The Railway Tracks...

The one thing that makes me feel like I am in a time machine is being on a train. I love the way train journeys make me feel. They give me a rush. A concoction of so many emotions that if I want to explain it, I would have to probably tell you everything that I experience on a train.

Let me start from the beginning then, when my parents took my cute lil' sis and me for our first ever family vacation to Puri, Orissa. I was in the second grade, my sis a year junior in school. We had heard stories of how train journeys took days but we had never been on a train for more than the time that it takes to travel by an express train from Dhanbad to Calcutta. We used to ask crazy questions to our parents and tried to smuggle in everything into the suitcases we packed as if we were shifting houses and not leaving for a vacation. I still have hazy memories of the both of us being startled when the engine whistled announcing the arrival of our train. On boarding the train we were astounded to see berths instead of the rows of seats that generally short distance passenger trains have. My sis fell asleep after the initial curiosity that is inherent in kids however I kept awake and looked out the window for most of the journey. I just couldn't sleep, afraid that I might miss something interesting. I still don't sleep much while travelling.

Train journeys however short always remind me of this experience. There are a host of other images which flash through my mind when I travel by train. Like the numerous times Shaheen and I travelled together, to and from New Delhi, and the times that were and everything that we have meant to each other over the years.

They remind me of the first time I was supposed to go to Manipal to meet Snoopy and how the train arrived without the compartments attached for Goa. A random, long, scary, energy sapping and emotionally draining misadventure ensued which a guy managed to undertake just coz the eyes of his lover beckoned him and seemed like the light house in a rough sea whenever his spirits sank on the highways of Karnataka.

They also serve sweaty reminders of the four months that I spent in Mumbai for my summer internship and of the harrowing local train struggles from Lower Parel to Vashi. Everyday a new lesson on the difficult lives of my country men and how distinctly different our dreams, hopes and aspirations are. And, the struggle to achieve them with a smile on our face. The indomitable spirit of the human kind and the famed Mumbai spirit.

Trains; allow me the luxury to revisit my  childhood, refresh memories, relive moments of glorious success, be in love, dwell on the past, alter the outcome of my behaviour in hindsight and sometimes when I am in really high spirits - play the super hero and probably save a damsel in distress ;P

However, the railway tracks always fill me with a feeling of melancholy. And that is because however hard they try, whichever direction they take, howsoever twist and turn they might or as many miles they travel side by side, they never meet for ever and for all the pains they take they get to meet each other only for the briefest periods of time, probably at a crossover just like new lovers stealing a glance at each other in a room full of friends who still don't know how they feel for each other or the slight brush of the hands in a market place where the girl/boy has been accompanied with a strict parent or a relative.

That is probably why I love the clouds. They meet whoever they want, whenever they want to, wherever they wish and for howsoever long they desire...

Life's ways!!!!

Life comes full circle. Oh! So many times. We just don’t either notice them or are too busy/have moved ahead to care for them. To actually, wait and relish these moments, re-live them. Sitting in this room, this 24th day of January, 2013, I pause to reflect on those July days in the very same classroom on this very desk. A younger me, full of excitement of having made it into Deloitte, getting to know new people, liking many, hopefully making many like me, learning by the day, having fun both during classes and afterwards with new friends; exploring the charms of this city, establishing myself at a new place as well as trying to be the responsible son, caring brother and the loving boyfriend that I had always strived to be.

Fast forward two and a half years and I hardly see any of those faces in the office from the class that I was in that day. All of the five people with whom I shared this desk during those days have gone their own separate ways. Some have new jobs, some new dreams, others new relationships and almost everyone a new life. Time flies. Yes! It surely does. I don’t know if I am happy or if I am sad. What should I be? How should I feel?

I remember vividly all their faces, those smiles, their joys and sorrows, each one’s struggles and victories, personal quests and aspirations. I can recall everything significant that has affected my life in the past thirty months.... Good, bad, ugly or effing fabulous!!!! I live them now, this moment, everything flooding through me, coursing through my veins. EVERYTHING....

Guess, we humans are hard-wired this way. Time, actually doesn’t heal anything, does it???? The scabs; we just hide them, forget them and bury them under the debris of recent memories, experiences and layers of time’s travesties and blame/praise Time by calling it the ‘greatest healer’.

I smile, I live, we all do, we all will. I look at the pretty girl sitting next to me and she smiles and asks me the topic of my next blog that she assumes correctly I am working on in the midst of the training session. I do not know what to tell her and I just smile back. I look at her face and the rest of the four people sharing the same desk and then glance all around me at everyone else in the class. So, how many do I know, how many more will I know in due course of time, will someone here affect/touch my life? Questions, only Time will have answers to. Well, whatever. Let time run its course and until then I shall smile, I shall sing, I shall savour entertaining conversations and I shall enjoy getting to know as many people as I can in this class and out there beyond the confines of the heavy wooden door because even if we part ways; the world is as small as it is large and somewhere, someday, somehow, sometime I am sure our paths will cross again and all I wish is that we create good/happy memories enough while we are engaged in the act of living life’s designs and knowing each other that when we do reach that stage of being in each other’s vicinity we can muster the courage to acknowledge the other’s presence, look up and into the other person’s eyes and let our eyes smile and do the talking even if we actually do not stop and do so....