Co-Passenger

Have you ever noticed the amount of entertainment the world of simple travel offers?
You don’t have to look out the window, or stop at happening destinations. The subjects of my passtime are always fellow beings (humans). Very rarely am I stuck with boring people. More often than not they make my trips quite interesting (do not read ‘pleasant’).
An ever willing student of human behavior, these experiences enrich my research coffers.

The problems are usually in a full flight and you desperately want to get rid of the person sitting next to you. There was once a guy who kept waking me up to check whether I was really asleep. And once when I was fully awake, he ordered for drinks and asked me to close my eyes if I found it bothersome (I have yet to meet a more irritating idiot).
On the flight back, I got a seat next to a man who started inquiring about my past, present and future. And I had not even sat down. So I took my bags and baggage, marched off to the air hostess for a seat change. I had to wait around for 10 minutes until all passengers settled down (thank God! The flight was not full this time). Well that was the end of it and I slept (tried to sleep) through the rest of the journey. Two consecutive flights with similar weasels are too much to handle.

Project managers are interesting companions. They don’t stop talking (and u thought they saved energy out of conference to use up on meetings!). This has been invariable not taking into account where they are from. But they are all headed one way, a family vacation where incidentally they are having the next meeting.
They tell you about Europe, the US, the Middle East and flying (in that order!). Gives me an idea that these people were born in air, and has never managed to land till date. I expect South Korea and China to be in the list next time I find myself sitting next to a PM on flight.

Then there are the Westerners out to meet the East with open arms (they usually meet us Indians with a sideways glance- I suppose they do not exactly trust us enough to meet us any other way. Not surprising considering how our taxi walas and auto walas don’t let even us Indians easy). And the moment you start a conversation, they go all spiritual- yoga, karma, aryuveda, and a list of things you don’t exactly think are genuinely existent. For most parts some guide takes them to a so called ashram where they met some saint (oh really? You should see the number we actually have here). And for other part some good guy takes them to a real place and they think they’ve been conned. I don’t blame this confusion, we are responsible (what exactly do we do for them to feel welcome). I accept that, in some of the other countries we might feel equally uneasy, but guys! we got a tradition to live up to (Athithi Devo Bhava?).
Funny enough we meet these westerners in a bus, or train or something equally Indian (I am happy the scene is changing with the number of high paying jobs and airfare hitting all time lows. So in a couple of years true Indian travel need not mean a rickety ensemble of rust. A better option would be to privatize the railways and road transport- truly a personal opinion.)

Coming back to co-passengers; how can I forget the wonderful set of women lovers we seem to breed in India? I need to be excused for speaking a few lines of true feminism here. But honestly, how many of the girls here have traveled in a bus or a train and not had that loving nudge or poke or that occasional rub of affection (Aladdin’s Lamp, huh? I thought women and Lakshmi was the connection). It’s worse when you have people staring at your mother (believe me- this happened to me not many months back!). And whether you get any support if you speak out depends truly on luck. This I do not think is anything to do with being Indian. As long as there is a gender difference; we are stuck with this inconvenience (or a quicker option would be to have a transparent women protection strategies. Maybe, women conductors with the right and the mind to take culprits to the law?)

There is quite another kind of traveler you come across. The one that’s ailing from every conceivable disorder. By the end of the journey you will be a talking encyclopedia on the types of ailments and corresponding physicians and medicines (i.e. if you have not slept right through the very valuable discourse). Try chipping in on how your aunt had cancer; they surely don’t consider that very chivalrous of you to interrupt their obviously more critical woes (never ending) of life.

We obviously cannot miss out on people who consider their family a boon to society. Their great grandparents had been entrepreneurs; grand parents socialists (who in the meantime lost all the money); parents the strugglers of the past generation; themselves –they do not quite get to that point though; their children brilliant; their grand children –u guessed right; the only hope for the country. I have done you a favor by not mentioning the aunts and uncles (yes! both paternal and maternal!). I severely believe that the cost of publishing a book should be cut down (or God save our souls the next time we get the family lover as a traveling companion)

Then we have some amateur politicians (these people have been budding politicians from the time they knew who the president was, till date. They still are budding; keeping aside the fact that youthful years have long past gone by. Any hope of blooming is out of the question). I have not crossed many of these outside our very own communist state (the southern one) - now isn’t that a breather? (Though I heard there are quite a number in the Eastern counterpart.) Now the problem with these mortals is that they have too many news papers, a hopeless sense of responsibility and no work. A pack of cigarettes, another pack of cards, several cups of tea and a disused flag post (or a used one! What honour to watch the man power of the nation thus loitering under our very own tricolour!) is their idea of a happening place. And they have become so patriotic to this sorry state of ‘happening’ circumstance that a moving bus and a sleepy passenger (yours truly!) does not pass for a quite enough change of scene. And then what you have is history repeating. A lot of bickering on wasted youth (Do you mind? I am trying to catch upon my beauty sleep before my next exam!), the corrupt leaders (yeah; I heard) and the orangutans who pass for citizens (excuse moi? Nice meeting you).

