Commuting Tips for Bombayites

This is going to be the final installment, absolutely. Even I am tired, as you are, or, so I suppose, with my incoherent ranting. Age is catching up, you know. Also, it has been raining for around a month and commuting got that little bit tougher.

The Dripping Umbrella-raincoat Forgetter

It's raining cats, dogs and bulls and this man never would carry an umbrella. Neither does he carry a bag, a notebook, a pen, or, loose change. Travelling with such a person is torture. Really. I had one such friend. I had to share my umbrella with him getting wet for no fault of mine (as I have to stand beside him in the crowded train), then he didn't have change to pay the taxi, so I had to pay the taxi fare, he didn't have a pen to write a note, so, I had to provide notebook and pen, he didn't have a bag so I had to provide a sanctuary to the different papers he carried. He forgot his ATM pin number and I had to provide it.

It even got to the point that since he didn't carry lunch I had to provide that. Mercifully, that time is past and that friend is out of my life. Thank God for minuscule mercies.

The Slipping Game

You are at the railway station and the train is approaching. You are in a mad rush to rush in before the other animals, so you stand a little ahead and as your compartment approaches jump in before others do. This is risky business and I manage this fine. (So, you thought I would slip, eh?)

Then all of those who got in would slip, slide, tumble, slither into a single seat. The result is that we six of us are sitting in a seat meant for three. Six others have missed the seat completely and have landed their fat asses on the laps of the six already seated. That makes twelve people competing for three seats. Then the six who are sitting on the other six's laps get up grinning sheepishly. Then a fight ensues between the six who are sitting on the seat meant for three. The argument goes something like this:

"I landed a nano-second before you. I timed my ass's ETA so that it was programmed touch down before yours. Ass**le, so I will sit."

"I kept my handkerchief on the seat before you," he points to a dirty hanky that's under his arse.

"I hurled my bag at the seat, but I missed. Is that any fault of mine? I will sit," this said by a short man in a hectoring intolerant voice, the sort of voice I have heard another short man with a tooth-brush moustache shout from a podium wearing a peaked cap and a swastika on this arm. Get the picture?

Being a reasonable fellow, I get up, as I don't consider these types the sort of people I would like to sit with for the one hour commute back home. I don't wish to come even within touching distance from their nasty, loser personalities. Nay, I wouldn't even pass them the hand-fan when I see them being shown the way to hell by St. Peter. So all the above guys get the seats and I hope they get a terrible bad back pain from the seats that sag badly in the centre.

(This is the end of this series. If I feel like I will add more. Meanwhile let me know (through comments) if you liked this series.)