The elusive travelling damsels

This blog will definitely strike a raw nerve with most guys. Every guy when on travel hopes that his long arduous journey will be made much more bearable by a damsel who happens to have a seat right next to him. Statistically, from my personal experience I can say that this happens once in 24 years. Sadly, I am over 24 and this has happened to me twice which means this is not likely to happen again for a long long time. Guys while entering a train will immediately head to the reservation chart stuck outside and rather than finding their own seat numbers will do a quick search of all the maidens on the chart. This will be followed by a quick reconnaissance of the coach in case they missed a name in the chart. Of course, I have never been lucky with the trains. I mostly end up next to wailing kids or aunties/uncles who are very interested in knowing as to why I don’t work in certain large Indian companies and why I really work for the one I do.

In my 24th year, for the first time during a travel, a plane this time, an extremely pretty looking damsel ended up next to me. I did get talking to her and made considerable progress in the short flight time of 45 mins. Of course, while making this considerable progress I forgot to get her name and she mine. Actually, I think she really wasn’t interested in mine and I was too chicken to ask hers. But I did get to know her college and her favourite music in this short span of time. Sadly, this story had to come to an abrupt halt since I was to leave for another country for a long time. There was really no ROI for me in this. ROI = return on investment. Its one of those three letter acronyms often used in the finance world.

The second time this happened a few years later, the story is even more a heart wrenching one. :-) In a bus that I used to travel by often, I noticed this damsel who suddenly ended up next to me through some timely divine intervention. This time, I did make it a point to get the name and also ended up getting a substantial knowledge of classical music while doing so. After a nice 45 mins of interesting conversation, I was to see this damsel nearly one year later which I found out later to be due to a change in the bus routes. When she saw me again, she actually smiled at me and we again got talking. In this conversation about how the year had gone by, I also got an invitation to her wedding. And this previous sentence pretty much signifies the end of the blog among other things.

On another note, beware of fake lime soda sellers in the Ernakulam region of Kerela. In these parts, the lime soda is equivalent to 7-up with salt in it.

Snap Scam…

Picturize this, and I am sure this has happened to you at least once in your lifetime. You have to go this particular government office which opens at about 9.30 am. In order to get your work done early, you are already there by 8.30 am and you realize that half the city also happened to have the same idea. And there you are standing in a queue, with a zillion people ahead of you. You have all the necessary forms and photographs ready. After 3 hours of standing and waiting you reach your destiny and then you read this sign. “Photographs should have a light background and not dark”. You hesitantly look at the photographs you are having and turns out that they have dark RED background. So you fervently pray that you can actually get away this. This time you actually do, but the guy ahead isn’t as lucky. He scrambles to the nearest studio in search of a white background like a thirsty man searching for water.

The funny part here is that just one month back when I visited this office, the sign said “Applicants need to have photographs with a RED background” only and hence the reason for carrying a red background picture. A few years back when I had visited this office, the notice said “LIGHT background photographs required”. Next time around, I am definitely going to play it safe. I figured that there are atleast 10 different backgrounds possible for the photos. I am going to carry 2 snaps of each of them. Depending on what the background colour of the day is, I will use the appropriate snap. I am also interested in knowing as to how the colour of the day is chosen. Is it based on a lucky draw or the roll of a dice or the whim of the minister in question? Of course, the studio owners would be extremely happy with this system. Thanks to the uncertainty in the colour of the day, they are doing booming business. Every applicant probably has at least 20 pictures taken, 2 per background. But in defence of this office in question, it has an extremely fast and a systematic system of handling applications given the volume. They have taken every pain to make this a hassle-free process barring the photograph issue.

Finally, on a bus journey in a private bus do not go by the conductor’s words even after he checks your E-ticket. Talk to the driver and confirm that the bus is indeed going to that place. Else like yours truly here, you will end up on a bus to Cochin, travel a km towards Cochin, then realise that you are in the wrong bus, run back to the bus stop at breakneck speed to catch the Hyderabad bus for the fear of missing it, nearly kill yourselves of exhaustion while doing this and then find that the bus is late. Phew!! That was a long sentence.