Loneliness - The ideal state of emotion

Whenever we talk about all time great movies or all time great actors, we do get the mention of the Tom Hanks starrer “Cast Away”. Everything in the movie is awesome. All that is most striking in the movie is just the imagination that being alone for such a long time makes us feel so unnatural to our human tendency.

It’s true that we are a social animal. In fact every living thing in this world is. However life teaches us the most bizarre lessons as we grow, one which each of us experience in the journey of our livelihood, however different we maybe. Simply put it says that the probability of we having the most control on our emotion is only possible when we are under the least influence of the social being in our mind and body.

I know it sounds bizarre enough to everybody. But every relation that we bring in our life - the family that comes from the natural order of descending of our earlier roots, to the friends which we mutually choose as our own – all of these together make us loose our complete control on our emotion.

For instance, I didn’t like the Apple pie that my friend served me on my last trip to Vegas, but we were on a vacation and that would be the last thing to do lest my friend’s mood went off. I have coaxed my mom innumerable times on how important it is for her to take more care of her health with her growing age. But there’s only some amount that she can hear of me. whatever I may say. And that brings me worry, care and also fear to some extent.

Loneliness is that powerful state of being which makes us hear exactly what frequencies our heart is emitting. Its the ideal state for pure unadulterated state of emotion. With people around, though, it’s all just noise that decimates us from any chances for our actions to be able to decode and act exactly on what our heart really wants.

Nothing is ideal in this world, resources are limited and we need to share everything we have, so consequentally also our control on emotions. That’s the reason why nothing is permanent in this world. Everything is self-evolving, ever changing.

And tell you what guys... all these thoughts can only arouse in your mind when you are truly alone. Its when you have no fear of anybody, not even your own. Like I am sometimes, a lone writer possessed by the free world of possibilities. Funny, ain't it?

Let me know what you think. And yaa.... just do a small favor. Make yourself completely lonely, away from any other emotions or burdens, while you share with me your insights.

It Happened Again on a Valentine!

“I’m getting late for the flight, will you mind dropping me over to the airport before you leave for your office affairs? I would like to make sure I am in time before the Australian delegates meet up at the airport.” her voice was deep, slightly unpleasant and Rajni was crying from within.

“Give me five minutes will you? The flight is still five hours from take-off; you shouldn’t be too late I guess.” Though Sunder, her husband, was calm and collective he could be lazy on a weekend day.

“I am not surprised you wouldn’t be too bothered for it. But I think I better reach on my own, I would need to start practicing on this sooner than I had imagined.” She stopped making the sofa and turned to look at him. He was stung by her words; their eyes met. The silence was killing.

It’s always bitter after a five year marriage is about to be shattered. All that was happening was not in the control of either of them, or that is what both of them assumed. Those two souls, who waited for surprise gifts and romantic letters all the time in the last seven years of their married life, were eventually preparing to end their lovely times. Last night was the night when they both screamed, shrieked, paused, pondered, stared with defying eyes and punches of belligerent words that they would never imagine they would ever say to each other. Last night was just another event, one which any other perfectly harmonical beings could have, but which a couple should never go through.

***********
“I can’t think of anybody apart from you! From the last two years it is only been you that I have thought about, it is only you whom I want all my life. Will you marry me Rajji?” It was Fourteenth February, a Valentine’s day when Sunder proposed Rajni. He had dated her only twice before he proposed her, but they knew each other for more than two years now.

The reflection of the dim colourful lights danced on the calm flowing water near the wonderful still lake of the Afrin Resort in Lonavala, a beautiful hill station in India. Her innocent yet naughty smile of affection had said it all. He carved the stunning ring in her slender fingers as she drove her hands forward in gleeful acceptance. That moment was the most relishing one for him. They danced on the solemn music with their hands together; nothing was moving. Everything around seemed to be halted – time was still and love was in the air. Sunder was lost in the gentle flailing movements of her beautiful flowing hairs. Their world was finally complete and it was visible to them both crystal clear in each others eyes. When he kissed her a good bye that day; a storm was brewing within both of them; a storm of untold happiness and sudden realization that the deepest desires of their heart were finally their own till eternity.

***********
“The airports of Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and many other metropolises in India are under red alert. Security has been sounded for possible threats of other hijack incidents en-route the APAC destinations. Officials fear they may need to prepare for a 9/11 situation. The Qantas Airways Flight Q123 has confirmed the hijack of the plane and officials are discussing the matter with Australian Freight agencies.” For more updates do not go away we’ll come back after a short commercial break.

“CRASH!!” The cup of coffee slipped from Sunder’s hands without notice. He desperately looked for the remote and tried to switch over to other news channels. NDTV news read the BREAKING NEWS as “confirmed reports have finally arrived that the Qantas Airways Flight QA123 heading from the Kingsfordsmith airport Sydney to Chhatrapati Shivaji terminals Mumbai has been hijacked by unknown assailants. This happened on…” the words were lost as his ears failed to pick up any further. He was shocked beyond senses.”

Desperate impulse drove him to call his parents and tell them about the incident. Rajni was travelling in the same flight QA123, on her way back from the project work on the Australian trip.

***********
“ATTENTION!!SWOSH!!! Nobody moves from your seat! We will not harm anybody unless you act smart! All of you be aware that this plane is being directed to an unknown destination. The pilots are under our control and everyone like me doesn’t care for our lives. If anything silly is done, we will park this plane directly on hell!” Men of the size of maritime bandits all covered with black robes stood on vantage points at the doorways of the plane.

It took 10 minutes before the severity of the problem sunk into Rajni. She was sweating all over, afraid to even move her hands and wipe the sweat forming on her slender neck and palms. One of the terrorists posted right above her aisle seat was sending instructions as loudly as he possibly could, deafening any senses left in her. When silence fell, she could hear her heartbeats prominently. All eyes hovered around frightening faces of each other, everybody vary of any unknown attack that could possibly be the end of their lives. As time flew every passenger in the plane was sure that they had passed over India and they were now heading to an unknown new destination, possibly somewhere in the Gulf. Nobody knew what fate would bring for them.

Rajni turned her gaze slowly to the window of the aeroplane. She had to calm her growing nervousness. News had come that somebody from the Business Class had developed a trauma and succumbed to shock and apprehension. As she looked out, her mind switched to a scene of white cotton like clouds in the midst of which the plane flew - the plane in which all the travellers were expecting their last journey.

As a tiny tear rolled over her eyes, she saw a huge hole forming into a massive ball of cloud cover. As she blinked her eyes to see clearly, she saw Sunder running towards her trying to hold her arms and get her out of the plane. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as if in a sense of relief to believe her dream had come true. Even as they all lay crouched up on their seats, Rajni tried to chase her mind away from him; but it was only Sunder whom she could see out there, far-off in the mountains steadily coming closer to her, trying every breath of his own life to save her. He was nowhere, yet everywhere.

***********
The news had brought panic in both the countries. Envoys from both the countries were making statements to news channels and the Aviation and Army officials were busy communicating with the terrorist networks that could have allegedly done this. Relatives of all those who were travelling in the plane were out at the Mumbai terminals screaming in anguish and crying their heart out to the airport authority to do something! Human life is so precious to some human and so worthless to some others.

Sunder was at the airport within two hours from the time they first broadcasted the incident. Everybody he knew from the government officials and agencies were contacted. All he could hear was a kind assurance from the other side, while they asked him to keep his cool and stay connected. He was burning from within. Every moment he heard her call him out. He saw her calling him out while driving on the way back to the airport from the Australian counsellate office.

GPS tracking machines were tracking the planes for the good of thousands of officials from all around the world, all not knowing what is going to happen with the plane. After more than 3 hours of its journey offset from the regular flight course, everybody was concerned if the plane did carry as much extra fuel to carry a further distance. When you feel death is as close as this, any proportion of optimism cannot amount you from thinking about the worse to come. The silence inside the plane was killing, to each of them time seemed to have stopped passing by. Slowly but steadily, all aboard the flight could see the corpse of 100 more people lying around them. A miracle was necessary.

***********
“Have you guys ever tumbled yourselves into a swimming pool? Well if you haven’t had that fun, here is a chance for all of you to do so. The only difference is that my altitude dial here reads 16,000 metres above the sea and the swimming pool will have no shores from where we will all nose-dive into the ocean! So grab your life jackets, wear your oxygen masks and be ready to live the moments before your death.” The pilot smirked heavily in the most disgusting manner and laughter ensued from maniacs all around the frightened travellers.

