Someone has said that, “The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.” Being a traveller by heart, I had nothing specific planned to see. And so, I let myself be swept in by the very journey itself.
And so last Friday, my better half and I set out on an adventure to Dharwad. All adventures in India happen in the second class coaches of the largest employer in the world, The (great) Indian Railways. The sheer sight of train, a station that is clean or a train that arrives on time (ie within an hour of its scheduled time) are things that brings joy and an occasional tear of happiness to the eyes. But, what is most exciting is the people you meet and the moments of life that is shared together – somehow people connect so well that a few hours spent becomes a part of a lifetime.
Ok – enough of philosophy. That was to make you guys a bit sleepy :-) Nothing of this sort happened on this travel though. What did happen was something quite amusing.
My wife and I reached the station early (must say, the train had been there parked for us even before we'd reached..) We got into our bogie and settled down on seats that were vacant. Reservation of seats is a concept that is for popus idiots. In India, you book seats and only while sleeping it has any relevance.
The moment we sat down, the old uncle in front of us suddenly came to life. The fact that he could manage to doze despite the noise of the (tail-less) grand children – that was an amazing feat of concentration. Anyways, there we are surrounded by 10,000 Watts of screaming and screeching with the old uncle who is barely beyond totally deaf interrogating us..
Uncle: Hmm.. So where are you going?
Us: Dharwad, uncle
Uncle: What?
Us: Dharwad
Uncle: WHAT?
Uncle's daughter: Dharwad (in a 10,500 Watts tone)
Uncle: Oh.. That's good. Nice place.
Us Silly grin
Uncle: So where do you work?
Me: Cognizant.
Uncle: What?
Me: (loudly) Cognizant, CTS.. (actually I’d just resigned from CTS.. but there was no way I could explain all of this)
Uncle: What?
Uncle’s daughter: IT.. IT
Uncle: Oh, ok. My daughter too – not this one, the second one is in IT. She works in Wipro. Had been to US, UK, Hong Kong and Singapore. You been to US?
Me: Hmm.. No uncle..
Uncle: We live in …. What about you?
Me: We live near …
Uncle: Our area – it is a good area. So you both are brothers and sisters?
Us: (totally shocked and unable to respond.)
Uncle’s daughter: (thoroughly red in face) Appa, they are husband and wife. (Turning to us) Appa wants to know everything!
And so, the journey went on. Uncle managed to extract all information from us – where each of us studied, worked, where our parents worked and live. I guess any marketing agent would kill to have field surveys done like this. After all, we just trust old uncles so much that we never even hesitate to tell them all the personal details that we’d not even tell our colleagues!
One thing though.. No matter where my wife and I go, people seem to mistake us for some sort of relatives or brother and sister. And this is a big pain in the backside!
