Five people you will meet in your train journeys

Disclaimer: Characters mentioned in this post are purely imaginary. If you can identify with any of them, chances are high that we took a train together sometime to some common destination.

Train Journeys form an indispensable part of my life. They have always been my comfortable and favourite mode of transport. As a child, looking out of the window and watching those lush green fields passing by, was my favourite pass time during my train journeys. Cows grazing in the fields, children playing cricket, bridges over those beautiful rivers were some of the common sights during my journeys. There were a lot more of such beautiful sights on my way to my ancestral home. Periodic visits by chai-wallahs, pantry boys, magazine sellers used to pipe up my mood more.

Even now, with the cool breeze touching my face and tousling my hair, I can hear train singing a lullaby for me. Now most of my train journeys being overnight ones, i don't get to enjoy the sights anymore. But something that hasn't changed till now, is the different types of people I travel with. Let me try and broadly divide them into the some categories:

Loners: 'Live and let others live' types. The easiest of all types to put up with. They would either be listening to music or reading something or dreaming(???). Whatever they are doing, they won’t bother to interfere with what others are doing. They are content in their own world.

Mother India types: They have taken it upon themselves to take care of everybody. They will start off with questions like where u are going? what u are going to do there? where u are working? etc... They would normally be traveling with their sons or husbands or nephews. If they are traveling with their daughters or grand children, they chose to ignore u. Come on, how can they have time to spare for u when they are busy feeding their grand children, talking to them and putting them to sleep. The main advantage of travelling with them is the occasional food packets that they take out and insist that you eat atleast some of it. But I somehow like travelling with them. I feel a sense of security when a motherly figure is around.

Aunty Number One: Mostly in their middle ages, they love to extract each and every minute details of your personal life. Though they will start off with asking about your work and education, it won’t take much time for them to drift the focus to your family. They would be eager to know what your dad do for a living and where your home town is. During one of my journeys, I met this corpulent, nosey lady who started off a conversion with me, in a very friendly manner. She kept on extracting the minutest details from me, starting with the place i stay now to the nursery school I attended(!!). Considering the tangential direction in which the conversation was heading, I started smelling something really fishy. Disappointment was quite visible in her face, when I politely(Gosh, I extracted the last drop of patience in my body to sound so) told her that I don’t belong to the religion which she thought I would be a part of. She shifted gears and continued the conversation with increased vigour. Then, the conversation went something like this.

Auntiji: So do u know that girl named X, who stays there. (She infact gave me her full house address with her dad's name)

Me(thinking when will this conversation finally end): Ya, I know her, infact she studied with me in school(World is after all so small. The girl in picture happens to be one of my best friends from my school days).

Auntiji: U know what? One of my relatives told me about this girl, I wanted to see her for my son. (This was followed by a string of questions about how she looks, where is she now, etcetera)

Me(cursing myself for starting a conversation with her): Hmmm, yeah, she is good Aunty. (I didn’t want to explain the facts that she is seeing someone and she is not interested in marriage and stuff).

I finally managed to act as if i haven't slept for days and if i dont sleep now,i am drop dead. I withdrew to my upper berth with the auntiji wondering whether she should ask the girl sitting in front of her, about another girl whom another relative talked about for her another son :)

Next type of people is the most interesting...
I want friendship types: Travelling alone and mostly in their 20s or early 30s, these men believe that train journeys are the perfect place to make friendships. And me, a girl travelling alone beg to differ. Typically, I carry a book with me and attempt to read it, no matter how noisy the atmosphere is. Moreover, whenever anyone belonging to this group asks me a question, I tell all my details wrong, right from my name to the organisation i work for :). But, sometimes, you dig your own death trap. This happened when i was travelling one day, back to Bangalore, from my hometown. I was sitting in the side upper berth, reading a book. This guy was in the upper berth, perpendicular to mine, sitting on the edge. He tries to start up a conversation. For the sake of simplicity, lets call him Mr.X.

Mr.X: So are you working in Bangalore?

Me(starled by the fact that someone is actually interrupting me while i am reading): Hmmm... yeah.

Mr.X: Which company are u working for?

I mumble out the name of a famous multinational though i work for another company :)

Mr.X: Oh!! So which vertical u belong to?

Now I am really surprised. I have learnt about vertical, horizontal and diagonals in my mathematics classes, nowhere else. The organisation I work for, don't use this terminology either. So I gave him a look as if how come he knows about the organisational ladders existing in my company.

Mr.X: (As if to clear my confusion) By the way, I work for the same company.
This is followed by a grin that says “Don’t you know? We are long lost friends” :|

Now it was my time to be surprised. I didn’t know that one innocuous lie that I told would backfire at me with the same pace. A sheepish grin and a nod, that’s all I could manage before I turned my head back to my book. The guy was left wondering the entire journey how snobbish I am, not even bothering to answer a simple question. As if I care !!!

