Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Of Travel Companions

You know how some people look really familiar and you can’t figure out for the life of you why? And then you know how you assume it’s a very common combination of features and go on to plug your headphones in, ignoring that person? Yes?

Turns out, not a very good idea. Why? Because that person seemingly knows your entire family, is somehow related to you, and is (as you has correctly inferred already), a dragon of the kind that shreds reputations to pieces and gossips the ears off a donkey.

And so, after about two and half hours of getting away with pretending to work on your laptop (all the while watching Greys Anatomy S07), you are asked where you live. And little did you know that one small, innocuous detail will result in three of five travel companions naming all of your dad’s family, complete with details that made it to the gossip circuit, and start asking you all kinds of weird questions, including why you have no brothers. And then when you try to hint at ending the conversation (by the simple act of putting the headphones back on), they ignore the subtlety and continue talking.

The next 3 hours then see (mostly) one sided discussions on love marriages (these are spoken about in hushed, dripping with judgement tones), municipal corporations (with reference to how many people they know personally there), daughterinlaws wearing sarees and covering their heads (epic WTFness this), cricket, the Gujarat riots, merits of bhujiya, bread and achaar and of course, whether the train was on time or not.

Yes, a lot of mental barfage happened. And yes, parts of the brain withered up and died. But now you know that the next time someone in a train asks you where you live, pretend to have amnesia.

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