“Its my first attempt to flying a plane down, so all the small lot of us who would still be alive, don’t worry we have rescues boats waiting not far away.” he continued roughly. Everybody was shell-shocked. Nevertheless the instructions were followed by all. Since the plane was not so crowded, all the occupants had been asked to shift over to the end of the plane near its tail, possibly to avoid them from being near to the pilots.

None of the two cockpit goons had any training in actual landing, except the Pilot Simulator software’s they had played around with. These men are born to kill or get killed. Their essence to life is different from human. The sophisticated Boeing 747 was equipped with the Instrument Flight Rules chart, but all they knew was the visual reference of the satellite pictures that they drew and copied on their map sheets. The Instrument Landing System was severely damaged while trying to overpower the actual pilots but the Visual Gliding Slope Indicator was working.

While at cruise altitude, the pilots had strewn the engines for power too much which led the turbine blades to break. Consequently three of the four engines had stopped working. The plane backup batteries were fast draining out of power supply to the hydraulics and the control systems due to the engine failure.

The failure meant they could no longer raise their height but the descent was very necessary to be a controlled one. Rajni saw from the seat that they were nearing a shore near the horizon, nobody knew where it was, but it certainly was a lonesome island. There was no need of dumping fuel to avoid fuselage tank blasts; the tanks were exhausted from the extra long journey and the plane was gliding and gathering speed on its way down.

As the plane gathered speed, it was necessary to maintain the pressure on the slats of the wings to decrease the overall camber and provide the balance lift against the drag coming from the resistance of the falling aircraft under the influence of gravity. Suddenly the flaps on the wings lost control and the lift-off using the slats was lost. The plane tilted over sharply to the left and the rudder lost control over the rotation due to increased air pressure on its disoriented side. The plane was now nose-diving into the ocean, unless…

The sudden fall caused the pilots to hurtle directly on the front pane of the planes cockpit controls and one of them scrambled over, trying to grip over anything possible. For a moment he couldn’t see any part of the plane but just the vast ocean of water right in front ready to embrace him. The glass shudder was developing cracks due to the heat generated from the friction he could clearly see the plane falling over, while he was still strung on the leg strap of the aero-guiding equipments they wore. Nothing happened for a few seconds.

The other pilot accidentally fell over the elevator control and as the plane jolted in the attempt to nose up itself, both of them held over the landing steers applying all the pressure they could on the brake pedal, to make the tilt back complete.

When the plane crashed into the water, the heightened gravitational pull, and the tilt over the normal had grazed off much of the speed and the plane travelled the last few seconds at 70 knots before hitting the water. When it hit nose down, the jolt made everybody numb. When it tunnelled into the water, it lost speed quickly and rapidly rose back to the surface nose up. The main fuselage was all exhausted and no fire break-up could damage any power circuits in the plane interior. The plane tails had burst into fire as they approached water and as they greeted it, the fire was put out on its own before it could spread.

The escape was miraculous, but few of them had disoriented themselves in the fallout. A few being unable to swim and were in panic, a few of them were desperately trying to stay afloat on the half floating plane. Many of them clung to the over-wing of the planes as the front exits and emergency get-offs were burst open. People who were scarcely half-alive from the shock and who could swim were taking on the helpless people to the uppermost part of the wings, trying to pray the plane remains afloat long enough. The shoreline was visible and so were the hopes of the innocent people. Two speed boats guiding a medium carrier liner appeared onto the scene within few minutes; the terrorists had finally done all that they could with such a huge risk element. Six people died in the total encounter and the desperately downcast air hostess was asked to confirm the news on an unknown frequency transmit from the shore. Nobody knew who the six people were but that was not important at the moment for the two governments.

Rajni was still alive, breathing heavily but her blood veins were filled with saline water from the heavy sea. She knew swimming. But nobody is trained to fight the waves of an ocean in the swimming pool lessons. Her body was choked and sore. In half an hour the news was confirmed all over the world that the terrorists had taken the help of the Somalia pirates to land the plane in water near an unknown island off the coast! Their demands were unknown and so was the state of every passenger on the plane.

***********
Three days had passed and Sunder ate scarcely. Nothing was as disturbing as the fact that reporters, government or even the police and navy had no information to give. Relatives of all those who were abducted had made their homes in the airport emergency accommodation wards. Be it a Hindu, a Muslim, a Sikh, a Christian or any other religion that the world has known; everybody was praying. Religion and its barriers are not for the common man. The common man knows only that they have the independence to live the way they can and must cause the least hindrance to all around them. Some people had their parents aboard the Australian Airliner; some had their son/daughter coming back for a vacation from their studies abroad. Some company representatives had Australian delegates arriving in the airlines. Everybody knew that six of the total one hundred and forty three passengers are no more and seventeen had been severely injured. Who were they, nobody knew.

“If there is anything in this world that I can ask for today or anytime ahead for the rest of my life; I beg you Oh Lord! I want my Rajni back!” Sunder was praying to god every moment. Nothing else was visible to him; he did not care to call up at his office and let know what was going in his mind. “Tring! Tring!” he looked at his mobile and saw the lawyer calling him up. He cut the call instinctively and a chill ran down his spine and he sank back on the chair behind him.

“I don’t know how you would ever agree for it after all that has happened. But Rajni, I cannot dream to live a single day without you. My heart still beats only for you and I can do anything but be separated from you even for a moment. I love you, I want you. I want to hug you and stay close to you all my life.” He pictured himself saying this to her, he was going to do it. “Divorce is just out of question.” He would tell this to her.

“I am sorry Sunder, life does not always give a second chance.” Rajni would say this and walk away. He woke up from the dream and saw tear drops from his eyes. A hazed figure of Rajni came right in front of him and slowly and steadily…. faded away in the murky background of the empty airport departures.

***********
It was the twelfth day now. They were trapped somewhere in the jungles of Somalia in a distant town near Merca not far from the shoreline city of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. Nobody knew what would happen. The twelve days seemed like twelve years for each of them. All were stoned.

If we ever believed that silence can speak, this was the time when all the remaining alive 125 passengers would know it was true. Nobody was talking but a thousand words were spoken in the falling eyes and the dissembled movements of everybody. In a single room lay all of them, exhausted from even praying for their freedom now. And suddenly on the thirteenth day something happened. Everybody was ushered in their sorry state to an unknown set of trampers that rode them towards the shore lines. That afternoon a huge Indian ship arrived at the international borders to grab the abandoned ship wreck in which the pirates had carted all the passengers. Rajni was alive, but for her and for all of them medical attention was the prime necessity.

***********
He had not slept well for many days now, but today he was feeling fresh like a lilac. He was getting impatient like the honey bee. The ship was about to arrive and all the relatives of the released prisoners were waiting at the docks. As the ship arrived tears welled in everybody’s eyes.

When he first caught a glance of her, his heart missed a beat. She was looking out all over for somebody, while being guided by one of the Coast Guard patrolman. The medical team had shortly arrived and everybody was being directed to meet their relatives directly on the hospital wards. When she finally locked him into view the medical team practitioners dragged them all to the waiting ambulances.

The first gaze was expressionless. Both stared at each other almost in relieved disbelief that their prayers were answered. No matter of activities around could disturb their gaze over each other. When Sunder tried reaching out to her the authorities stopped him. Medication for each and every of the passengers was the most important.

The drive from the dock to the hospital was a crazy one, but Sunder could only meet her after 5:00 pm. When he could finally venture it to meet her, she was all clean and fresh, resting on the bed and looking at the ceiling blankly. As he opened the door she turned her eyes and saw him coming in. Their eyes were locked for a long time to each other. Their hands met each other and he settled next to her. She had weakened considerably, but she was next to him and that was more than important for him. He caressed her fingers and kissed her palm gently and before he knew tears welled from his eyes. Nothing was spoken and yet they both shared the grief of so many days of turmoil and separation from each other.

In a matter of a few days of separation, both of them discovered how incomplete they were without each other. This day happened to be the Fourteenth of February, a Valentine’s Day. The seventh Valentine’s day and indeed more memorable than anyone that they had spent together or would spend together all their life.

