Stranger in a Strange Land



Travelling has its perks especially because it gives you an opportunity to observe people. Being a lawyer I think I have managed to at least grasp the basic art of distinguishing between fact and fabrication when a client is telling me their story. Sifting – an art that helps one retain just the essentials to come to a conclusion. I don’t guarantee that the conclusion is concrete, a percentage of gut feeling contributes to the final conclusion.

During my recent train travel to Bombay I met two characters that deserve a mention in my blog.

1.  The Creepy Overtly Social Guy: This person spoke to everyone in the coach. He started off by initiating a conversation which was reciprocated by some and bluntly cut short by others. The thing that creeped me out most about the guy was his body language which wasn't too obvious but there are little things that people do that causes some alarm switches to turn on inside my head. This particular guy set of at least 3 alarms. The journey was going fine till nightfall then the TCOSG went all crazy when he pulled out his liquor bottle and started taking swigs and gulping it down like a man who just found water in the desert. Needless to say it was a very eventful night in the coach. TCOSG had taken the top berth and nearly fell off it sometime in the middle of the night. At one point his limbs swung down and I knew that he’d fall but he didn't  But then I kept staring knowing that he’d fall any moment and I didn't want to miss that and hence stayed awake only to be rewarded with him falling half out of his birth and sloppily managing to hold on and clumsily plant his feet on the ground. That was my cue to play dead. [ During previous train travel experiences with friends we devised the “Play Dead” plan when we’d lie still with eyes closed pretending to be dead to the world so as not to be caught having seen some really embarrassing things people do.] Later in the morning when everyone was awake everybody in the coach ignored the man. I guess everybody was woken at some point thanks to TCOSG. Having no one to talk to TCOSG resorted to use his telephone. Unfortunately he spoke in a language that I understood and I gathered that on the other end of the line was a woman and he was bad mouthing her.

Instincts sometimes tell us to stay away from some people and some really strong instincts stop us from interacting or communicating with some people. One can’t pin point what alarm bells are going to ring but you just know that they are. Hence my favourite travel motto for self is “Beware and be safe”.

2.  The Pseudo Mysophobe: For starters this woman wore socks with floaters during travel. Socks that can potentially harbour all the germs she tried fending off with her hand sanitizer. I call her “pseudo” because she had a stole around her which she used as a make shift glove while opening and closing the door and then used the same stole to cover her mouth. Basically she prevented germs on her hand only to give them a direct pass into her mouth. The devil in me couldn't resist telling her that the hand sanitizer kills only 99% of the germs but as uber facts on twitter informs me it takes only 1% of germs to make a human sick. *Evil Grin* She was absolutely oblivious about how much entertainment she provided me throughout the course of the journey.

For most part though I took refuge behind my Kindle only to resurface to see what the other people were doing and slowly slunk back behind my Kindle after making my observations. I think from a Lion cub I'm slowly transforming into a Turtle.

P.S: Now that I am done writing this post I realised, it is so much easier to gauge a person when they are strangers to us and easier still to either formulate an opinion or sometimes a judgement  Even without interacting with some strangers just seeing them makes me form a picture about them which is mostly close to what they really are and strangely I can’t forgive them for being who they are. On the contrary some people that I know really well are also not all that innocent and I find some of their deeds very disturbing yet I continue interacting with them. What does that make me?

P.P.S: This is completely unrelated to this post and if you got this far reading what I’ve written I owe you a little reward. Do watch this movie featuring my friend for her campus movie fest. J Enjoy J

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