Sometimes your companion is not quite that terrible though. I have had people of enormous wisdom sitting next to me. You can easily tell the difference. They happen to be the quite ones just content on observing or reading. That’s when I decide to take the other side of the chair and start the conversation. You have to prod them into giving up their valuable knowledge. So all those of you I have started a conversation with, it’s just that I thought you had something I could use. That’s quite another story for another day.

So I guess it’s either them or me. One has to be an irritant. Does that mean I am going to stop talking to strangers? Never!
People are what life is all about. So travel around! Meet them. Talk to them. And then you will have what your parents could not teach you about life.

A girl for marriage

The Indian legacy lives on. In olden times the men were farmers and they needed a cook. So girls were trained to do the cooking. In the IT age guys needs someone who can cook and also understand the market, so we educate girls. How many of the Indian parents escape this mentality? (Or even bother!)
Where I come from they educate girls, thank u very much. We hardly have any gals from the current generation who is solely a housewife (as the future in laws welcome extra income out there). I have this much to thank for. And thus in spite of being from a traditional family I did not ruffle any feathers (not much I suppose) coming away to the north where we had no relatives (hard to find such a place these days!).

My father made no distinction between a daughter and a son, so I was given the freedom to choose. The choice of friends, and places I want to be. The choice of what I should become was made by him. My inclination was towards fashion designing. And this certainly was not something someone from our background opted for. The excuses were many: too competitive a field( I can handle it), no job security (I will manage), Delhi is not safe( I got friends there), not a respectable profession(Whoa!!!!!), we(dad, mom, grandma, uncle ,aunts,….) don’t like it(??!!!!!!??....@). So I went (read ‘was packed and sent’) for Computer engineering.

These reasons exasperated me at the time and I have not yet forgiven my dad for doing this to me. True I got a high paying job and independence and all that jazz.
These are quite important for me now (especially the independence). I am a person who can enjoy things I do, so I do love my job (but hey fashion world ... u r not rid of me yet! I have plans hehehehe). Now, now …that is not the topic of our discussion here.

My father faces the next big hurdle-finding a guy. I got engaged and as fate would have it the relationship did not work out. So we are back to square one. Till date I have contacted 8 guys in one way or the other(if u count my Ex-fiancé) for getting to know them (read ‘to see if they fit the criteria’). Please note that my parents do not keep the count of the people they meet.

The first guy was too short (Aha! That’s why my family did not appreciate me being too tall.). The second guy was the one I got engaged to (and later broke up with). The third guy was too shy to speak. The fourth guy was again too short for me; moreover his mom thought that her son could do better (she was one of those kinds who come to your house and stare you down their nose. I don’t know how she managed this as I was an odd 5 inches taller than her- we know who she passed on that lovely height to, don’t we?). The fifth guy’s father did not like me (I think! as he is the one who saw me. Funny; this guy wanted to meet me a full month after his father’s meeting. I did not bother to meet the slow coach. What made him think I was waiting around?). The sixth guy’s sister’s sisters-in-law’s aunt came to see me. He happened to be an IAS officer and what more can be said about that. The seventh guy’s dad and brother saw me and that was the end. His father was looking for a gold medalist (as his son was one in the 5th grade, 6th grade…., engineering and MS) I inferred from the discussion. Now I see why I could not become an archeologist (my 3rd grade ambition), a journalist (my all time favourite), a designer (my passion). These are not what families like ours look for in their daughter-in-law. The 8th guy had an MBBS, MD, DCH and no brains. The less said the better.
Most of these guys are settled way down south or are ever striving to work in a company in their backyard (very impressive!).

Sometimes my mom gets so mad that she asks me to find the guy I want. But this is not quite possible you see (and it certainly is not a sincere plea, mind you). I have a knack of getting attracted to guys I can’t marry (all those criteria, remember? We sure do have a lot of scope for a love marriage in here, don’t we?).

My whole life has been designed so as to please some male ego enough for him to want me (there was a period (of about 15 yrs) in my life when my dad tried to force the veil on me). How very inspiring. It almost makes me want to live (to run the clock faster to get over with this fiasco they call life.)

Now we have the cream of the matter. I have to shift my job and place to somewhere south (I am not excited about this... please underline that). If I remember correctly what my dad wanted, it was a secure job- high paying and all the cream on the pie and then of course my happiness. Now when I have all this and more, they want me to quit. Go south (where I don’t like it). And why? Because guys can’t come north and check me out? My marriage can’t happen? How much more absurd can life get?

So if any of you sitting out there imagine me (my head in a veil) sitting down south in front of a comp from 8:30 to 5:30… think again. I am going to rock my life. And I am not budging.

This reminds me, I am meeting the 9th guy pretty soon. Wish me luck.