STORT V: A BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY(part I)

I boarded the train from my hometown Jabalpur.I was off to Bhopal in search of a better future. I was so exited that I reached the station half an hour in advance for the first time in my life (I am sure that’s what most of you’ll do, but I was an exception).The train was to leave from Jabalpur. I was one the first people who entered the empty compartment, switched on the lights and fans, safely kept my luggage, then sat on my seat and had nothing to do. Its so strange, how could people come in so early for a train? I saw some uncles and aunties mark their territory, I mean birth; as if securing a birth was the only motive in their life. The uncles wiped the entire birth with newspapers. The only thing which they could have done more was disinfect it with Dettol, but then I thought they can’t go that far. I wonder why the Railways spend so much money on cleaning. The uncles and aunties are doing just fine.

By the way I am Rahul Awasthi.I am a brand new addition to the pool of aspiring so called engineers in India. I am a regular small town guy who has at last managed to escape from his small city called Jabalpur to a slightly larger city called Bhopal to pursue a hot and happening engineering degree from a brand new engineering college (it recently opened, so I couldn’t find better words).The fact that I was moving away from the watchful eyes of my family completely overshadowed the fact the college I was going to join was not a very great one. But what the heck, it has a great building like most private colleges have nowadays and moreover if I somehow manage to complete my degree, I would get to sit in a campus and secure a job anyway. I am not a very good student (as you would have already guessed by now), so whatever I got, I was happy with; beggers are not choosers anyways.

So precisely, as I told you, one of the reasons because of which I was happy was that I was finally running away from home. The second more important reason was GIRLS.

By now I have had enough of studies and the next thing I want to do in my life is catch hold of a damsel and spent my next four years doing the girlfriend boyfriend thing.
I can’t explain how much I am dying to do this. By now I have forgot what was my rank in PET but what I remember is that there are exactly twenty five girls in my branch which means I have twenty five options to choose from. Even if I leave out the defective ones and the unreachable ones there would be at least fifteen left which is more than enough to keep me occupied. Now there is no stopping me. The strategy for me for the next four years is to grab a girl and grab a degree.

As I was done with all my future planning by now, the next thing I could possibly think of was listening to the Radio via the earphone technology. As I satisfied my eardrums with the soothing music via the earphone I could see the uncle seated at the diagonally opposite seat giving me a ‘this young generation is useless’ kind of a look. So I quietly moved away and made the compartment door my new home. As I caught up with the hot Radio Mirchi as the RJ was saying I saw the scene at the platform. India’s population is surely growing exponentially I thought. The platform was crowded with a lot of Uncles and their respective aunties with a lot of soon to be uncle aunties with their Bachhas and Bachhis.It was hard to find some youth, I mean GIRLS. The train started moving as I bid adieu to the uncles and aunties and my beautiful hometown Jabalpur.

Just when I thought all was over, I saw some sort of a beautiful girl shouting at me from the platform. Then I saw her running towards me shouting even harder. I gave her a smile. Soon I made out that my smile didn’t help her much as she still was running and shouting as before. The train started to gain speed by now. She started to reach out for my hand. By now I made out that she was actually asking me to catch hold of her and pull her inside the compartment, something which I would readily do. I removed my earphones and heard her shouting ‘please please please……..’Those were soothing words. The train was now attaining healthy speed. I stretched my hand out for her. The scene from DDLJ flashed through my mind. She was much more beautiful than Kajol I thought and as it is my name is Rahul so my name is used to such acrobatics.

Finally she reached me, or I reached her, or whatever; I caught hold of her and pulled her up. She fell over me and we were right their sweeping the floor of a railway compartment with our clothes. She was over me. I felt my back was no more with me. The pleasure of having a beautiful girl over me surpassed all kind of pains my body was going through. It seemed like a scene of a Bollywood movie. The fun ended as she hopped away from me as if she touched a frying pan.

“I am so-so sorry”, she announced. She was a young girl, around my age. She was wearing a loose T-shirt and knee length jeans. I noticed she wasn’t carrying much luggage; just a big bag pack of the size of two suitcases which was hugging her back like a baby Koala hugs a mummy Koala (I saw it on Animal Planet by the way).

“I am so sorry. Are you all right?” she enquired, tucking her hair behind an ear.

I was not all right, and it was her damn fault. But when a young girl asks a guy if he is all right, he can never admit he is not.

“Yeah, I guess,” I said, holding my back like a Dada ji.

“You, OK?” I too asked as if I was really concerned.

“You should come in early, you could have hurt yourself real bad”, this one was too much. I don’t know how many times I have caught the train the same way, and here I was lecturing a poor little thing like a Uncle Ji.

I looked at her carefully as she came closer. Maybe I was seeing a female after a long time or something, but I thought she was really preety.She was sweating like hell but smelled like a flower. Only girls can manage to smell good at all times, even when they are sweating. I smell like rotten eggs when I sweat.

“Hi, I am Malvika by the way.Listen, I am really sorry,” she said extending her hand towards me.

“Hi.I am Rahul, still alive so it’s okay,” I said shaking her hand and grinning at the same time.

“You see I was stuck in the traffic that’s why I couldn’t make it on time,” she said. That is understandable I thought, you are allowed to run after a train and fall over people if you are an eye-candy.

Now to be very frank, I wasn’t hurt or anything. Someone with my kind of fat deposition can absorb bumps better than most people. Still, I was enjoying milking this moment.

We headed for our respective seats; but hey….Wait……Why are we heading for the same location in the compartment????.......

Soon I found out that her seat was opposite that of mine.

Now this is simply great. A damsel, of the same age as mine, both of us all by ourselves, sitting right in front of each other hopefully for the entire journey…….this gave rise to some brilliant prospects in my mind.

Somehow I felt,

This journey was going to be special……

To be continued………..