That Awesome Journey ;)

Train journeys are all about possibilities. There are a variety of things you could go through on a train journey. You could get robbed by a group of psycho dacoits on the way. You could end up getting food poisoning or constipation from a samsosa. You could make new friends; meet old enemies. Or if you were me you could be all alone in an empty berth planning to spend the night reading Khushwant Singh’s selected short stories.

I sat on my seat number forty six, coach SX1 of Indore Express amazed how the seats beside and in front of me be all empty, while adjacent cubicles were full packed given the Diwali time?  As I did so, finally a fellow passenger arrived. A plump uncle, in his early forties, wearing a jacket, a sweater and a monkey cap, half drunk and sleepy and half set to visit North Pole, arrived and crashed on his seat in the corner. The seat hadn’t even recovered from the amplitude of his seismic crash when a squabble broke in the adjacent cubicle. It was a young girl and some aunty. I could see the Aunty in the quarrel, from where I sat. She resembled my class ninth physics teacher, who in turn resembled a Dracula.

The pretty girl was now visible. Alisha Dubey, F17, she was; the chart outside the bogie had told me that, when I had been checking out the F passengers on the list. She stood at her place and animatedly explained to the fellow passengers what had happened. Her kohl lined eyes held my eyes glued to her for a few extra seconds; before the bicker grew loud . Another guy, perhaps her brother (not boyfriend, I hoped) entered the quarrel. I and plump uncle gave each other a glance. We knew it was time to enter the scene . I walked up to the expected brother guy and asked him to relax; while plump uncle did the same to Dracula aunty. Situation came under control. Alisha gave me an understanding nod as the entertainment came to an end. I walked back to my seat.The opportunity to legitimately gaze at Alisha had fizzled out. Plump Uncle climbed up to his top berth and slept. I prepared myself for a dull night with Khushwant Singh’s stories.

Little later, pretty girl Alisha could be heard, on phone, saying that she won’t ever travel in a non AC class again. She stood up from her packed cubicle entered our almost empty cubicle, sat opposite me, and bitched about Dracula aunty on the phone. And believe me, hearing all that was fun. She gave out a loud sigh of relief when she was done.

“First the quarrel and now this phone call. Aren’t you tired?”I dared to make her talk.

“Oh God! You don’t know how tired and hungry I am. And then that stupid aunty and my stupid friend seemed to go on and on and on… “, she went on and on. I nodded as she spoke, because that seemed the only sensible thing to do, apart from checking her out. And that's how a Gen conversation between us began. There's a common prototype to a male-female Gen conversation. It is the male begins it and the female who terminates it. The guy needs to keep giving in funny lines to prevent the termination of such a Gen talk. A Gen talk is pointless at its heart and you do not gain anything from such a conversation. I mean you won’t find a guy and a girl seated on a corner table at CCD & the girl enthusiastically telling the guy how beneficial FDI in retail could be for the farmers of the country, would you? You would rather find them talking about how weird today’s weather was, or how oily samosas are, or how much that aunty resembled a Dracula .The ball would keep rolling on such stupid topics unless the girl hit the topic of how sleepy she was. And so did Alisha, at about half past 12.

“Yeah, even I’m sleepy”, I lied. How on earth could you be sleepy with such a dazzling girl talking to you?

We wished each other good night and she went back to her cubicle, where her friend ( not brother :( , but not boyfriend either :) ) was sound asleep. I lay down and closed my eyes .What a night it had been! Me and a pretty girl in this almost empty cubicle. Drowned in ecstasy I left for the dream world....

And that's all what happened on that journey. Yeah I could go ahead and brag a little more,but having written a whole blog post of lies, I've done enough of it ;).