Papa, Mama is here to take care of you munnu types: Lets end this with the most difficult types to put up with. People traveling with babies. They carry with them feeding bottles, four course meals, innumerable dresses for their baby, small commode and what not. I really don’t know whether they are shifting their base to some other city or traveling in a train. Though many of you may disagree with me, I find them the most difficult ones to put up with. As it is you are crunched for space and you will have to move a thousand times over to make space for them. Not to mention the baby crying whole night, not allowing you a wink of sleep. I may sound presumptuous here, but hey, even I want to have a peaceful journey.

Whether its the sheer experiences it gives, the type of people you meet or the comfort, train journeys remain the most favourite means of transportation for me.

So whom did you meet in your recent train journey?

One of those memorable conversations :)

So what happens when two finance enthusiasts chat?

Before we move on to that, let me give a background of the story, we girls went for buying some things from our so called 'tech market', and while returning, we meet a bunch of guys from our batch. For one and a half hours, the two groups sit in front of an eating joint named 'veggies', demanding a treat from each other. In the end, girls back to their hostel, without eating anything.

So one of my good friends here, Md (also a Finance enthusiast) pings me in the night and so goes our conversation.

(Presented as it is, in the chat lingo)

Md: see...today we returned from the veggies w/o having anything.. :(

me: guys r supposed to treat girls not otherway round

Md: yeah agreed...but when guys dont have money then? :)

come on...atleast someday gals should lend them some money...so that they can treat the gals and then return the money...

me: return the money??? should we expect that :)

Md: wat !!!

why such bad credit rating? :)

me: credit rating of C for Md and S :)
(S is a common friend, who is always with Md)

Md: i have strong cash flows, good amount assets of piled up, lot of goodwill and AAA rating by other gals..!!! :D

i m not sure why ur company is not lending the money ..!!!

me: we don’t believe in other banks’ credit rating, i think all will agree to S&P(my) rating :)

Md: no ..actually their experience speaks in their credentials given to this investment bank..!!! u havent dealt with us...there are windfall profits mam..!!!!

me: we feel tht the company you have recently merged(S) have bad rating also, goodwill of tht company has degraded, esp after it has liquidated(with drinks) some of its assests and made some funny declarations :P

Md: no no..thats rumour in the market...we are not merged with that "Sachs" banks...there might be some transactions of securities but those are general and simple debt obligation payments..we are a stand alone white paper company..:)

me: ok, then we can reconsider your offer, let my principals do some more research and look at the market conditions, if the market feels tht investing in your company is a good option and returns r high and assured, then our bank will be able to lend u some money, and mind you, our credit rating goes a along way in giving confidence to other investors :)

Md: You are welcome...!!!! my books are open for due diligence..but you will have to do Systematic Lending. In which you will lend one ice cream every week till May 2009 and then my bank will start paying your bank in chocolate currency...:)

me: first of all we dont believe in systematic lending and we believe in a floating rate interest with put option, so lets see how we can work this out

Md: see Ice creams to Chocolates...the NPV is really delicious..:)
the risk is really worth taking..:)

me: with the exchange rates for chocolates fluctuating, we dont really believe in a transaction through tht currency, i think we can fix it in icecream currency

Md: ok no issues..!!! but i m telling you...chocolate rates are bound to go up only...as we will buy lot of chocolates in this KGP street, ppl will run to buy them as well..we can infact do a futures contract where you will get future chocolates at current rates..:)

me: i think the same applies to icecreams as well, so i don’t mind having a futures contract in that

Md: hmm...dont u think an icecream with a friendly gesture would have been much better rather than going into these tantrums..:)

me: we r investment bankers, we dont do simple things, we assess,hype up and then do the deal. U know we live life kingsize (courtesy “D”) :D

Md: yeah...that means that you can offer Kingsize icecreams to your fellow bankers also.. ;)

me: only if it comes back in the form of a double kingsize family pack icecreams :)

Md: cool...idea is actually not bad...!!! anyway it will mean that this banker will get more ice cream than normal times... ;)

me: sure, i think ROI is good in this deal :)

Md: you are welcome to announce the deal in the market...wat will be the deal declaration date and when will deal happen?

me: deal declaration date and deal happening will be informed to you in the due course of time, thanks for dealing with us, we hope to maintain a successful relationship with you in the coming years

Md: wow.. that was wondeful...i seriously never thought we can be this geeky..!!! :)

me: seriously :) it was fun :)

Md: out and out FinFinFin...God please let some recruiter see this chat..!!! :P :P

me: we will put this chat along with our resume and give it to placecomm(placement committee) :)

Md: he he..:) colleague recos :P :P

me: :) :) :)

Md: my head is so heavy with the stuff that i have to have one ice cream now :)

One of those memorable conversations which puts a smile on your face everytime you think about it. Dedicated to all the FIN enthusiasts around us :)

Miss ya

Two years back, when i came to bangalore, far away from my hometown, i was apprehensive about being in a new city, away from my parents and starting a life on my own. I was all the more worried about being in a paying guest accommodation and sharing a room with someone else. Having a room all for myself for the first 21 years of my life, i was worried how my roommate would be, how will i adjust with her, etc.

