On the Rails...

A prototypical young couple. Married, not for more than a year, by the looks of it. The guy, immersed in his tablet playing Candy Crush. Opposite of him, sits his wife, legs crossed, enjoying the gentle breeze by the window – stealing glances at her husband, with annoyance or love, one would never know. Could always bet on annoyance, I guess.

A prototypical, unbelievably loud and large family. Two small children, heads covered ear to ear with mufflers to escape the scathing Bengaluru’s cold. Aged around five, the age when one starts the never-ending hatred of the world around, crying and sobbing to be allowed to play. Their parents, pushing two big-ass smartphones inside their tiny naïve hands, putting dexterity to use and curiosity to lose. Two burly men, with strong muscular arms, remnants of a country upbringing – the children’s uncles – having an animated conversation over a hearty dinner. The conversation, so thick and hoarse with accent, one could easily mistake it for an impending bank robbery. Or, maybe it would not be a mistake.

The prototypical young girl. Having booked the ticket last moment, huddles in the upper side car with her laptop and a grad school jacket. A college student, or maybe yet another IT sucker, with a back bag as her only luggage, stares at her laptop silently. Couple of creases lashes on her forehead like a rough wave against a calm shore, as her eyes scan the screen every second. Her long slender fingers with unkempt nails and gypsy styled rings, run over the keyboard, in a glorious and harmonious synchrony with her eyes.

She pauses and lets her eyes dart to land on every one of her co-passengers. Her mind silently ranks them on all possible earthly virtues. She lets out a snort, the family is not really coming strong on the rank front.

The children’s wailings raises exponentially until one of the would-be robber uncles threatens to leave them in here if they don’t go to sleep. Little does he realise, that as adults, sometimes, all we want is to get on a train and wander the lust out of our fucking lives.

The young girl gets caught in the middle of her gyaan by a revelation. She has her assignment to finish by tomorrow. But, where does it rank currently in the scheme of choices? Is it more important than cuddling up and closing her eyes to the soothing hypnotic rhythm of the rails? Is it more important than the fulfilling ordeal of psycho-analysing fellow species and imagining herself to appear more mystic than Kant or Nietzsche? Is it more important than stringing together an arbitrary set of symbols which could be decoded universally by the code - ‘language’ and getting self-praise from a narrow band of other members of the species via ‘Social Network’?.

The girl decides.