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Chennai Central,,,, busy people,,,,there is a section where iron chairs are there for passengers to wait for trains and large electroic boards display arrival and departure of trains, train numbers, platform numbers. And the TVs hanging from the ceiling, displaying the same stuff in a more colorfull screen. And the advertisements that flash so many times, most of which I find really annoying, Chennai Silks,, some ice cream,, milk,,Jewellery,, and stuff and all these in tamil. I doubt if any of the passengers will get affected positively by this marketing strategy. And the special one where they show to be carefull while travelling, not to take any food stuff from strangers and how he loots you from head to toe.A line of shops selling books, magazines newspapers, juice, coffee, tea,a few STD booths, food, arts and crafts and ofcourse the idli , vada , dosa , upma selling shop.

Ok, no preity gals around, not even the cute chinky gals are visible.Most of the ppl here seem to come here either to visit the Appolo hospital or to have a southindia darshan. All uncles and aunties. Somehow I have to kill time, grab a Businessworld and a coffee and wait for the train to arrive. Thanks a ton to the guy who invented the walkman.Atleast it keeps the annoying announcements out of your mind. I have this strange habbit of signing the front and back page and the pages numbered 10 and 100 of magazines. I borrow a pen from the uncle sitting next to me and after signing the magazine give it back. Uncle gives a wired smile. Inbetween turning pages my eyes keep looking if I could by chance see a preity gal.. after sometime I see a preity gal in jeans and a tee with a trolley ;) waoo cool,,,, err who is this guy with a kid who is calling her.Hmm so she is married,, so what, she is preity and thats enough. After some time it gets a lil boring, I wish there were smoke rooms in public places like this, I give a blank stare at the pack of Kings.By this time I have spoted a few preity gals ;-), somehow they seem so excited about ,well I don't know, may be the journey, giigling, chit chating,, holding a coke or a pepsi.

"Passengers,Your kind attention please. Train No 3,3,5,2 running from Allepy to Dhanbad wili arive shortly at platform No 9". "Yatrigan kripaya dhayn dein, Allepy se Dhanbad jane wali gadi no 3,3,5,2 thode hi der main platform no 9 par aayegi".I don't remember a single word of what it says in tamil.

The train arrives, suddenly I see ppl rushing towards the train,,, must be for the general compartment. But why the hell ppl having reserved tickets rush. I wait for another 10 minutes and then start walking towards platform no 9. Its easier going to your compartment after 10 minutes ,, there is no rush. I reach my comparment and as usual check the list, F 17 to F 22 , cool there are three of them just next to my berth. This is one of the things which all the IITians do but very few get lucky,, because it hardly happens that preity gals travelling in sleeper will be near the same berth as yours.Oh peace,, there they are, sitting and giigling as usual. I just give a strange look,chain my trolley and walk out to check out other preity faces.The three are neway going to be there :D. The train starts moving and I get in. By this time they have already setteled down. Ok don't start the conversation first. I just sit near the window and look outside, though nothing much is there to look at.I just seem to enjoy the cool breeze.I grab my old businessworld and after reading a few pages keep it aside, suddenly one of them asks, "Xcuse me, can I have the magazine" , "ya, sure" . After two or three minutes, she flips a few pages and returns it back. So , where are you going? Sambalpur, Ok, it comes sometime around 2 in the night, right??,, Ya,, phir to kafi thand hota hoga tab,, tum ghar kaise jate ho? Mera bhai aajata hai lene,,aur tum sab? Ranchi,, tum chennai main padhte ho kya? Haan, engineering kar raha hoon, aur tumsab? /Another one speaks/,,we are students of NIFT, Ok, kaun sa branch hai tumhara? Naval Architecture, /"suddenly I find a smile of xcitement on their faces"/ kaun sa college , iit, /"the next moment I find a wired smile on their faces and I bulb"/./ No more questions, and they start chit chating among themselves. I get back to my magazine and put the earphones.After sometime I crash./

Next morning I wake up with the sound of chai ,, garam chai,, coffee. I take my brush , paste , gave a blank stare at the Kings pack, and walk out to the platform to brush. After a cup of hot tea it was nice reading the newspaper under the sun. Suddenly the train starts moving and I run. Two of the gals are awake now..I just gave a nice goodmorning type look and started reading the newspaper. What crap, this is full of gult news and stuff, thankfully its sunday and I switch to the magazine section. I finished the magazine in abt 15 minutes and by this time they were back after brushing. ye kaun sa station tha, pata nahi, maine naam dekha tha par yaad nahi hai" /its just 15 mins and I forgot the name =)), FK/", ok, to tum itni jaldi uth jate ho,haan, train main jada neend nahi aata muje,,,par maine to suna hai iit main ladke der tak sote rahete hain, haan, par main jaldi uth jata hoon./ "Now she was feeling a lil comfortable I guess"/ accha ek baat puchon , don't mind, kya?? , IITians bahut flirty aur despo hote hain,, hai na? haan par sab nahi, but ya most of them are, IIT main ladkiyan hi itne kam hote hain na islye. /we three laugh/ /One of them opens a bag and a few packets of biscuit and cakes pop out. She offers me biscuits/ Thanks, main biscuit nahi khata.(trust me I really don't eat) kyun,? aaise hi, accha cake to khate ho na, kya ye chocolate flavour ka hai, haan,, sorry main chocolate flavor ka kuch bhi nahi khata,, actually muje chocolate flavour accha nahi lagta, /she gives a wired smile/ After that we started chitchating for sometime, which included subjects we study, usual movie stuff, food in chennai, how it sucks ,, places they have visited, how IITians cash on NIFT gals and vice versa and why are IITians so despos. The day just passed smoothly,, in the evening it was great,, the cold breeze and I was listening to some hindi number sitting by the window. At about 11 in the night she grabbed a novel and went to sleep, and said,, tumhara statoin to 2 baje aayega kaise uthoge abhi tak nahi soye ??? Aree,, kuch nahi,, abhi neend nahi aayegi muje,, I will just listen to a few songs aur agar main soo bhi gaya to koi problem nahi, age ja ke aunty ke yahan ruk jaonga ya phir friend ke yahan, main har bar ghar main bol ke rakhta hoon ke so gaya to ghabrayen nahi. / Finally it was a nice journey. I still don't understand whats the image of IITians outside.