A train journey starts with passengers competing to occupy overhead luggage space, and then their reserved seats. Like the crowd in panick, diving in to a bomb shelter, the inanimate things called luggage get dragged and pushed, amidst passengers squeezing by to occupy non-existent space. Jostling and unmindful shoving of fellow passengers, with dear heavy or sharp-edged luggage comes to an end later than sooner. Restriction on weight of luggage or self-regulation by passengers is still buried below the horizon.
Welcome to
the audio chatter, intermingled with ringing of cell phones and belted out
music (gone out of volume control). Pity be upon those travellers, who need a
bit of silent space. The travel is thrill for some and ill for some.
This traveller has managed to climb the ladder of age, nearing the eighties. In the bargain, he encounters difficulties with certain frequencies in the audible and visual fields of his bodily functions. This restricted him to signals from the front and back rows from his seat. Not a nosey traveller but felt happy, to pass time, to gather whatever sight and sound came his way.
Train travel invariably fills the compartment with stories, if one is eager to hear or plain bored or no story of own to tell. This traveller had free time and a journey to complete. He was all ears, or whatever percentage of it was at his disposal.
The first snippets of a story was about a taken for a ride episode. A family entered the compartment, as the train started to inch forward. He has heard phrases such as just in time, neck of the moment and the like. But nothing prepared him with a phrase for this occasion. After a breather, the male member of the group fumed and narrated his experience in booking a ride. A few got unilaterally cancelled after acceptance. This resulted in frantic hunting for another ride which ate into considerable time, effectively shortening the time to reach the station.
Finally, when on the move, he and his family spent anxious seconds, fighting the raising blood pressure, watching the backed-up traffic, mentally willing the signals to turn green on the road and stay red for the train they are trying to board. All through this turmoil, they had refrained from urging the cab driver to step on the accelerator.
The nearing the eighties traveller delved into his ordeal, of the same day. Taking no chances, he had booked a ride well in advance and left early to the station. The vehicular traffic was moving without any hold up, on the road. For some unknown reasons, the cabbie kept the speedometer climbing. Battling with backed up traffic, on a regular basis or the traffic free road must have given the cabbie’s foot an incentive to press the pedal all the way down.
He remained silent, with a sense of unease, and ticking off the familiar landmarks on his mental list, enroute to his destination. The cab reached the station and his beating heart started slowing down. Unable to hold his tongue any more he asked, “I did not indicate to hurry it up, why did you drive so fast?’
The answer stunned him – “Am I not travelling in the same vehicle? If you had told me not to hurry, I would have cancelled the trip at your doorsteps itself.” He praised himself for not calling the cabbie a reckless driver!
After a brief interval, it was the turn of a discourse on a heavy subject. Regret and its effect on the mind. It perked up his interest. Two friends in the front, on left side row, had the field alternating between them.
If you had used the medial orbitofrontal cortex region, you would have avoided the emotional tub and dip to end up in this goofed up wrong decision. The angry tone implied a deep friendship.
I am regretting it now. Why should you rub salt, now in the wound? The reply had shades of hurt.
Yes, I would say again. You allowed the neurological process to overwhelm, without striking the needed response and behaviour. For forgetting the experience from the past happenings, you are now left with regret.
You know, I am a sensitive person. I know regret is a negative emotion and leads to anxiety, depression, and feelings of helplessness. You will say. accept regret, avoid self-blame, root out its cause, learning, practice self-compassion and manage the negative impact and move forward. Be assured, I don’t have a doctor’s prescription for anxiety, depression and the like. Happy?
The topic was dense, pseudo-medical and confusing. He mused, maybe they have some medical background or rehearsing for a presentation or writing a paper as a project work. The near 80-year-old, wondered, whether his weak audio system is suffering with auditory hallucination! He regretted lending his ears to this conversation.
To pass time, till the next story gets aired, he looked through the window. He reminisced about the regrets he had collected, but somehow manged to dispose them of, without this medical knowledge. Before he could travel farther in his memory lane, a vendor called his attention back to a serving of hot soup. Now he became aware of two children engaging their parents in a shouting match and on closer look he knew why? A vendor with ice cream stood watching with anticipation of the children winning the shouting match!
He did not wait for long. This conversation started coming from the back row, on the right. Just a fleeting thought crossed over in his mind - how come the symmetry? First it was in the left and front row. Now from the right and back row. A coincidence, beating probability? Weak in mathematics, he let the thought slide along with the scenery rushing by.
It was a story about backstabbing and fight back. He was curious to know why travel tends to loosen tongues? From the one-way conversation, it was a sales rep pouring out his angst. Being aware of the world of reps, he understood targets, sales figures, projections and the dangling incentive ‘carrots’, even without the aid of sliced pie or snaking curves or scatter graph.
He pitied this lot, leaving home for a week or two, bunkering down in hotels, railway stations and managing to survive on variety of foods and beverages. Their constant companions being a travel kit, laptop and one or two cell phones. They clock more travel under their belt and long walks under their shoes. It was time for a listen-in.
Can you believe this, Mr. X could stoop to such a level?
...............
(.)
I know, he
was your best friend and all. But that does not mean I am wrong.
........................(.)
How can you
say that? He not only hijacked my hard-won order but went behind my back to get
it on his books.
...............
…………(.)
How does it
matter to me, that he is way behind in getting orders? How it matters to me if
he is losing his touch and placement? It
is a rank bad and stinking act to pull a stunt like this.
...............................(.)
Listen,
this is interesting. I led him to believe so and so company had agreed to place
orders worth in lakhs. I left the contact details in plain sight. He snooped
around and took it to the higher ups to prove his mettle as a rep to reckon
with. Lo and behold, when the bosses
tried to contact the said so and so company, they denied any such intention. You
know what, I had a quiet laugh and he had eggs splattered on his face. You know
two can play the game.
...............................(.)
Though he would have loved to hear the conversation at the other end, the Bluetooth was the spoil sport. He could not blame it. The rep hung up on the call and probably to get busy with his spread sheets.
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