Friday 10 January 2014

The Journey Back Home - Blogathon Post 10

After a loooong Christmas holiday, we finally went back home today. From maika to sasural :)
DD and I decided to take the local train as we did not have much luggage. D is happy with any arrangement, as long as he goes "Ta-Ta". Now my mom's place is at one end of the Western line and my house at the end of the Central line. For the uninitiated, these lines refer to the two major railway lines in Mumbai (The third being the Harbour Line). So basically, it involves a two hour journey and a change of trains in between. 
We got into the General first class compartment only to find all the seats occupied. Yes, there was a fair amount of crowd even on a Friday afternoon! A middle-aged man travelling with his teenaged son, saw me carrying D, while DD managed the luggage. He immediately asked the boy to get up and offer me his seat. The boy obeyed. A little while later, the man also asked me to call hubby,
who was standing further away, to come and occupy his seat as he was getting down. It was really nice of that father-son duo.
D being the ever accommodating child, immediately fell asleep and didn't wake up till it was time to get down at our first stop.
In the next train, there were a couple of college kids sitting next to me, poring, chatting and laughing over their slam books. It immediately took me back to my school-college days when autograph and slam books were all the rage. How we enjoyed filling out those cute, pretty printed books with such introspective questions like "Your First Crush", "Your Fave Actor/Actress, "Your Best Friend's Name", etc.
What? These questions are introspective to 13-17 year olds. At least it used to be back then (makes me fell old!).  An important observation that I made was that the current generation seems to be a huge fan of Ranbir and Katrina. Everyone had them listed as their fave actors. Very important observation no :D. Yeah yeah, nosy me, couldn't help side-glancing in their book....hehehehe
In the meanwhile, D happily polished off a chickoo and three strawberries. This, after having lunch, only an hour and half ago! While I enjoyed the aroma of samosas floating in from the adjoining ladies compartment :). Gosh! the allure of junk food.....
After his snack, D decided that he wanted to climb on the opposite vacant seat and sit all by himself. An uncle already seated there, very sweetly helped him climb up, while a young teenaged boy closed D's shoes straps that had opened up :) Mumbai seems to be filled with nice and friendly people.
On this trip, the icing on the cake for D was that as soon as we got down at our station, there was a shaggy stray dog right in front of us, wagging his tail. D couldn't resist going, "Bow- wow, Bow-wow" :D