Platform No. Fate

Railway stations intrigue me. They always have. At a platform, one can see a plethora of people showcasing a variety of feelings. A train pulls over, and then there are separations, a li'l whine and a li'l melancholy. There's also hope. Excitement about the travel and the eagerness to reach the port of call.

So what makes a railway station so disparate? Is it the congregation of people belonging to the entire spectrum of the society in one place? Or is it the gamut of varied emotions that one can see on everyone's face that makes the place an entertaining one?

Just yesterday, I took my 22nd (or was it the 23rd?) train ride back home. Much to the dismay of my 'local guradian' (!), I shall be giving her extremely important class on Time Delay Simulations a miss on Monday (yey!). And whilst I was waiting for the C-3 coach to arrive on platform 3, I looked around. There was a veiled mother trying to placate her toddler that the 'gaadi' would come anytime now. Fact of the matter: it was running 5 hours late. Then there were the quintessential Indian Youth of today- you know what I mean... The garish shades, the embroidered jeans, the slick oiled hair- waiting for the ride of a lifetime. Where else than at a Railway station?

I reached the New Delhi Railway station a li'l past 11 PM, and as expected, there were hugs warmly exchanged between passengers and their reunited families. There were also some thoroughly disoriented blokes who didn't know what had struck them at this odd hour. I think Delhi does that to you if you have no acquaintance in this big, bad city. After all, the 'common('s) wealth' gets drained in a jiffy here. Need I explain more?

So as I comfortably perched on my ride back home, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the railway station. I wonder now, whether it was the hustle-bustle of the junta or was it my new found respect for the transient pit-stop in everyone's life.