Here, in bangalore, i met her. We got along with each other at the first go. We had similar interests and similar perspectives in many things. We both liked to be independent, we both loved reading, we both had hectic jobs and always came home at erratic hours. She was in fact the person who rekindled my interest in reading and the inspiration for this blog. Though i haven't met any of her friends in her office, I know all of them and what is happening in their lives and vice versa. There were even instances when we had enlightening conversations late into the night.

We both being single, we spend many lighter moments with each other. When pizzahut announces treat for two, i know with whom will i go to have a pizza, when a romantic movie comes to play in PVR, she knows with whom will she watch it. Despite being single, we both enjoyed whatever was meant for a couple, sans the hassles of a relationship(wow!!!). Once we even went to the nearby barista in our night dresses and had chocolate brownie. I still believe that the guy at the counter served the brownie only because we paid in advance.

We bitched about people who made us sad, we went coochy-coochy about handsome guys in office, we eased out our frustrations by having long conversations, we argued, we laughed, we talked about our dreams and ambitions well past midnight only to realise its too late for bed. She is one girl in my life whom i could relate to, so much. Someone who spoke my language, echoed my dreams and walked the world in my shoes. While other girls talked about boyfriends and husbands, we talked about books and authors. When others went gaga over recipes, we talked about our career goals.

Now when its time for me to move away from this city, i realise how much she meant to me. I will miss you my dear roomie. I hope we will meet each other often in our life to relive all those moments again and again.

Me, the chocoholic!!!

I don't know how many years passed since I had been a chocoholic. I think I had always been one. I don't know how many people i have troubled in my childhood for a bar of chocolate. I continue to coax my friends and everyone around me, into buying me one.

I like the way those brown yummy squares(I don't mind even if they are round in shape, or for that matter any shape) melt in my mouth and give me that 'kick'. They say its the increased serotonin levels in my brain which gives me this feeling, whatever it is, I just love the feeling.

For the last couple of weeks, I was on abstinence. I was trying to be far away from those dark tempting yummy squares, rectangles and even spheres(All the different shapes that it comes in). Still, yesterday the carving overcame me and i succumbed to the temptation. I devoured one huge bar of chocolate even though i was feeling guilty deep inside for not conforming to the strict diet regime that i am following. This made me sit up, and i did a bit of research on Chocoholics and Chocolate, in general.

centralcoastcandies.com gives an interesting survey to check whether u are actually a chocoholic or not. The survey goes like this:

chocoholic (def): a person who has or claims to have an addiction to chocolate

* If you have more than 2 secret stashes of chocolate candy, you might be a chocoholic. (Be honest.)

Ummm... yes, I do keep secret stashes of chocolate, So that makes me a chocoholic? Oh!!!

* If your top 3 favorite candies all have chocolate in them, you might be a chocoholic.

Yes, all my top 3 favorite candies – Twix, Snickers and BarOne have chocolate in them.

* If you have more than 4 books at home on chocolate, you might be a chocoholic.

Nah!!! I don't have any books on chocolate.

* If your favorite dessert is chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate ice-cream on the side, then you might be a chocoholic.

My fav dessert must contain atleast one of the above mentioned things.

* If you name chocolate as one of the seven wonders of the world, you might be a chocoholic.

Yep, I do. I name chocolate the biggest wonder of the world!!! All other wonders comes after that.

* If you bookmark more than 2 websites on the health benefits of chocolate, then you might be a chocoholic.

Though i haven't done it yet, I think i should do it now on.

* If your favorite movie is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, you might be a chocoholic.

I love Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

* If you own more than one chocolate-related T-Shirt, you might be a chocoholic. (If you actually wear that chocolate T-Shirt in public, just admit it. You are a chocoholic.)

No, i don't have a chocolate-related T-shirt.

* If you name your first-born child after your favorite chocolate candy - then you are a definite, full fledged chocoholic.

No children yet. But yes, I am planning to have one named ferrero and another rocher :-)

Jokes apart, I think from the survey, its more or less clear that i am chocoholic!!!

Having found this, I tried to find out a number of facts about chocolate. I indeed found many interesting ones. Will post them in the next post.