The reflection of the dim light in the hospital room fell on the glass of water next to her bed where she lay. As she was lost watching the glass, memoirs of the last few adventurous days she went through flashed by in her mind. And when Sunder re-entered the room after a brief interval of discussions with the doctor, he held the same stunning ring in front of Rajni and said, “It was exactly seven years from now that this ring was carved for the first time in your beautiful fingers. It is all yours and can never be separated from you. Can you accept the ring back and also the jerk that parcelled this one for you for a lifetime?” And once again, she smiled in gleeful acceptance. We all are jerks aren't we?

*********** When my Heart Beats,
- Chirag Khara

The Gift of Travel Times!

After more than a dozen of friends and relatives asked me whether hopefully now I am settled in London and enjoying the London tube travel, I thought it was my moral duty to let everybody know exactly on how I feel about my travel life in both my earlier days and the present times. I know my friends and relatives love me so much, they deserve to know every minute detail of my analysis and observations; so here’s a short account of my findings.

If any of you feel this is quite lengthy, please don’t forget to appreciate the fact that I took the pain to go to such acute details in letting the truth peek through to all of you my dear ones. [In other and actual words, nobody comes back to me complaining this one was too lengthy a read, as I am sure you will enjoy getting truths unveiled and maybe your own similar personal memories unleashed..!! ;-)]

Introduction:

Like a giant earthworm charging towards you with an undesirably great speed, the Mumbai locals are a scaring view for the first time. The scene is chaotic; the profligacy is right in front of you; hundreds and thousands of humans are jumping all around the doors of the train even while it is still in gentle motion, fighting for the survival of their daily lives and business routine. A few travellers get down when the train just arrives on the platform, jumping out for an early exit to ensure they are not strung up in the sea of anxious waiting people, all ready to aboard the train amongst all odds.

And do you ask for compassion? If you are allowed to travel with yourself still alive, that’s all the sympathy you deserve in a Mumbai local journey. A city with a beaming large number of millions using the train on numerous occasions in a single day, Mumbai locals is aptly their lifeline.

The London tubes demand the densest populous - they are the most ancient tube lines in the world. Very few people know the fact that the London tubes network is originally a combination of various independent train services. It’s astounding because of that, considering on how they have now managed binding these complex services together to give a single huge network carrying the oldest tube line in the world!

275 stations on 12 different lines, 250 miles to cover out of which 93 miles in deep tunnels, 408 escalators and 112 lifts, make it an amazing maze inside the city. However the truth remains that more than half of the London underground lines are actually over the ground.

Trains and description :

The London tubes are quite smaller and compact as compared to the Mumbai locals. An irony here remains that the average height of a traveller in India is much lesser than that of a London traveller! Which is really amazing because while I know a 6.3-5” guy is very normal in UK, they always have to bend over to actually enter/exit from a London tube. Disgusting how they missed the measurements, isn’t it?
The seats in a London tube are not arranged in single rows, they are stuck at the very end of the compartments running parallel all the way through, of course barring the doors and the ends of the compartment. This gives plenty of places for people to stand near the door and within the compartments.


However the Indian trains have the more traditional design of horizontal column-like seats of 3 seaters, on both sides of the entrance door, with alternate columns facing to each other. This gives plenty of seating room but less standing room. Of course the trains are bigger in size and therefore can hold plentiful more than a London tube.

Another major difference in the London tubes is that they do not have specific compartments reserved for first class holders or any separate compartments for the ladies. With more number of compartments than an average Mumbai local, and flanged with glass compartments stuck to each other, the London tubes surely do look like tubes moving around on wheels. Again taking care of the travellers is a bit easy in London, if one of their lines is not in service; they have replacement bus services working from that station. This is surely very good for new travellers.

Rules of the Lines:

Every line that is as old as both of these lines, (around 150 years old now!) have seen relentless years of service, growth and changes. And because they are so much a part of the daily lives of majority of their population; the people tend to follow some practices to carry on the daily travel without much hassles.

The Mumbai trains have their own rules and regulations; of course these rules are not laid out by general public as ‘rules written on paper’. These rules are like ‘thumb-rules’ that evolve, scale and follow themselves based on the primordial experiences of the general public.

The following are the few rules that I can highlight and remember as very important ones :

1) In the direction of the train, the first half of the entrance to any compartment is always for “train latchers.” I know it’s an odd term to use, but that’s what you feel like they look when seen from a distance. A few people latched on to the doors, swaying and moving along with the train as it moves around, half of their body outside the train, and somehow balancing themselves with unimaginable talent and risk.

2) The second half of the compartment (which now makes it only a narrow tunnel) is for ‘exit first and entry later’ kind of a general rule. You are given a few hundred milliseconds to exit if you can in any station. After which the door is normally piled over with hundreds of people waiting to ‘barge in through the tunnel’. Another “platform-travel facility” for those who want to avoid the over-bridge is to jump from one train to another train already standing on the other side, and move across into the platforms!

3) People can, and should be accommodated in every nook and corner of the train, windows and the roof-top included. Specifically speaking, people can also hang out on the windows or on the roof tops if their wish be to have adventure. We don’t believe in taking holidays, hanging a back-pack and preparing for a hitch-hiking ride to some gullible place in the woods like the London people.

These daily train adventure rides like the “window-crawling” are much fancier than those ill-making missions.

4) Everybody who enters the train must keep the belongings over their head at all times to ensure it does not occupy any standing space. With a population of a multi-million, thronging in at the train doors and into the compartments, a little occupied space by unwanted luggage means a loss of standing space for 5-6 passengers. This is not at all fruitful and you are punished for trying any such atrocities. If you want to carry luggage, either learn to juggle it on your head for a major part of your journey, or just forget the luggage - others can take good care of it for all of its life, if any left.

5) Always know which side of the doors your station will arrive at. If you don’t, then forget travelling or just beg God that it is the one at which you are standing where the station arrives. However, veteran travellers of Mumbai can be allowed to alight on the rail-tracks on the opposite side anyways.

6) In a three-seat arrangement, at least or not less than 4 people need to be accommodated. The size and the shapes of the participants don’t matter; even 4 WWF players need to follow this rule. It’s always an advantage, but if you are “smart” enough to not want such an advantage, travel in the First class and end up getting your back screwed up.

7) At any time in your travel between stations, if you feel unbearably itchy and scratchy while standing in an odd crouched position; if your hands are lost and in an unreachable part of the world, you can always take help of the person nearby you. They can help you anytime, this exactly being the reasons of us being taught a national language at schools in Mumbai.

8) If a lady/girl has even by mistake tried to venture in the men compartment, scare her off immediately, especially in the rush hours. They cause havoc and occupy too many seats, apparently causing discomfort to many travellers. However, if the lady/girl has a boy friend, the fiendish part of the journey needs to begin. “Abey girl friend ko taxi main ghumaao yaa fir dusri train main le jaao” is the thought of most wise-men of Mumbai.

9) You need to plan lots of things before travel, right from tickets, compartments, directions, types of train to unplanned things like the nature’s call. Most of the stations here don’t have any working models of toilets. So better be vary and prepared for sudden discomforting aversions; you can’t fight with them and the travel adventure at the same time.

10) The ladies compartments will be the most scuffling and noisy at all times. Do not put boards of ‘Noise pollution’ in ladies compartment; this act will be too detestable. You are not going to avoid this pollution using ear-plugs too, so don’t try any fancy stuff.

11) Even if you are in the most hurried time of your journey, be very cautious while crossing the platform where the ladies compartment is slated to arrive. If you happen to touch even a hair of any waiting girl/lady accidentally, on a given bad day the results can be devastatingly disastrous. You might not be able to recognize yourself by the time you reach home and look into the mirror.

12) Never ever enter the ladies compartment even by mistake. If you did, I am sure you would anyways not travel in Mumbai local for at least a month. You know it takes so much time for such a kind of fear, or the impression of such an unfortunate incident (of you being thrashed to pulp) to finally evaporate from the memories.

13) If you feel stomach pain or gastric when you are at the platform, have a cup of the Rupee four, Masala Soda or Nimbu Paani tonic. Not only will your gastric pain disappear but also any unwanted reserves of stomach viruses will be thrown out in the next day morning business. Most interestingly, anything sold in any part of the world is available in the Mumbai stations counters at half the price, unlike in the London stops, where it is the vice versa!

14) Luggage compartments in the train are not for luggages. They are just a special name given to some “foul smelling old compartments” which however should be used by the regular travellers anyways. All you need to do is get used to some really pongee smell that makes your nose start running in depression!

