on a lighter note

Disclaimer: Something else that I wrote a while back, when I was fond of big words (an artefact of my GRE prep).

THE NIGHT TRAIN AT DILLI

One of the Chennai bound trains from New Delhi departs at the rather convenient (or inconvenient depending on your inclinations) hour of 22:30 hrs .I rather despondently made my way to the platform and spent some forgettable minutes waiting for the carriages to arrive. And finally, after what seemed like ages, made my way to my allotted compartment. At the door, the extremely pleasing sight of a 'maal-chick' greeted me. I gave her the expert once over, of course, being as unobtrusive and about it as possible. Not thinking much of the indubitably unusual sight I clambered onto my compartment, secured my precious luggage. And promptly clambered out. Remembering that I hadn’t brought any of the life saving liquid a.k.a water(before you start to get other ideas) I sauntered off in the general direction of a stall.

I boarded the train just as it started to move armed with a bottle of Paras-supposed-mineral- water (the seller made a special point to remind me). Making my way to my seat, I experienced what can best be described as a jolt (totally independent of the motion of the train), for the very girl I alluded to above was sitting right in front of it. I murmured a silent prayer to lord Ganapthy (after maybe 2 yrs), put on my “I rule the world” look and strode towards it (the seat). Upon finding myself at the destination, I put on a “what the bloody hell” look and made a big deal of fiddling with my luggage. To my disconcertment the object of my attention serenely continued to read a book, the title of which I was too preoccupied to notice. I extracted a Booker prize wining novel which I have been trying to read for the past year and turned to page 5 and read with what should have seemed like extreme relish and concentration for half an hour. After approximately the aforesaid interval of time, she asked me, ‘How do u manage to read such intellectual stuff?’ I made what I hoped passed for one of those modestly nonchalant gestures, and murmured some crap, that even I couldn’t quite make out. The ice broken, we got chatty, the mundane details of which I will not bore you with. We finally parted at Chennai.

It is here that I must disappoint a few of those readers who expect the proverbial Twist in the Tale. Before we parted company she made the all too important gesture of handing me her phone number. As Sigmund Freud once never said ‘dreams on trains seem to come true more often.’ Anyway, I must scoot now . She just hates me to be late on a date.