Life has more or less set into a routine now.
Waking up, getting ready for office, taking the train from the station, going to office, working, lunching and coming back by the train again. I have been taking the same train for 2 weeks now and realized that like me there are a few more people around on the station, then in the compartment, who travel with me in the same time frame. We all are bound with each other within those 16 minutes of journey, though we physically do not even acknowledge each other.
There is one fellow, who looks like an Indian amongst the co-passengers. He has a bag in his hand and is in casuals’ everyday. Looks like he works on some construction site as a worker, he looks tired and muddy. He looks at me and then looks away. Maybe he wants to strike a conversation and ask me if I am also from his mother-land! But he carries on with a grim face and sits in a corner. I get down at my station and he goes ahead.
There is another middle-aged person, who looks like an office-goer. He returns home with this train. He wears spectacles and is mostly looking around or reading something. He gets down on the same station as mine and we walk down the road one after the other, till he disappears in the lane, adjacent to mine.
Then there are these two young boys who wear identical black T-Shirts on which Volkswagen is written. Maybe they work for the plant nearby and return home. They are their usual self, loud and crackling and they talk a lot within the time they are together. One of them gets down on my station and the other carries on ahead.
A tall lanky, bespectacled fellow with a hat looks bemusedly at the fellow passengers. He never sits down, though the train is relatively empty. He turns his back towards the door and looks all around the compartment. There is another couple, who regularly boards the train and embarrass the people around by making public display of affection. It is common in Germany, no one is really bothered. But I sense the irritation of the people, when they look away from them or move away to another place.
Yesterday while coming back, a thought just came to my mind. What if I got the powers to read the minds of other people? I would come to know what is the Indian wary of and I would also come to know what this couple is upto. Are they really in "love"?? I smile to myself and am happy that I am not gifted with that power. Ignorance is bliss, they say. Then I think, would I ever become friends with the people whom I see regularly? Will I be able to ask them how their day was or what interests them after work? No, I don't think so. Everybody is either glued to their smart phone or is listening to music or is reading a book. No one has time to waste on others and no is interested to get friendly. The readiness, with which I would have made friends in India, is totally lacking here! I smile to people and they smile to me, but I do not dare to approach them to strike a conversation. I often think, what they will feel if I talk to them. Wouldn't I be encroaching their so-called "privacy". They do not acknowledge each other's presence on the station though being a regular; I am after all an outsider here!
:-)
Waking up, getting ready for office, taking the train from the station, going to office, working, lunching and coming back by the train again. I have been taking the same train for 2 weeks now and realized that like me there are a few more people around on the station, then in the compartment, who travel with me in the same time frame. We all are bound with each other within those 16 minutes of journey, though we physically do not even acknowledge each other.
There is one fellow, who looks like an Indian amongst the co-passengers. He has a bag in his hand and is in casuals’ everyday. Looks like he works on some construction site as a worker, he looks tired and muddy. He looks at me and then looks away. Maybe he wants to strike a conversation and ask me if I am also from his mother-land! But he carries on with a grim face and sits in a corner. I get down at my station and he goes ahead.
There is another middle-aged person, who looks like an office-goer. He returns home with this train. He wears spectacles and is mostly looking around or reading something. He gets down on the same station as mine and we walk down the road one after the other, till he disappears in the lane, adjacent to mine.
Then there are these two young boys who wear identical black T-Shirts on which Volkswagen is written. Maybe they work for the plant nearby and return home. They are their usual self, loud and crackling and they talk a lot within the time they are together. One of them gets down on my station and the other carries on ahead.
A tall lanky, bespectacled fellow with a hat looks bemusedly at the fellow passengers. He never sits down, though the train is relatively empty. He turns his back towards the door and looks all around the compartment. There is another couple, who regularly boards the train and embarrass the people around by making public display of affection. It is common in Germany, no one is really bothered. But I sense the irritation of the people, when they look away from them or move away to another place.
Yesterday while coming back, a thought just came to my mind. What if I got the powers to read the minds of other people? I would come to know what is the Indian wary of and I would also come to know what this couple is upto. Are they really in "love"?? I smile to myself and am happy that I am not gifted with that power. Ignorance is bliss, they say. Then I think, would I ever become friends with the people whom I see regularly? Will I be able to ask them how their day was or what interests them after work? No, I don't think so. Everybody is either glued to their smart phone or is listening to music or is reading a book. No one has time to waste on others and no is interested to get friendly. The readiness, with which I would have made friends in India, is totally lacking here! I smile to people and they smile to me, but I do not dare to approach them to strike a conversation. I often think, what they will feel if I talk to them. Wouldn't I be encroaching their so-called "privacy". They do not acknowledge each other's presence on the station though being a regular; I am after all an outsider here!
But that’s their culture and being from a country like India, where everybody else minds each other’s business, this is a new experience for me!
:-)
Many a times I get the same feeling in the buses of Bangalore. But then as you said, a smile or a kind gesture is always returned back without any feeling of awkwardness.
ReplyDeleteAs a foreigner in a foreign land, I understand that you would need to get used to so many new cultural aspects, but then when in Rome you should be like the Romans! And it's fun to be like someone else... that in turn makes ur own self feel so special!