I joined MIT, Manipal for MTech in Computer Science and Engineering in July 2007. Manipal is just 5 and half hours from Goa by train & 8 hours by road.The pathetic state of the roads & the fact that you have to travel all the way to Udupi bus-stand (some 4-5 kms) from the hostel to catch the bus at 10 pm, the 4'o clock train from Udupi Railway Station was the obvious choice of travel to Goa. I had no prior experience of traveling alone by trains, but my parents assured me that there was no need to worry. It was a short journey and I had to just get into the train at the Udupi Railway Station,go find my seat, sit there quietly (Read: No Talking to co-passengers i.e. strangers) & my parents would come & pick me up once I reached Margao railway station. When they narrated the entire thing to me, it sounded pretty simple. So I bought myself a sleeper class ticket of Matsyagandha Super Fast Express and I managed to travel all by myself to Margao from Udupi.
I was so proud of myself. I felt like I had won some kind of a battle. So I got over-confident & thought- "Why pay twice the amount for a sleeper ticket when I can travel in half the price in a general compartment for five and half hours?” So the next time I had to travel to Goa, I made up my mind- I was going to travel general class!
For those of my readers who do not know, general compartment of a train has NO reservations. So it would save me one extra trip to the Udupi Railway station to buy a sleeper ticket. General Class seats are purely on first come first server basis. As soon as the train arrived on the platform, there was quite a chaos, people pushing each other to get into the train. It was scary at first but they say-When you are in Rome, do what the Romans do. I joined the league & somehow managed to push through & get into the train. Once in the train, I did not have to look too far for company. I found another girl who was traveling to Honnavar & even though I did not know her, I had noticed her in the mess. It did not take us long to start a conversation & we got so engrossed in our talks, that we did not realize how fast time flew by & we reached Honnavar. She got down & now my real challenge started.
I was left all alone in the berth. I consoled myself. Two and half hours more, time will fly just like that. I pulled out my ipod, plugged the ear-phones in and staring out at the lovely countryside, I was soon lost in my thoughts. I was drowned into Brian Adam's sound of the guitar when I thought I heard someone's voice. I opened my eyes and saw that the sometime back empty berth now had an occupant.
It was a man in his late twenties. He gave me a faint smile when I looked at him. I didn't like that. There was no-one else in the berth besides the two of us. I did not find the thought very comforting of having to share the entire berth with a stranger for two and half hours. I decided to ignore this man and pumped up my ipod volume. But my new co-passenger wasn't going to let me enjoy my music in peace. He started a conversation.
Thanks to my loud voice, he had been hearing the entire conversation between me and the other girl and when I was just beginning to relax that he must have not understood most of it (since we were conversing in Konkani), he told me he was a Konkani from Manipal. I was embarrassed and angry. But I couldn't do much about it anyways and I thought, now that he had already known so much about me, it wouldn't be such a bad idea after all to talk to him! So there, our conversation took off.
He had been an alumnus of MIT for his bachelors so we talked about all the things which had changed at the campus since the time he had left and I had joined. We spoke about Manipal, the town, the student life here. It was fun. I was enjoying talking to this stranger. While talking to him, I realized he was carrying quite a bit of luggage, including an expensive laptop. Now, General Compartment of a train isn't really the best option if you are traveling long distance. All this while I had assumed he was traveling to Goa or some nearby destination. He told me, he was traveling to Mumbai from Udupi which was an overnight journey. He hadn't managed to get the sleeper ticket and since this trip was urgent, he had no choice but to travel in general class. I was curious and thought to myself-What could be so important that he took the risk and the pains to travel in a general compartment to Mumbai for 14 hours? As if he read my mind- "I'm going to meet a girl in Mumbai.” he said.
That was actually the point I got interested in the conversation. I didn't know this guy enough to ask personal questions but I can be really shameless at times and this was one of those moments. Luckily for me, my co-passenger didn't seem to mind my inquisitive nature and he started talking. I guess he was also getting bored during the journey and badly wanted company. The exchanging of photographs was done, he had liked the girl. The matching of horoscopes was also done. The horoscopes matched perfectly. Now the only thing that was remaining was to meet the girl and to approve her. He looked very anxious as he spoke. "I'll be married within 2 months if everything goes well," he said. I assured him not to worry and that if it was in his destiny he would end up with this girl. My friends say I'm pretty good at giving advice and gyaan and this was probably one of those moments coz I saw my co-passenger listen keenly to everything I was telling him. We spoke for a long time and with good company, time always flies. I didn't realize when the train reached Margao station. We exchanged email addresses and as I was just getting off the train, he said-"I'm going to send you my wedding card if everything works out and since the wedding is going to be in Manipal, you will have to come." I nodded my head, little did I know I would have to keep this promise very soon.
I got back to Manipal in a day or two and got busy with all the chores of student life. I completely forgot about this "Train" friend of mine. This was until I found an email in my mailbox. It was from him. He had met the gal in Mumbai, liked her and now they were getting married. The wedding was planned in Manipal, his hometown and he had sent out the invitation to me as promised. I was touched by his action and quickly responded back with a "Thank You" note but at the same time I knew I wasn’t going to attend this wedding ceremony-“What if this man doesn’t recognize me? It would be so embarrassing! After all, we had just met once in a train.” However, to my bad luck, my Train friend kept insisting email after email that I come for the wedding and that he would be really disappointed if I did not show up. Finally, after realizing that I was exhausted with all the plausible excuses under the Sun, I said a yes.
The next big thing was who to take. I had never attended a South Indian wedding before so I decided to take one of my South Indian roomies along, just so that she could help me out with the customs to be followed at the ceremony. At the prospects of escaping the mess food, she agreed instantly.
It was a Saturday afternoon; we had no classes during that time. We got dressed in some of our best attires, I got a nice bouquet of flowers for the couple and there we were, on our way to the venue. We reached the venue in no time. Manipal being a small place sans traffic. The place was over-crowded. I thought as if the entire village had been invited. Maneuvering our way through the crowd, we somehow managed to reach the stage to greet the couple. I was still framing my dialogues in my mind, just in case he did not recognize me when to my surprise, the moment he saw me, he didn’t just recognize me but he greeted me with a big wide smile. He also introduced me to his wife as “The Train friend”. It seems he had already told her how we had met and his wife told me how happy she was to see me at their reception. I gave an uncomfortable smile. The photographer asked us to pose for a picture with the newly weds and we promptly did. We wished the couple “Happy Married life” and escaped quietly to the lunch section.
I started writing this post long ago, almost 6 months back but with my busy life, never got a chance to complete it and it just remained an incomplete article in my Google Docs. Last weekend, as I was relaxing at home in the evening, I got a call from the same train friend. It has been almost 2 years since we have met/talked/emailed but he still had my number. He just called to say that he had moved to Bangalore now with his family-wife and a 1 month old baby boy. “We should meet some day”, he said.
As I hung up, I was lost in the ocean of my thoughts. We meet so many people everyday and there are strange connections happening all the time and some of these connections go a long way for some strange ones like me, to write this blog post!
Cheers to the Wedding Invitation!
