Two Ladies,One Eligible Bachelor and a Railway Compartment.

Hello friends,
Lets start this with a Wish : That everyone of us enjoy Puja and Navaratri in the right spirit this year.

As for me, I put on my travelling boots and reached the city of everything : Kolkata. The journey was exciting - Here's a short one for the journey!

12 midnight (The Night Before) :
My drooping eyes could hardly take on anything further- I was so tired. Still the DVDs had to written as per my promise to my brother in Kolkata. I tend to make promises in situations which are superimposable on ideal conditions but somehow or the other, when it comes to fulfilling them - the conditions are such that it seems all but natural to do just the opposite. But keeping up my guts, I decided to do what I had promised - write some movies and stuff. And then I fell asleep.

5 AM (Journey Day 1): The blaring sound of my Hat-Dance ringtone of my age-old Nokia phoned cut through my sleep like scissors. My bro had called up to wake me. I woke up cursing my luck. It isn't always that you get good dreams and neither do you get enough care to be woken up in the morning. As my luck would have it, I had to face their union on the same morning....

Waking up my best pal to take me to the Railway Station was the next barrier I had to get through. I firmly believe that you should never tickle Sleeping Dragons but sometimes you need to take drastic steps. I finally woke Kav up.

7:35 Am (Green Signals)
My train left for Howrah at its scheduled time. I had heard that Lalu had introduced hostesses in 2 tier AC compartments. But my good-luck sun had still not risen : there were no hostesses in my train.

And then I saw her.

No, it wasnt a "her". It was a "them". Two beautiful girls walking towards my compartment. Keats had said that a thing of beauty is a joy forever. How right he was! I just couldn't suppress my smile with laddoos popping out of my heart. This journey's going to be interesting, I knew.

God had other plans.

Lady 1 was young and reminded me of Ayesha Takia the moment my eyes fell on her. Good looking, young and smart. What a treat it would be to accompany someone like her.
Lady 2 looked more friendly, more young and had a touch of "homeliness" about her. Ideal daughter-in-law for my Mom! She smiled when she saw me looking at her from my compartment- touching the chord of the guitar of my heart.

My thoughts meandered around possibilities and topics I would converse on. It had been long since I had tried to impress a girl. Not that I was a first-timer, still, to pick up a line to initiate a talk with a girl needed lots of exercise of grey matter. Being in a train had, however, certain advantages. The first being no one had anything to do in particular. The second factor is it didn't seem awkward or out-of-place to talk with a stranger.

The second factor is what prevents us from making acquaintances of the opposite sex in public places like bus stops etc.

As I kept thinking, I was confronted with the Impossible.

I am having astigmatism - a condition where I require cylindrical lens to correct my vision. I din't have glasses so I hadnt seen the baby with Lady 1.

"what the.." I thought. Still I picked up a conversation. And I was shocked.

Light travels faster than sound. So you should never trust your instincts on a person till you hear them speak. She din't have the brains you would hope her to have- to accompany her good looks. She had no idea what rubbish she was talking about.

The crystal ball of my hopes had crashed to a million pieces.

Picking up a conversation with Lady 2 led me to the knowledge of the fact that she was younger than me and still was happily married. "for 10 months now"- was what I got out of her after picking up a conversation.

Some guy had crossed the line even before I had started the race.

The laddoos had stopped popping. My grey matter left its exercises while I made monkey faces to amuse the child. The journey had ended.

And a new one had begun. Kolkata is after all, a city of everything. And everything includes Hope.

Wish me luck!