15) You need lots of practise and great skills to be able to travel seated in a Mumbai train, in those places from which the train begin its journey. If you want to get out of the train fast, or enter a train easily, make sure that you are well behind the guy who has the uncanny combination of wit, experience, muscle-power and speed. You need lots of virtues to be privileged to travel in a Mumbai train. The travel using such esteemed methods needs preparation, from being ready to gallop onto the train at the correct time, to shout at the top of your voice to unsettle an obstructer, and to ward-off other assailants in the bid to get into the train first.

16) Never try to use English in your language of communication in the travel. You will end up being caught up in a fight or being fooled entirely or even worse harassed by the veteran travellers of the train. The travellers here are strict in believing that you need to leave your education and your communication ways back at your office or home. While in Mumbai trains, use only the Mumbai language, ‘samjha kya re ghochu’?

17) If you are a regular train traveller and have to travel in office hours, get used to the idea of ‘music online’ into your ears. Though this music is neither classical, hip-hop, jazz, rock nor unfortunately anything like devotional. The music is completely out of the world. The Mumbai locals are filled with great and most talented ‘Bhajan Band of Boys (men)’!

The London tube travels don’t have much of rules to be followed; rules are normally made by wiser lot, and there is not much of such kind of genre here. Always remember to mark out your journey in the http://www.tfl.gov.uk/ website and carry the tube map whenever you are travelling. If you don’t follow these rules, you may end up travelling to and fro in 2-3 tube lines, to reach a destination which was just few blocks of walking distance away!

There is an obvious and in some way subtle decision to make while travelling in the tube trains. The biggest issue remains is of determining the direction in which you intend to travel. After groping through the tiny tube map and finding out your destination, you need to remember whether you are bound towards East/West or North/South from your present destination. This may be an easy part initially, but the regular travellers get so much bogged down by the re-occurrence of the query, that they forget their sense of direction completely.

Always keep your Oyster cards safe in your pocket, pickpockets here are dumb enough to choose the later between your costly Rolex watch and the Oyster card.

Due to the strategic seating arrangements, you end up seated such that you are facing some other cartoon on the other side of your compartment. You need to therefore learn the acts of immediately :
Holding laughter on horrendous dressing disasters ranging from funny hairdos, disastrous tattoos and the clip hangers showered all over the faces.
1) Hold your smile to indolent dragsters that have no dumb idea of what they plan to do the next moment.

2) Hold your surprised disgust on the dishevelled makeup of a girl who is too busy talking to her two boyfriends (one black and one white) or sending text to them on the phone, one after another.

3) Being aloof of, well, I don’t need to mention these fourth categories of people, all of us know that they are embarrassing and shameless in their revealing manners of clothing above anything else.

4) If you happen to offer the seat to somebody aged, make sure you don’t determine the age of people based on the colour of their hair. Firstly because Indians take all people with white hairs as elderly men/women, secondly 40% of the London travellers have their hairs dyed to give natural colours. If you do so, I imagine you would pass 95% of your tube travels standing.

5) Have a strong sense of smell in the London tubes, with personal experience I can say that most of the travellers always have much more than a drink or two before they start their journey. Another tip is that if some traveller is very friendly and talkative, 99% of the time he/she is drunk beyond senses.

6) You need to know the EAST and WEST and the NORTH and the SOUTH while travelling the London trains. Sometimes you start doubting what you have learned right from your childhood by the way the trains are moving but apparently the tube maps are your direction holders not the direction in which the trains are moving.

7) While moving on the escalators always keep right and always hold yourself tight. Eventually if you don’t, you will surely end up in a mess where creeps shout at you in indolent but rapid foreign pieces of mystic fables.

8) No luggage columns over the head on the London trains. If you have luggage more than what you can handle, hire a car or taxi; even if it means you go broke by the charges of a taxi travel. That’s what credit cards and credit crunches are made for in London!

The Ticketing Systems:

Just from the recent past, Mumbai train passes can be bought online, this must have surely reduced the hush-hush for season pass holders who can afford to go on the internet. However, the queue for the on-the-spot day travel tickets is still tormenting. Coupons are seldom used because generously most of the CVM (Coupon Validating Machines) are duly out of order. The people with ‘whiter and shinier wisdom tooth’ normally avoid taking tickets altogether. Especially in the rush hours, we can be always sure that no ticket checker can be on the prowl for his own mercy’s sake. Thus free journey are always for the taking in the Mumbai trains.

However in the London tube travels, this is one difficulty. The entry and the exit are barred by those ticket checking machines that automatically validate the tickets of monthly cards (called as Oyster cards). Thus if in India you waste time in buying tickets, in London you waste time ‘swiping in and out’ of stations while you have the tickets! On some ‘officially rare’ occasions, which by the way is factually recurring, the ticket validating systems fail to work across all stations, and the testimonials to such a disaster is the daily newspaper (which BTW is freely distributed in London trains and buses) that carry headlines similar to ‘London tube occurs 4.5 million pounds of loss in a single day due to the failure of the central ticket validating systems’. There you see, developed countries are so systematic, they have even their losses are counted and encountered by their automatic machines!
Surprisingly many Mumbai travellers, particularly some ‘Einstein-like fundamentally genius guys’; redefine travelling costs in their own unique balance sheet calculations. Let’s say a quarterly pass costs you 400 bucks from station A to station B, they would normally prefer travelling ticket-less for those 3 months. If they are caught in the most unlikely incident of that happening, they should normally be paying 250 Rs fine according to standard railway fine charts. But these travellers pay everything that they have in their pocket, which normally turns out to be a figure close to a whopping 40-50 Rs, and get out of sight. Apparently this money goes directly into the ticket checkers pocket, and the transaction of course remains off the records. So instead of paying the 400 bucks of travel passes, the investment only goes to 50-100 bucks! What a saving and you also don’t have to take care of your passes from pick-pocketers too!

And now consider the complex scenario that you are again caught ahead in your ticketless travel adventure, on the same day, same place, you can give the name of the previous ticket checker whom you had just please minutes before. The new one would immediately let you proceed without obstruction. One of my friends was once caught by a Mr. Tambe, at Borivli station. While in fix, and not wanting to part the 40-50 bucks, he tried to be over-smart and lied that he was just caught by another officer before and gave the name of some lame officer, a Mr. Gavkar, who had caught him travelling ticketless several days back. To this Tambe’s response was, “Khota boltos, Gavkar saaheb Kurla madhe laagle aahet aata! Lai Shaanpanaa dakhavlis tu, Aata tar pavti hun pan jast paishe kaadh; naahi tar ghalvun deil aandhar kothadit.” (English translation : “You liar! Mr. Gavkar is now patrolling in Kurla station. Trying to act oversmart, eh, now you will have to pay more than even the slated fine rate, or else you will end up in the dungeons”). Well when bad luck beholds you, there is no stopping.

Finally the most challenging part is to actually get those day tickets if you are not a regular traveller. After standing in the counters for more than an eternity, when your turn finally arrives to take the ticket, it’s mostly lunch time, or the ticket dispensing crookster gets a call and he closes the counters for silly reasons. There are no sign posts or due time for the ticket windows. Sometimes you are reeling behind at the 47th position in the lines, but if you are quick eyed and agile, you can end up suddenly being the first few in the very next counter which has just opened and missed the attention of other waiting queue members. That’s how you feel in the Mumbai travel - talent, timing, preparation and finally luck needed in each journey day.

In the London tubes, if you are trying to buy tickets from the queues, the situation is very complicated. With a glass obstruction of thickness comparable to the double-glazed windows of my apartment, our sound is barely heard by the sophisticatedly equipped moron on the other side. However the responses from him are heightened by the microphone which is made available to each personnel. All in all, after waiting in queue for a long time, you finally end up using sign languages to explain him the nature of ticket you need!

Station Announcements :

“Platform No. 2 pe aane valli local aaj radd kar di gayi hai. Yaatriyo ko hone valli asuvidha ke liye hame khed hai” This dialog is almost a regular appetite to a Mumbaikars ears, of course, these platform numbers change from time to time. As soon as such announcements are made, we encounter a barge of activities similar to what an outside would assimilate as a ‘state of co-ordinated panic’. People with their office bags handled in the most master-crafted ease, start running from one station to another based on their priorities and the amount of clearance available in the platforms.

