1997. I was a bachelor.
It all started when I had to take the 18:30 train, to some obscure place in the north, at the Chennai Central Station. I had to work through the previous night, and I reached my room late morning, at around 11.00. After brunch, I was too tired to pack for the travel. A bachelor regrets being one, at such moments. (A married man knows that with such few moments of regret a bachelor is very lucky.) So I put off my packing for the evening, set the alarm at 16:00 and went to sleep. Sweet dreams – day dreaming.
Dreams are the best part of bachelor life, especially when it is about girls. I met a girl in the computer centre where I was learning ‘Visual basic’. I joined the course there mainly because the ‘basic visuals’ were good. This particular girl is very calm – I can say, ‘a girl of no words’. I’m a chatter box, quite funny. I also have the habit of pulling the trainers’ legs at every chance. I basically hated software stuff and had joined the course due to enormous pressure from people around me. Everyone in the world was a software engineer. And being a mechanical engineer, who chose to go to a hammer and tongs job (not the right usage though), I was always looked at with the ‘oh, you’re not in software industry is it? Why?’ My answer, ‘I chose to be a mechanical engineer’, was brushed aside and they’ll always say, ‘don’t worry, just do some course in mainframe and you’ll surely ride the Y2K problem to US’. Listening to this made my parents a worried lot - that their son was in the wrong league and put immense pressure on me to become a software engineer and go to US. Okay forget about that. It never happened, and that both their children became bankers later, is history. They also managed to marry non-software people and seem to be surviving.
I had always been fascinated by clam girls (That I later learnt that there is no such thing as a clam girl, is altogether a different thing). This girl was cute too. She always looked towards my direction when there was an opportunity for any expert comment during the class. I had to oblige and she did enjoy most of my comments (Others did too, I think). I had been trying to get to meet this girl alone so that I can pour out the feelings in my heart.
Then came the day I got a chance to meet her alone (Those days it was not easy to get friendly with girls. I hope it is not so even today. Otherwise the whole fun is gone). One day, I went early to the class. No one was there, but her. She was alone. I was alone. The air was filled with manmadhan ambus. ‘Ennavalae, adi ennavalae…’ was flowing from the nearby tea shop. I was still comprehending the situation. Then it happened. She walked towards me, with a smile and sparkle in her eyes. She stood in front of me, looked into my eyes and… rrrrringgg, the alarm went.
It was 16:00. I woke up with a start and started off. I had all the packing to do. I brushed teeth and washed my face. (Bath?! What I had just done was already too much for bachelors). Then came packing. I first went for the clothes. My previous negligence in this matter has landed me 10 pairs more of all that I require. This time I ensured that I pack everything. Then the shaving kit, soap, paste and bursh. Placed the office file on top of these and closed the box, latched and locked…..lock?! Where is the key? Where the hell is the key? Where did I keep it? The rack, the hanger, the cot, the this, the that… It is already 17:15 and the key is nowhere to be seen. “To hell with it”, I thought “I’ll take the box without locking it”. I lifted the box… and found the key… under it. Argh!.
It was already 17:25 by the time I locked my door and stepped out of the gate looking for an auto. Chennai is world famous for the capabilities of its auto drivers. They are capable of face reading. The moment they look at your face they know how desperate you are. After waiting for a while I encountered the first autowalla at 17:40. Having completed his assessment of me, he threw a disarming look at me and asked, ‘where?’
‘Central.’
‘Can go.’ (Thank God he accepted my prayer.)
‘How much?’ I asked
’80 rupees’. That was a huge amount at that time.
‘Eighty?’ I gasped.
‘No return savari at this time saar.’
‘ok.’
Showering the choicest of curses in the world, on those who dared to cross his sight, he rushed through the streets as if he were in a race to death. Whenever there was an on coming vehicle, the race was to find out who can hold without applying the brakes. It always was my autowalla, who’d win. Now my priorities had changed. I just wanted to reach the station in one piece, let alone in time to take the train. Inside the auto my soul was virtually being shaken out of my body. The bumps and the dumps in the road were so perfectly engineered that they gave a certain pattern to the vibration… just that I had to focus and capture it.
The vibration stopped. I came out of the trance and asked, ‘what?’.
‘Signal saar’
Traffic signals were (and still are) a planning marvel. They were so perfectly programmed that if you stop at one, then it is red light all the way. And at each red light you lose sufficient time to make you jumpy.
At last, after crossing all the obstacles, I reached the station at 18:25. I paid the fare and started on my mission to reach the train from the entrance. Murphy’s Law states that when you have a train to catch in a crowded station and are in a hurry, the person walking just in front of you is NOT. I waded through the crowd by pulling and pushing myself to reach the platform and found it empty….
And was told that the train was running late by 6 hours… only….
