A friend on the train...

When I was young, long train journeys were much more common than flights. What with flight costs being very expensive and only affordable by the affluent few. The plus side of these long journeys would be that we would get umpteen chances to meet new people and make new friends. These journeys used to be fascinating.

When I started traveling alone, I very naturally started to mix and bond with fellow travellers. I used to study in Gujarat when my dad was working at Delhi - so every vacation, I would make this long one day trip to Delhi in the Nizamuddin express. One of those trips, I remember meeting a young lady in her mid twenties , wearing a bright sky blue colored salwar kameez , having long braided hair, a little tanned skin, wore spectacles and had the most friendly, bright and open-hearted smile. Something about the way she dressed or spoke, made me confused about which part of India she came from. She looked more from the south, but from the way she spoke, she sounded a north indian.

It did not take more than a hello ! to get her to talk - as I already said, her face and smile looked friendly. She told me that she was a Tamil brahmin married to a punjabi sardar. Suddenly everything fell in to place - Her dusky, be spectacled, long haired look along with the very well fit, stylish salwar kameez. Her openness more common in the north Indians than with the south Indians. We got talking quite a bit - me sharing my difficulties of a student life and she sharing how she had initially found it a little difficult to adjust to the extremely open, demonstrative and loud Punjabi husband and in-laws of hers (Being loud and open is a trait that is very un-common with the south Indians :) :) ). I could only laugh heartily imagining the situations that she would be subjected to. We laughed and talked our way to Delhi - exchanged nos. and addresses for sure - but then some friendships that seem so deep on these journeys are eventually forgotten.

Another journey I remember was when I was in Mumbai and again going to Delhi to meet my parents with a group of my office colleagues. I had just known one of the colleagues well, the rest were his friends. But we bonded very well in the journey. I still remember putting on the yellow light in our compartment and singing old hindi-Kishore kumar, Lata mangeshkar and Asha Bhonsale songs late into the night and spending time sharing our life till we reached our destination the next day.

And yet another time, I remember I was going to Mumbai from Gujarat, and I happened to meet a young girl in her late twenties who was a scientist. She seemed a little reserved and an introvert and forever she seemed stuck to a book. It took me a while to befriend her. After a while, we got talking. Among other things that we discussed, she told me about some senior she really liked - and how he was not aware of her interest in him. And also that, her parents were now looking for a groom for her. When we departed at the Mumbai station, I sincerely and earnestly wished her luck to find the right kind of partner for life.

Each of these incidents have happened more than 10 years back – but is amazing how refreshingly clear the details of these memories still stayed on in my mind :)