It was 6:12 am, mid week of December. The climate was cool with some fog and temperature just right enough to put your sweat glands to hibernation.I was desperately waiting for her. The wait for her seemed like I had been standing there for ages and I could wait for some more time. Exactly at 6:18 AM. I saw her running towards me. I was thrilled to see her beautiful smile cut through the early morning mist and making its way towards me. I wished she could run a little faster but I did not mind her current pace.
It was only when she made it very close to me that realized that I was not the only one waiting for her. I took a quick glance behind me and I was not at all surprised to see the population of India right behind me. People of different sizes, shapes and ages were waiting for her. Being "me" has always been difficult. Sharing things with stranger was one difficult situation to handle. People pushed me left and right to get the best piece of her. I had to fight my way in. This is the only time in my life when I seriously thought how concern our Government was when they put up these family planning ad's on TV. I never liked them, but now I started to respect them.
Early morning rush had made my hormones active "Let's win the war" attitude got in me. People were looking at me the same way vultures look at animals saying their last prayers. I realized the reason for the looks were because I was standing at the best place in the compartment near to the door. OK apart from my hormones my egos also boosted up. A sarcastic smile changed my facial structure. I was just little more than happy. I felt the world was beginning to envy me and I got what I deserved, the best. After she was almost full and I was pretty sure she couldn't take it any more from here, She started with a very slow pace gradually picking up her pace.
The experience inside was always a new one although I have been a regular one. New people, new problems and new facial expressions. In a crowded place like Mumbai, a good start of the day is decided by the quality of people joining you early in the morning for an adventurous trip. Some time you find difficult people with their own set of rules which hardly make any sense to me and some times you find people over anxious about the person standing right next to them. I love the second category of the lot as long as they are not standing close to me. I hate when strangers come up with suggestion about the song I play on my mp3 player or correcting any grammatical error while composing sms. Anyways they are not that big trouble makers as the first lot.
The best part about travelling together is that you don't have to buy yourself a copy of news paper. You will find varieties of it around you. All that you need is the "Art of Adjustment" to read them. OK I admit that I also sometimes fall in the second category of people those who take a sneak peak around to find something interesting. But I need to save some money and make apt use of resource. Thanks to my MBA classes I have learnt to term things that often shows how big a miser I am.... It is so difficult to confess.
We reached the second stop and the crowd inside was getting ready to withstand the pressure from the outside world. At this point of time Tsunami would have been less threatening. People tried to rush in applying all the forces Physics would ever allow you to apply. For a moment I felt the same pain the Spartans went through in the movie 300. But it did not take much time to get out of it as the pain was getting real and intense. I some how adjusted myself and continued with my journey of day dreaming. So where was I .. ah ha ya am back... I thought now this is the maximum she could ever take in the entire journey but my myth was shattered when a fellow passenger giggled and passed a comment wow she is empty today no rush at all. I started to argue with myself on his comments. I lost to the other side of me. She was indeed empty with only a small fraction of India's population in her.
The watch was showing some movement but the time was still. There was nothing happening inside and the world outside was covered in a natural blanket of mist. I really was not expecting any excitement or any reality show inside. I am a peace loving guy. But Marketing inside was something that always used to give me a reason to think. These sales men less than 12 years of age would bring in new strategies trying to grab the maximum from the market. Trust me this is a very potential place for business. Had I never done my MBA I would have given it a shot here. But I seriously don't understand how do they move about so comfortably when there is hardly any gap for air to pass through.
I was about reach my destination. The feeling of reaching your destination is different for different category of people. I don't know much about others but for me it was more like coming back home leaving my cousins and grandparents after a month of awesome, fun filled vacation. Phew oh my god my nose... This is a usual treatment you get early in the morning. Some a@@#03 just released some pressure from within him and filled the air inside the compartment with his home production special.. Guess that bastard must have had some hell of a non veg treat. Why do people think that the smell of bad breath and sweat mixed with cheap deodorant is not enough that they had to mark their presence by farting... Oh my God I guess I have a gun shot hole in my lungs now.... OK thank god that is over at last. I was standing near the exit not waiting for my destination to reach. I experienced a slow pat on my back. That gave me a sense of being important a feeling that I have been promoted to a higher level. A sense of being a little matured and responsible crept me. I turned back to see the source of pat. It was a short fellow who I guess was enjoying the smell of my deodorant. It took me about 7 seconds to locate the source. That was disappointing to see that pat was not the same as it was intended to be. The feel of omnipotence just left me without a notice. He wanted to know if we had a common destination or should he make some different arrangement to alight. OK reaching your destination is not that important for us but making sure that we get down at out destination was important.
The forces and laws of Physics would again be put into practice. I admire the law that says "Every action has equal and opposite reaction" and here my law says "The pain of getting in is directly proportional to the pain of getting out". I nodded to the guys response of patting on my back which in our tribe is a gesture of a positive answer. He gave a sigh of relief as I were to take all the bullets on my chest before it would rip his ... whatever. I stood my ground very strong. I had to withstand the forces acting behind me and had to apply extra force in front of me. Finally our destination reached ... she did not stop yet. She was killing the speed she attained on the way before a complete stop. But my fellow tribal would not believe in this concept of physics as for them the saying "Time is money" makes more sense. People standing in front of me adjusted their butts towards the direction of her movement and started running along with her after jumping out in the same pace that she had attained... People vanish the moment their feet touched the ground as if some kind of Voodoo or some black magic these tribal had been practicing for long. I some how manged to get out and made my self comfortable a little away from her adjusting my belt shirt and trousers which had lost their original form.
I took a quick glance of her moving away from me. I couldn't even wish her a good bye as she was going. But I was sure my journey wouldn't end here and I will meet her tomorrow again with the same charm on her face and different set of tribal around me.
