The roars came regularly, ascending the ladder of decibels. The
whole coach woke up by the sheer intensity of the sound. The damage
caused was immense. Two children who had been persuaded to sleep woke
up and joined the concert so to say. An old man went into a coughing fit by
the suddenness of the tsunami of sound. Everybody was nonplussed. About
twenty snores followed and suddenly the waves rolled back and for a moment
you could cut the ensuing silence with a blunt knife.
Sighs of relief were heard all over. Little did they know! After 15 seconds of
blessed silence the tidal wave was unleashed again. And this cycle continued
for about half an hour.
One gentleman from the nearby section came and woke the Snoring Tiger
and shouted at him. The Snorer turned the other way, without saying a word.
Silence prevailed for about 10 minutes and the cyclone of sound restarted.
Another vexed parent complained to the TTE. That official said that there was
nothing he could do and moreover one passenger had complained about his

two wailing kids. Those are kids, remonstrated the now angry father. The
black coated man replied that there is nothing against snoring in the railways
rules. Meanwhile tidal waves of cacophony followed one another at regular
intervals.
When everyone was contemplating of taking steps mentioned at the
beginning,Dame Fate intervened and the sounds stopped. Our villain had a
bout of post nasal drip, that went into the respiratory passages, nearly
asphyxiating him. He got up with a awful gurgling noise that scared the pants
off everyone and had to spend the rest of the night in the sitting position,
stopping the aural tsunami.Everyone slept well.
Actually he is more to be pitied than to be censured. People who snore like
this are prone to sleep apnoea and heart attacks. May God save him.