Makeover!

It has been over a year since I travelled by the Shatabdi between Singaara Chennai and Bengaluru. As I hurriedly walked along platform 2A to board the Shatabdi, its new sleek look with steel coloured body caught my eye. I remember dismissing it off as a superficial, cosmetic indulgence of no consequence and braced my self to endure a 5 hour journey of cramped leg space, crying babies and if my luck was rotten, a steady AC blast to irritate my sensitive sinuses.

I was stumped when I got into my coach. I stood at the doorway with dropped jaws. The huge glass windows reminded me of a Kajol – Shah Rukh sequence from DDLJ – only that the scene through the glass was not that scenic. As I kept thinking of one random movie song after another, I was subconsciously yanking at the door – which for some strange reason refused to open.

An exasperated gentleman tapped me on my shoulder and sadly shook his head from side to side and showed me a big bright green sign that said “Slide to open”. He was a sure shot middle management type guy – suit, laptop, blackberry… and he gave me a look that said – “These village girls…” I was too consumed by the redone interiors of the train to process his look-down-upon-you attitude. I stepped into the coach and walked slowly – absorbing the swanky interiors – jaw still dropped, so much so I caused a traffic jam of sorts.

The upholstery is now a pleasant sea green with some super soft felt kind of fabric as against the drab grey earlier, the storage space is a kickass see through plastic slab fitted with reading lights, no more musty cloth curtains – there are now some awesome pull down screens, the leg space feels like I am flying business class and the leg rests have been placed more intelligently. I kept playing with the reading lights, only to corroborate the middle mgmt guy’s impression of me! And yeah – the AC ducts are now distributed evenly through the length of the train and I did not have to do through my SOP for fighting cold.

As I settled in, I was handed out a newspaper - characteristic salmon pink with my company’s name splashed on it that made me smile with pride. And much to Mr. Middle mgmt’s surprise, I actually read the paper!

I slept like a baby, read a great book and knew that a great weekend lay ahead of me. Could it be more perfect?

Back after the hiatus!

An analysis of my writing trends throws up some weird facts. I write when I am at the extremities of my moods – anger, depression, hurt, betrayal. Or then I write when I am terribly bored, and interestingly all my boring day writing has been during all my inductions!

Every time I write and discover the joys of it, I keep telling myself that I will stay in touch with myself, the world around me, my opinion of events - by writing regularly… Not so much to send out a message to the world. I don’t think anybody has the time or the interest to read some inconsequential account of thoughts. It is just for closure - I think a lot - and being able to crystallize my thoughts is like achieving closure for all the randomness that goes through my brains. And yeah, just in case people have the time to read and comment, to engage in a debate. Or maybe just to gloat in blissful happiness with a good comment!

Well, I am hoping that with my association with a company in the print media space, the energy and creativity of all the brains around me will compel me to keep going!