I am late…. in the morning all hassled …. when i hear her yell to stop me … and ask me to have breakfast… i knew that very moment if i stay back i am going to miss my train….. it is a matter of minutes but it sure has a snowball effect on the day that was going to come ahead…. missing the train meant missing the bus, missing the bus meant reaching the office late…. which in turn meant missing the morning huddle and then the haunting eyes of my boss that followed me around the office the whole day….. telling me …. hey you are late dude…..  i hate that …. i hate reaching office late…. to add to it i was going to miss my daily dose of rummy. It was Tuesday, my lucky day of the week, i always win my bets on Tuesdays grrrrrrr… but i know she wont listen…… i should have woken up early …. gosh what was i thinking last night ….. only if i had slept early …. but i couldn’t get my eyes off the movie…. chill i was just watching A Few Good Men…. 

so net net, despite of all the good things that i was missing on and all the bad things i was supposed to face….. i had no choice but to share the table and eat breakfast…. we weren’t the morning people …..we never really liked busy mornings…. we were not the fast track types…i hated it…. so did she… but it was one meal she made sure we shared the table….

that day as foretold i missed my train…..the next train i got was filled with hostile strangers….. these days to be frank anyone who is not a known face is either a hostile stranger or a potential terrorist….again just like every rule has its exception if this stranger cum potential terrorist faints in the train… no matter how crowded the train is she/he always gets a ready window seat…. bottles of water…. couple of chocolates to get the sugar levels up…. technically a wave of sympathy just encompasses the entire compartment…..

so where was i again…..the set of new strangers all around me sharing the sweat, the stench, the zeal to survive, and the determination of getting through the day….we all were there, the local train moved our body in a rhythmic patterns and we all were in divine motion… in a trance figuring out the day ahead… the excuses to be given, the stinker to be written, the messages to be sent, the whats app conversations, the Facebook , twitter updates….all in an auto pilot mode whilst screening the place for vacating seats to grab a little piece of rest that was assured to have filled the energy reserves emptied by the journey……

with all these strangers unknowing sharing the my life, i was busy thinking just then….. i am not sure what happened, that moment i heard something, no wait i saw something  or did i feel the pain…. was i tossed or trampled…. is this blood flowing out, am i suppose to be floating, why do i feel the sense of calmness… i must have fallen a sleep and dreaming… so many varied emotions at one go must be a dream…..

Funny i see her now…. i am at home… i was in the train wasn’t i ? i see the TV blaring some breaking news….. i hear her curse the blessed breakfast….. AM I DEAD????? Ah !!! Mumbai another bomb blast…. in a sincere effort to share a piece of my life with the known ones i have shared the death with strangers………..