Recession or no recession, summer/winter or Rain days, whatever be the season, or what the hell maybe the reason, the announcers of the Mumbai stations are dangerously mal-nutritioned, or what can be imagined as making announcements as if with a gun placed on the forehead. No human ear can decipher the code or even match the frequency, resilience, power, patience and the vocabulary of those announcements. But if you travel for 15 days in the Mumbai trains, your ears are trained to naturally firewall any queries to the brain that try to analyze/understand these announcements. We therefore rely on crowd movements and the seventh sense, if I am allowed to say. If people are running from one platform to another, you know that the normal scheduled local was cancelled as always.

In London trains however, these announcements are made with carefully picked voice programs, and repeated at regular just intervals. ‘Please mind the gap between the train and the platform edge’, these kinds of announcements are necessary for some of those hilariously psychic EU travellers. And I can’t blame that we don’t have such wonderful announcements made in our arena. Naah! They wouldn’t make any sense, when we actually don’t have enough gaps left in the platform and the train compartments anyways!

Public Display Of Affection:

London trains are used by a worldly multi-ethnic society, and truly speaking the most geeky and most exorbitantly mixed breed of ‘nuts’ from all across the globe (this includes me of course). Some of these are so busy or so intimidately alone, that they accomplish the triumph over their loneliness by making public display of affection to their counterpart. These can range from different situations, positions and sometimes, unfortunately with different disgusting voices as well. The sad part is, you feel completely uncomfortable if you are caught on the very next seat!

A funny situation occurs when that couple takes the seat at the ends of the compartment near to the door, where the seats end to an arrangement of ‘rods and glass’. Once I was travelling in one of these tubes, and a Mr A and Mrs B were engrossed in an intimate kiss. Of course, if you had turned your gaze accidentally to such scenes, the mind has by now learned a new reflex action to turn your gaze to some other direction instantly. But incidentally something unfortunate happened and all the meagre 15-20 people, sorry geeks, in the compartment turned their gaze to the couple.

Apparently the girl was evoked by some demons within her, and she was holding the guys head in her gracious stance, but it must have slipped through when their individual systems were in the peak of their processor CPU % usage and BANG! The guy hit hard on the side-rod and the intermingled-processes turned instantly to ghost processes (sorry I am a certified UNIX Admin, so can’t help with my language)! I assume the next step in such situations is not easy to act on, but hey this is London! Nothing could stop Mr A and Mrs B that moment, maybe not even their individual wife and husband waiting back home. I remember one of the London trip books that I had read once mentioned, ‘Surprise is always an element on our London tours.’ I wondered, did it actually mean about anything like one of these tube-shows?

Well in terms of Mumbai trains, this is slightly like chalk and cheese. Though the elements of romance are all close at hand! The difference is that these feelings are shared only on mobile phones. Firstly because fortunately, most of us are still forced to respect to our heritage social manners, secondly the ladies compartments are separate as I mentioned before already. Airtel, BSNL, Hutch and of course not to forget Reliance Mobile; all have bonded many love-birds together with their free and minimal charges package schemes which are only on papers. Whether they are travelling in the same train but in separate compartments, or one of them is back home or in office calling from their landlines; the show is always ON. Though there are some ‘wireless communication’ and ‘GSM and CDMA signal’ difficulties that they have to overcome. Let me also make one thing clear to all of you, do not be under the wrong impression that 80% of Mumbai crowd does not understand what GSM and CDMA stand for.
GSM - H = Ghar Sa Maahol, Hamesha
CDMA = Chalte ya Daudte Milo Apnose
This is the real essence of mobile technology in India. God! I learned all rubbish in my Engineering!

Sometimes due to these discontinuities and voice raising responses, funny situations arise. One day I was travelling in a ‘jam-packed’ Borivli-Churchgate fast train, standing near the door at the compartment edge. I observed that a pre-occupied Marathi guy, young and I assume “newly engaged, hyperactive scarce piece of living structure”, was sitting next to a bulky, filthy dressed, crooked monstrous guy with a mean dumb expression on his face. The Marathi guy was busy in his phone call with his love, and I am sure intimate talks were going on with her.

I can confirm this from such a long distance not because I could hear anything. No, not possible! These discussions happen with a peculiar silence and co-ordinated moments of the lips, astoundingly lower pitch voice with "phase/amplitude/frequency modulation and encoding" in such a way that it only reaches the recipient on the other side. I actually conspired it to be so guessing by the reactions of the Marathi guy; the twist that goes on the smile and the abrupt eyes rising on occasions as if enjoying the joy of the revelation of a previous adventurous meeting. What confirmed my doubts completely was the occasional disgusting frown of the tough guy besides who apparently was over-hearing parts of the conversation.

Suddenly in the wake of realization, the Marathi guy remembered that the mobile’s signal strength is going to be weak between Goregaon and Jogeshwari while he needs to get down at Andheri himself. So it was time to end the call and say ‘1 4 3’ before the signal shrinks to zero. In the course of panic, he spoke the words in a rapid and high pitch voice but unfortunately also turned his gaze to his neighbour, at the same time, maybe due to a habit, I assume. Amidst the total silence that broke, a few people around started looking at this ‘gods own special piece’ as he made his second hurried error and blurted to the monstrous guy, “Sorry I didn’t tell anything to you, it was my Girl Friend”.

These things are so common I suppose to regular travellers, that it was only me who burst laughing in the whole compartment. Finally it was my turn to be embarrassed as I turned over to the other side and interjected to myself, “Wasn’t that supposed to be funny?” Well, all in a days travel!

Fighting over the Phone:

The tube travel in most of the central London are flagged off by signal cut-offs in the underground areas where signal cannot reach. So any conversations of fighting are normally done on ‘TEXT’ (this is the term used in UK for SMS, which is popular in India). A grim observation I have made here is that while the Indian travellers are very good in writing SMS in their own language (like an example is Hindi written in English syllables), but the UK travellers tend to use the English language for anything from harsh words, or the 4 letter abusive words or be anything else.

‘Break-up fights’ in London trips are very small and precise. The two parties would have anyways met in one of the standard listed ‘Break-up friendly coffee houses of UK’ (anybody wants to know I have a list of it myself) which is conveniently nearby to their offices. All that the TEXT would contain will be contents similar to ‘I am glad we have agreed to seek parting, hope you have good times ahead. It was great to know you and we’ll always be friends.’ The ‘we’ll always be friends’ part is optional as you know that needs decent background of knowing each other for a long time, which not everybody in London tend to do in a relation!

Fighting over the phone in Mumbai is noisy, tragic, occasionally coupled with silent periods and doubled with immediate curses and despicable promises to get even in the most meagre way to the opponent on the other side of the line. No promises of physical assaults, however, happen on phone. It’s an understanding in Mumbai which we grow up with, “If you challenge to fight physically, either do it in person, or we know you are just bluffing.” So such a promise is made in a more political manner. A normal way of making such statements would be, “Kahi aaju-baaju dikhna mat mere, bolke rakhta hun pehle se.” (though the actual meaning of it would be like ‘mere baap main nahi lunga pangaa/nahi karungaa galti, mere piche mat padiyo ab’). The Mumbai language has many 2, 3, 4 and 5 letter words of abuse in different languages, with different tones, dialects, voices and sometimes great innovations that add really a lot of spice to the ‘fight on the phone’.

Real fights for Unreal Reasons:

While London tubes fall back in these performances, Mumbai trains have a rich heritage and loads of reasons behind them anyways for the real fights.

London fights are normally done in the form of serious storm of taunts and sudden burst of ethical policies readout from the books of the educated counterparts. The variety of these can vary based on the vocabulary and the patience of the speaker and the recipient. In some observations the time for such relentless speeches are directly proportional to the age of the speaker. But in all cases, the result is only a growing amount of sleep, fatigue, agony in your already drained out body. I feel such mouth-bursts are even more dangerous than the Mumbai fights.

