On the return from office today, Ramadurai, Raghavan and I traveled together. We boarded a coach at the front of the train and it was quite an empty one. We occupied seats that were in the west side of the train.
Ram was the first one to detrain and his station was to the east of the train. We had already exchanged quite a few “bye byes” and so, I was a little surprised to hear him call out my name. I looked around and spotted him near a window. I hope you remember the directional indicators I'd given earlier. This in effect meant that, Ram was calling me from one side of the coach to the other end where I was seated.
And at that point, it obviously attracted a couple of passenger's attention. Bored with reading a magazine and also with peeping into the magazine of their neighbors, some of these guys were looking askance at the 2 of us. Ram said some absolutely useless stuff which I am sure even he doesn't remember. I told Raghavan that the whole thing was like the scene when we give a sendoff to our near and dear at the railway station, when the train they have boarded starts moving towards its destinations 100s of Kms away. I even wondered aloud to Raghavan if Ram probably had the habit of waving aimlessly at a passing train hoping that someone inside would return that favor! I need to check this with Ram tomorrow.
Anyways, at the next stop, Raghavan gets down and behold my surprise, when he too came near the window and asked if he should get me some water or juice!!!! I am like, "huh". What? Am I really in an EMU headed from Paranur to Guindy or am I undertaking a journey to Guntur?
No doubt that both of them had very noble intentions, but the lady sitting in the seat closer to the window and who had the (mis)fortune to hear both of them, must have surely thought that I was one poor “ba lamb” make his first trip on the EMU!
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