Train - UNRESERVED!! PART TWO

Hour One !!!

Three hours of gruelling travel ahead of me made me get reminded of the Theory of Relativity and I cursed myself for the instantaneous spark of knowledge, which certainly was useless as far as that moment was concerned. Rather, it had made me realize the arduousness of the situation. I had everything in the train which I wished to have in my life, and mind you, I am not paradoxical. I had everything I wished there, a mirror where I can see how gorgeous I look, my favourite novel with a nerve-racking climax yet to be covered, my mobile, my parents beside me and of course a handsome young man in the same compartment to make the scene comprehensive and a reminder that all those right things were put in the wrong place! Conversely, I was standing in front of the washbasin mirror with the dog-eared novel clasped in my hand so that it would not fall down and get trampled in the chaos, my dad whose face I never saw since I boarded the train till then, but heard him seriously debating about Lalu Prasad Yadav with a fellow passenger whom I guess was also standing with him.Akin a crowded Chennai town bus, the train continued the journey in its own way and I felt as a victim of the situation. I consoled myself by the fact that I was standing in front of the mirror (though forcibly :) ) and that I can check out how I look like in demanding situations. But I never dreamt that it could be a worst nightmare of witnessing how I deteriorate slowly as time ticks by.Few characters get embedded in memories no matter how much are irrelevant. I can remember some striking characters in the train – a inverted-pot shape headed man standing near me, busily reading the newspaper though he had no place to turn the pages and that kept him confined to one folded page, an old woman in a “50,000 colours” duplicated saree and her charming grand daughter who opened a packet of Biryani, trying to feed the kid and a slim girl in her teens, listening to her favourite music in the I-pod. I wished I were a Barn Owl so that I can observe people in 270 degrees!!!