However packed they maybe, no Mumbai train gives service throughout a day without having seen at least a dozen fights in some of its compartments through the length of the day. In some occasions, individual fights are going on in more than one compartment all in the same time and in the same space of journey. Those times are rightfully termed as the ‘rush hours’ of a Mumbaikars life-time. Fights can be for multitude of reasons ranging from ‘seemingly broke a train rule’ or ‘imaginatively heard murmuring provocative language’ or ‘not being allowed to aboard train and so causing push-in’. These are normally just the sparkles and means to spit out the frustrations lingering on the harassed, which is transferred to the innocent, unknown and unlucky assailant. The best part here is that we follow some rules in such fight. Apparently whatever the reason, if a fight has eventually broken between 2 people in a train, everybody else has the right to poke in and hit any of the two fighters irrespective of the understanding or belief on who was at fault. I have myself lost count of my participations in the number of such occasions. Of course I am normally very neutral in my views, so my actions are always repeated on both the parties equally. And when you take part in such activities, you are given the honour to tell a tale of the account to your friends later, of course sheepishly adding a line in the end that says ‘Fir maine bhi haath saaf kar hi liya’.

Platform Posters, Escalators and Advertisements:

Advertisements in the London tubes are rather sophisticated, though scarce numbers of these are actually used in the central London tubes. These actually include electronically moving Graphic Images in a rolling format, sequenced one after another. They are enclosed in a glass-protected frame, with the edges flagged with dark black strips all along. I once encountered with a very funny transition of two advertisements which put my wits into question. Recently while travelling through the ‘Westminister’ tube station, I saw a rolling advertisement that alternatively displayed advertisements on 'Quantum of Solace', the 007 movie; and advertisement for avoiding AIDS and spreading awareness. Well contrasting posters they were must say, as most of you would agree, both educate on completely different lines you see!

The London escalators are so long, that they are the best place for advertisements. The stairs revolve up and down slowly, and all those tagged along on them literally try to ignore their own restlessness by staring on the advertisements. The best advertisement was one I had seen in Victoria station, which had a motion picture kind of advertisement, where all the pictures from the top to the bottom of the escalators when watched together, would make you understand what the advertisement wanted to sell on!

The Mumbai platforms however boast a host of advertisements and information-rich posters. “Walk-through all the gestures describing human sentinels in a single poster of some Ekta Kapoor production soap-serials” or “the latest Z-grade movie running in an unknown corner of a busy city”. And to add the spice to the story, some message boards are also flagged with small leaflets of “Lost n Found candidates whose photos are so faded they resemble close to every soul you see around” or “Earn extra income from home” hanging indented on the advertisement boards.

I remember a time when I was travelling from the Jogeshwari station to some destination, and found a queer advertisement of a soap-serial, with a scene where the person with the main role is being attacked by an assailant by an unknown instrument. Let me correct you before you start wondering what is unknown. The advertisement was torn and so the suspense was ON. All the other posters in the station were even more damaged if not less than that. The build-up of the suspense was only broken when I finally ventured to the Mumbai streets and found the same poster, this time thankfully complete, on one of the side-roads!

Train Banners and Displays:

From recent periods, the Mumbai trains now have announcements made inside the compartments itself for the stations. Of course they are now another source of torture to the swarm of stuffed living beings in the compartments. But if you ever get a chance to see the Banners and Displays of Mumbai trains, you will be astounded by the vastness of the talent that we entertain. Right from the ones with standard defamed products of Mumbai, to the great service providers in Medical histories, all have their say in each and every Mumbai train.

The ‘Shah Piles advertisement’, the ‘After tenth direct degree admission to S.M.Lal private college’, ‘Babba Bengaali ka Chamatkar’ and so many posters of varied dimensions, colour language and for various amounts of target audience are available in display. The star attraction ones are those which mention only half-spilled information. Like the ones which say, ‘Call on :
9812345678’ And amongst all these star-studded advertisements, with great amount of difficulty and struggling to keep its identity known, come out in display the standard government warnings on, “not smoking cigarettes, and not carrying explosive materials, and no ticketless travelling, and so on”. Finally if all of this does not meet the daily talent dose of a few, we have a few scribblers and on-the-spot poster makers who use their pens, brushes and pencils to make art and announcements as important as ‘Lily hates Raja’ and ‘I love Rambha – signed Satish (with some apparent spelling mistakes all over)’.

The London tubes, however, have systematic control on the train banners and displays. All over the train you find the tube map and the train specific journey stops that it is going to encounter. Nobody can ever complete a journey without having pondered on these for at least sometime in a day. There are a few places however, where they do allow the advertisements, but most of them are boring and too difficult to understand. As you already know the sense of humour of these people is also too hard to get!

Display Screens – Tidiness and getting directions:

London tubes wins hands-out in the facilities availed on display screens. Firstly because they display much more than the present train arriving and estimated arrival time, secondly they also do mention if they are not in service! The tidiness of the platforms is also never a question. A few can of beers can surely be found either rolling on playfully on the platform, or finally settling into the train tracks.


You can find BSE written in the LED displays, of the Mumbai platforms for a 3:58 local, apparently due to reverse engineering techniques. In fact some of the LEDS normally don’t work. It’s a bit of abnormal if all are working properly. I have seen people narrowing their vision and adjusting their lenses to assure they are seeing the real world correctly, if they find all the LEDS working fine. A fast train will arrive when the display is still showing a slow trains scheduled to arrive which had already arrived earlier. Such disasters are so common in Mumbai trains.

But who will polish your shoes in the time of crisis in the London tubes? Who will provide you grubs of food sachets or fruits to eat if you are hungry suddenly? Who will provide you with magazines and ballpoint pens at silly cheap prices in your train journey?

London tubes have been so magnificently arranged that you can reach to any place based on your direction sense, tube map and the signs that each platform has at the most appropriate places. While in Mumbai platforms, we have so many people to ask to, and so many ways to get to, that we don’t feel bothered about those directions. However, it is always the risk of a prank from somebody to a newcomer or a new traveller.

Missing Elements:

The logic of reverse-business-hour traffic is all in display in the Mumbai local life. With most of the offices flagged in Central Mumbai or the southern Mumbai, the travel from all other zones to these areas is completely frenzied and unencumbered for most of the journey time.

If you want to see hawkers who sell things for cheap, it’s the Mumbai trains where you would find them. Small children, who don’t like begging, try to sell stuff for cheap to those who are ready to buy. Newspapers, water bottles, fruits, small toffees and hordes of books are all sold out in Mumbai locals. However they never do their business in the rush-hours, that’s when the logic of reverse-business-hour flow comes handy to them!

Another of the missing elements in the London tubes; are the beggars and the singers, those who may torment you in some of your journey times with their silly pranks.

While this is how it stands for the Mumbai locals, the London tubes have their own fascinating world of singers who like to make their living and drinking based on music they have learned. While the music they sing is too good to hear, who has the time to ponder on it?

The final word:

We might find the differences in the two trains appalling, but the most important thing that makes both of them unique and important is that they are the lifelines of the two cities. Nobody can imagine work and a normal life without these. They are the root of the city life and the real consequent of many normal livelihoods. And to add to it, the fact that no terror threats can stop the journey on these life-lines, just reasserts the known fact that truth always triumphs over the false.

- Ideas and fantasies are just false experiences of a world we desire!

- Chirag Khara

When I Lost Twice

“Ummmmmmm.... Mom, close them again please.” I shifted course on my bed, as the morning light shot on my eyes while the curtains moved away, and out I woke sighing and cribbing, just like those good ol’childhood days. It is difficult to get to sleep on your childhood bed for long, especially when you go to the age of being an earning and coming-to-responsible man. Life, dreams, endeavours, adventure and opportunities drive you away from those sweet moments of freedom, which were so much a part of your daily life as a child.

“Get up my son. Its already too late now and I have given you plenty of time to come out of your 'Jet-lags' and 'wonderful dreams with beautiful air-hostesses'. So get ready and be quick.”

“Oh my dear God, my mom knows me more than anybody. From all that I aspire, to all that I dream, she knows it all! Let me admit one thing, these mom's are your best creations buddy.” I pointed to nowhere and cuddled into my mom's arms.

“Enough lad, don't try to sugar me and buy more sleeping time...enough of your sleep. Stop calling God a buddy and get ready. I want to know how you’ve been all the time in UK?”

It was a struggling two-years time for me in UK, studying from the Leeds University, trying to put head together on a medical Masters in Statistical Epidemiology. It is said that life takes you to places and people, and yes when its on international destinations, you do study a lot more than you normally would. From preparing for the courses, to financial planning for my dreams, all was done and dusted with my loving parents help, and now it was my payback time. Returning back to home today, after so much time made India feel really special.

