The Idiots Guide to Travelling Postures On Trains

1. The Intelligent Type – This is a slightly expensive stance to adopt because it means purchasing at least a magazine (Frontline is overkill, Outlook is good enough) or at the bare-minimum level, a newspaper (The Hindu puts you in a ridiculous minority but the appearance is what we are going for). It also means funds for a regular flow of watery Railway coffee to keep you from nodding off over the magazine/paper and totally blowing your cover.
2. The Poetic Type – This is a very physically demanding position since it calls for maintaining a silly smile on your face and craning out of the window for the entire length of the journey. You should be passably good at acting to appear sufficiently moved by the cow shitting on the grass.
3. The Business Type – Must keep constantly fiddling with your mobile phone. Send random messages and make imaginary phone calls. Make agonised expressions while scanning through official looking papers. Wear leather shoes and stiff shirt even if it is 35° C outside.
4. Fast Asleep – This is unquestionably the safest and the most desirable position to adopt. Whether it be lavishly spread out on the top berth of a sleeper compartment, or in a semi-foetal position on a seat in a passenger, or the simple yet effective open mouthed-upright-ass based stance near the bathroom door in un-reserved, the Fast Asleep stance gives you immunity from all unwanted interferences from over-social elements and the Aunty-Uncle phenomena. It does — particularly the open-mouthed stance — put you in the lower strata of the intelligence quotient in the compartment, but the advantages definitely outweigh the temporary lowering of your Mensa status.