Friday Evening

The cruise, amidst Arabian Sea, where booze, babes and all the possible intoxicants anyone can imagine was flowing like anything, ended, courtesy to my office party. I had nothing to do with all the three of them, courtesy to me recent one sided commitment. Wish she had been here and I had shown all of this, the water and water all around till the eye can see the party, the glamour, and the life. I was actually dying for it, but, Alas!

Hantaji, my office driver, dropped me to station. Though the way he accelerated the car made me sure that he was drunk but his denial was agreeable.

I got my train to ST. The train was quite empty. I was the only one sitting on my seat and same was the case with the guy sitting next to me. He looked like the guy, the gangster friend of Arshad Warsi in movie 'Waise bhi hota hai', was working on a E Series Sony Vaio Laptop. I stopped the logo of 'Flipcart' on his bag which was lying next to him. May be I was not in senses or maybe I was missing her too much, I did something for the first time. I started a conversation.

"You work in Flipcart, I guess"

"Yes, I am the incharge of all the logistics in Mumbai region", came the reply with a pleasant smile.

"I ordered a lot from Flipcart. Got one parcel yesterday only"

"What you usually order?"

"Mostly books", I replied with a mild of dilution of facts.

"Yes, books are our biggest business. What had you ordered?". That is a gift for someone special. I tried to flip through few pages, but found out that book was not my cup of tea. So will gift her without reading"

He grinned as if he was offended by my reply. And then he got busy in calls after calls trying to follow up his things.

The only thing I realised that this guy was pretty busy at 10:00 on a Friday night.

"All these calls and stuff keep going on", he reinitiated the conversation.

“Sorry, but I overheard your conversations. Seems like you have a pretty demanding job”, I said to him without meaning any of it. Just that I was too tired and was in a mood of listening to a new story of some stranger.

“Yes, as you can see I am going to my office right now. I have to manage all the inventory, warehouses.”

“Hi, I am Vikas Singh.”

“Pankaj Mishra”, was his reply which ended with a hand shake initiated from my side.

“So, you are from north India, as Mishra’s are from there only and not here.”

“Yes, I am from Kanpur.”

“I guess you are the only one in this compartment who is going to office, for rest I can bet they all are going to home”, I encouraged him, trying to use my crooked conversations skills. Thanks to Ishpreet for that.

The appreciation of acknowledgement for his existence by a stranger was clearly evident from the way he started narrating me all his stuff.

Next half an hour passed in listening to all his stories right from his Engineering details, all the companies and work he had done, his reasons of shifting from one job to another and all.

In about 15 minutes I was totally aware of how his company works, their expansion plans, his wife, her temperament, her support to his odd working life style, why he shifted to Mumbai and also that his landlord has given him a notice and he has to vacate a house in next 20 days apart from that he has recently become a father too. It took me a little effort to get all those details out of him. But somehow either I was too tired and in a mood to listen his story or was trying to improve my communication skills with the same gender.

“I have to get down at Kurla and will catch an auto from there.” He told me just one station back before Kurla while giving his business card.

“I have to get there too to catch another train”, I said while I completed the ritual of business card exchange.

“Nice to meet you, Mr Singh.”

“Same here. Be in touch.” This time I meant it, because somehow I like this guy.

I started to climb the foot over bridge to catch another train when someone inside my head said, “WTF! Catch an auto, spend few hundred bugs. This is Friday night and you earn good. Treat yourself properly once in a while.”

I got an auto and as it moved towards W E Highway, the breeze was familiar. I was trying to relive all the moments which we had spent with Vikram. Suddenly I realised the day was fulfilling, unlike daily.