“Well Mom, not much updates from the last call I made you. My friends threw me a big farewell party and I have lots of stuff got for all of you.” I smuggled a piece of 'Naan-khatai' from my dad's breakfast dish, but she snapped it out of my fingers.

“You boys would never learn to talk and share. Get yourself freshened up first. Is 'serious working' somewhere in your timelines or you want to spend the rest of your lives in those Mc Donald restaurants only!” She muttered and went into her kitchen. I know my mom is proud of me. She may seem harsh and strict, but she loves me more than anybody, so much so that she never liked me having to work side-jobs and earn to contribute for my fees in the university.

Around afternoon time, the doorbell rang and rang repeatedly, the shrill voice filled up the whole house, and my mom almost knocked out her dishes as she ran out to open the door. “What is this Nidhu? Give us some time to at least open it!”

Nidhi is my elder sister, but more importantly my dearest friend. She knows all my secrets, big or small. And that’s how it is the other way round as well. It was a pact you could say...that pact which all brother-sister relation binds inherently.

She ran in, looked at me and exclaimed, “There you see, I told you naa mom, he must have grown thin by now. You have put down weight my brother. How are you dear?” Tears of joy glistened from her eyes instantaneously.

Tarun, my brother-in-law entered next and started laughing almost immediately. “There you go, here come the women H2O's.” All burst laughing even as we shook hands and he embraced me affectionately. Soon enough we were all in a get-together, I seemed to be talking endlessly. I dreamt myself in this happy situation all the days that I passed in UK, and finally I was living it. I realized how much I was relieved to be back home.

Tarun left after dinner, asking my sister to stay back with me and while all other retired for an exhaustive sleep, she ushered me into what was once her own sweety room, the place where we both shared our secrets in childhood.

After a brief silence, my sister shot a pierced questioning glance at me, settled her gaze to a steady line, and asked me, “So what happened of her?”

**********************
“I wanted to tell this to you for a long time. And like all others who face this situation, I was short of words. (Pause) I love you, Mithaali”, I looked straight into her eyes as my trembling lips spoke those magic words. I felt a crumble inside my stomach and my mouth went dry, I couldn't wonder why.

No "I like you's" or "I adore you's" or "I really think you are the sweetest" to check her reactions before blurting out more truths. Those schemes were not in my money for making proposals. The words from my mouth were flat, short and talked about my most deepest and pure sentiments for her.

They caught her midriff in wild fire, and she looked as if she was lost in surprise. Her beautiful eyelids fluttered slowly and she changed her vision to places at brief intervals. I thought she was preparing to tell something. After a brief moment that seemed like an eternity, she finally spoke, “Rahul, I don't know what to say. But let me begin it this way...” she paused.

I just don't realize how women master the art of keeping you guessing. I stared breathlessly with my mouth slightly open; to let the oxygen get in and out at its own convenience, allowing me to concentrate apprehensively, expecting every moment to hear a 'Yes' or a 'No' and end the gruelling wait for once and for all.

“Rahul, you are my best of friends. I really like you as one of them. I know I can confide on you more than anybody I know in this world. But I am not over it for a lifetime relation. My parents would not agree on it, and this would not go ahead.” she stopped torchering me finally.

We remained knowingly silent for the rest of our time as Star Bucks coffee shop continued to bustle around. Everything was normal from the outside, and nothing looked normal in the inside of both.

Rahul remembered the first time he met Mithaali, and how he was impressed by her thoughts and power to proceed on all odds and come over to UK for a career and a strong future. He always knew her to be focussed, looking towards becoming all that she dreamt of. Everything was clear for her mind, her targets, her life, her thoughts and her terms for her living. She shared all this with him more than anybody. He spent much of his time thinking about her, helping her in good times and the bad times as well. He remembered her tell many times, “Rahul yaar teri biwi badi ‘lucky’ hogi”. Yet on the brink of a decision called marriage, she seemed quite wanting to be ‘unlucky’, surprisingly different.

She looked at me with an assuring gesture took my palms in her hand and said, “My friendship with you will never end. And I know you will never disappoint me. I am sure you will understand my situation. I promise you Rahul; I can see ahead that you will get somebody much better than me.”

Her words were not making much sense to me, maybe because they left lots of questions unanswered.

That day I lost my first battle, I thought.

**********************
“Mom, I don’t want all this nonsense now. You go to the extent of calling them at home and not even letting me know? I was happy in UK only yaar, at least wouldn’t have to bear all this nautanki…” I banged the pieces of papers in my hands into the bin and they missed the target completely. She collected the scattered bits silently even as I marched past.

An hour later she came to me with a piece of paper and told, “Have a read at her bio-data my child… at least read what she thinks about herself.”

“Thanks a lot my darling mom, now I am made to read the ‘Preface’ of unknown people’s ‘biographies’ to prepare and attend marriage interviews. I am so very honoured today!” I gave a sarcastic grin and took the paper from her hand, stamping it on the bed quilt. I called up my sister immediately, but it rang busy.

By the time I got up for a bath, I was more calm and thoughtful. It was difficult for me to come out of the influence of what I thought about Mithaali, and there was no way I could involve in any other commitments in my life so soon. But I had to carry my life ahead, if not for myself but for my Mom and my Dad.

“All right sweetheart, I shall handle this one meeting and take it through without incident, but I don’t want any other from hereafter, am I clear?” I finally told my mom as we sat for the lunch. She softened instantly and pampered me, “Good boy. I knew you would understand me.”

“But remember mom, I bet this is not going to work out? So do not ask questions after the drama is over? ” I let out a prominent tatter in my words as they finished the line.

“I am sure you will loose this bet my son.” my mom replied. She looked at me with a teasing smile, waiting for me to open up a shy smile myself.

“Mom, I am the judge here, so only my team is winning. Is the logic clear?” I shoved confidently as I got up. My dad raised his eyebrows, looked at me without turning his face and smiled, I wondered why.

**********************
“I think now we can leave Rahul and Sunita for a while to talk through themselves and know each other better.” Like thorough professionals who have mastered the art for years, both the parents moved briskly to another room, and here I was all alone talking to an unknown person, fantasy of a possible “Arranged Marriage”.

We unwittingly observed two minutes of silence – it seemed as if both of us were mourning for what could be a prospectively permanent loss of our ultimate freedom called Bachelorship if this marriage ever were to happen.

She did look beautiful; we would make a good pair if thought that way. But that was not so important, she would not match Mithaali in any sense. I always had intuitions for girls in the first look, and those were always correct the very first time. She would not match Mithaali for sure; I made a final call to myself.

“Well my name is Rahul, and I just completed Masters in Statistical Epidemiology from Leeds University.” I finally tried to strike a conversation hoping to waste sometime and get out of there when possible.

“I know, I did read the Bio-data, before I agreed meeting up.” she responded immediately. I turned cold on such a stupid beginning from my side. I had not even read about her profession! Just her name and this meeting for the sake of a formality was all with what I began this journey.

I closed my eyes for few seconds, and finally got myself out of the jukebox, deciding to try and speak to her more easily. The conversation began with sharing interests, passions and went on to more underlying truths on our own thoughts about life. There was not much in common between us in terms of our goals, our passions, but she still had a strong impact on me. I liked her for something; I didn’t know what it was then. I was thoroughly confused.

“I am actually looking for a partner who has a focussed career path in mind. Somebody who knows what she wants to become and can do it on her own. I wanna give her that independence of her own. I want her to have an individual identity in the family. And yaa, of course she should be caring and friendly too.” I told her boldly. She listened to me intently, and probably in herself she didn’t look surprised!

As I had not read about her in the bio-data which mom gave me, I had to think of a diplomatic way to get information from herself about her own. So I began, “How do you normally spend your day – I mean in terms of the routines?”

“I work mornings as a clinical research analyst in the Jivraj Mehta hospital, and in the afternoon times, I spend time at the Ramsukhbhai School for mentally challenged children.” She said proudly.

I was dumbfounded. I felt the earth below me shake a bit, as I heard those words. I couldn’t believe Mom picked her for me! This was utter waste of time, I thought.

“You might wonder where my focus in life is, isn’t it?” she continued. “What I am expecting in this marriage is a friend who can help me to accomplish my dream. I don’t think that I was educated to run all my life just behind money and not do all that I dreamt of.” She was looking into my eyes as she spoke. I am sure she was analyzing every moment if I was interested to hear furthermore.

“Can you tell me what does that mean?” I blurted without a thought. After reading her eyes, I wanted to know more myself.

“I have spent many years of my life in education and understanding the way the world behaves. I know God has been very kind to me; I have achieved all that I wanted. But I have learned that I need to share all this with as many people around as possible. Happiness is not about going to many places for a trip more occasionally then others. It’s about doing all that your heart wants at some point of time.” She paused.

“I want a lovable husband who can take up the job of securing the future of both of us, and while I take care of home and my career, we both allow our time to do what we wanted to do all our life – serve the needy and the inopportuned.” I heard her say.

“Do you mean to say you don’t think money and fun is important in life?” I almost jerked out on her affable but impractical way of thinking.

“Of course I like to have fun and parties once in a while. Who doesn’t like it? But I have seen many couples that spend all their lives running to earn a lot of money. I have also seen couples that are struggling to do well in their ways, because they don’t come out of their ego and share responsibilities, success and failure. I think all of them are making one common mistake.” She looked downwards and paused to straighten the ‘pallu’ of her long salwaar she was wearing.

“What is that one thing?” I desperately wanted to hear her say more. It was a new perspective of living I wanted to hear more on.

“When I see people in pain, when I see troubles or ignorance, I aspire to remove them from this world. I become an Engineer to build better places, a Doctor to help all people fight diseases, an IT professional to help me get things done quickly more easily, more accurately and a reporter to spread awareness and kill ignorance all over the world. We do this because in our childhood, we decide to secure a future for ourselves and then transmit opportunities to others when we are self-satisfied. Even I dreamt this in my childhood, but I have kept my focus in it even now. We complicate our lives because we never realize when we’ll reach the stage of self-satisfaction. All that we get is never enough for us, and we forget to share.” I discovered she had a firm beautiful voice.

“I totally agree to you.” I meekly put in. Silence fell in again.

**********************
“Shantanu, don’t try to climb over that Rock.” She chided on him rolling her eyes in a false show of anger. He quickly retarded his action and went back to playing with the Abacus.

I don’t know what made me do so, but I called Sunita up that morning and told her I wanted to spend sometime in Ramsukhbhai School. I reached there impromptu about what I was going to talk to her. Maybe for that one day, I wanted to feel her rather than talk to her.

“Thanks for coming. My students like new visitors. Would you play with them?” she said thus and looked at me questioningly. “I surely will. Time for me to learn Math better using the Abacus.” I put in. We laughed.

I sat with her in a small porch in the vicinity of all the kids playing in the fenced garden. All of the children were occupied in their art. It seemed like colours had been sprayed around me. The scene was wonderful.

“Many teachers have their own reason for being here. Some do to keep themselves engaged and run away from the problems they spend each passing day. Some do so because they can’t forget how they have missed their opportunities, and how they must contribute the rest of their life in here. But my reasons suggests I am greedy.”

“Is it?? How can you be greedy for helping them build up their life?” I almost exclaimed.

“When I spend time at the Jivraj Mehta Hospital, I am looking into career prospects and remaining independently earning. Since you are in medical science yourself, you would know how Medical research is necessary in bio-medical ethics and public health laws. I work for Human Cell stem research, studying advancements in the umbilical cord care, adolescent health care and data analysis on medical informatics.” It was interesting to know her doing so well in so many fields already at this young age. She had to be very intelligent.

“But I think in everybody’s life you have good situations and some bad times as well. Like every other person, I have times where I feel rejections, get dejected or unlucky. In those evenings when I come down here, I find how lucky I am, to be able to live better than these unfortunate ones. So you see, if I do serve them wholly and involve in service, I get paid back a million more. I surely am greedy to remain the caring human, this school keeps me down to the earth where we live.” She smiled at herself as she spoke. Her innocence filled up my ears. My heartbeats were more prominent to my senses now.

The wind swerved my hairs behind as I stood at the edge of the local train travelling back to my suburb. I always loved the train travel in Mumbai as a college going student. I embraced and leaned strongly on the centre rod near the door, lost in my own thoughts. Yet again today after a long time, I was truly smiling.

Was it just the innocence and purity of her that filled my senses, or was I in love? No I can’t be in one so soon? But she surely was making me feel better every moment.

**********************
“There he goes, again writing on his red diary. Will you ever stop making collection of those diaries of yours? They just keep piling and piling. Do you ever read them again? Common Rahul, its late now, I want to talk to you.” My mom was always complaining to me. Right from my childhood, I always maintained diaries, those that I updated on adhoc basis whenever I would get time. I maintained my own bookshelf with all of them; maybe I aspired to relive my past moments of life somewhere in the older days ahead.

I rolled over the pen to the centre of the diary, and closed it. Turning over, I accepted the glass of badam milk from my mom and muttered, “You never loose a chance to harass me mom, do you?”

“Drink that thing without any more complains. So tell me how you spent your day today.” I knew what information she wanted. Women! Oh how stubborn can they get!

“Well… morning I went over to finalize the deals for our new house and visited the loans department as well. Around late afternoon, I went to Ramsukhbhai School to meet Sunita.” I paused.

“Mom I want to tell you something, something which me and didi had hidden from you. I did not feel like telling about it then, but today I want to share it with you.” I looked down and heaved a sigh, trying to figure out how to begin talking.

“Mom, while I was in UK, do you remember I had told you many times about one of my classmate and how she was one amongst the best pals of mine?” She nodded but stayed quiet, for me to continue. “Mom actually, while I was in UK, I came very close to her and I fell in love with her. Not that it matters now though, because she always considered me just a friend.” As I shrugged, she maintained her silence, but she didn’t speak, so I had to continue even further.

“Mom I find Sunita a very nice girl, but I think I am being unfair to her by not telling her the truth. I am amazed by her, I am getting attracted to her even whilst my recent past. But I have not yet forgotten it as much, and I don’t want to cheat on Sunita. Tell me mom, tell me what to do?”

“Your friend’s name in Mithaali Shah and she lives in Andheri west, right?” My mom looked straight into my eyes as she spoke.

“How do you know all that…!??!” I exclaimed.

“Sunita Desai is one of the best friends of Mithaali Shah, they both studied in the same Junior college. I came to know about Sunita because Mithaali told me about her the day you left for India.” I felt I lost my balance for a wee bit; everything around seemed irregular for a minute. I could hardly believe what I heard.

“But Rahul, Sunita doesn’t know about Mithaali’s friendship and her past with you.” My mom paused. “Listen my son, not always is it possible for somebody to commit being all your life with you. We do not lead our life for one person. What makes Mithaali your true friend is that she found the perfect girl for you, somebody even more suitable for you, so even as a friend, she understood you the most. I am happy you loved a girl like her. But my dear, Sunita is surely a girl more perfect for you.” My mom always deepened her tone when she said important things. I was stunned by these disclosures.

“I had told you that you will loose the bet, the reason behind that was not just what I foresaw in the meeting. Maybe I knew that if Mithaali was indeed your best friend, she would surely find you your best partner.” She ended.

The badam milk lay on the desk just like that. I stared at it in a state of blackout, confused whether to be happy or be sad with the revelations.

At that moment, I felt I lost the battle a second time.

**********************
Marriage and love are two different sentiments. Love binds you with a feeling that is inseparable but not necessarily bound with togetherness. Marriage is a bond that thrives on the trust that both give each other to stay together all your life. Love can help you build that bond with somebody, and stay all our life in the sacred relation of marriage. But that, my dear friends, is not necessarily the only way.

When you are actually ready to accept somebody as your partner, you try to find the best match for yourself. This is what you do even when you fall in love, the only difference is that it may not be so apparent when you fall in love, but then what you want from both ways always remains the same.

So every marriage, be it a ‘love marriage’ or ‘arranged marriage’, is successful only if your intent towards living a happy married life is true and complete. Then your efforts, time and happiness, everything is directed only towards sharing that togetherness with whomsoever you choose on your own.

Today is my first marriage anniversary, and of course I love my wife Sunita a lot. However, we both have mutually decided to not celebrate on this special occasion this year.

In India, we do not celebrate any occasions within few days of the loss of any of our dear ones. And sure enough, Mithaali, who left us to make a journey to eternal worlds a few days back, was one of our dearest friends. I know she loved me.

Every time I remember her, I remember how I always thought I lost twice, but how she proved it to be otherwise.

**********************
- When My heart beats,
Chirag Khara