Parate ji At IBM IRL - The journey (Part 1)

Hello friends,
I am back again.. although after a long time.This time this article is dedicated to all those who did Internship with me at IBM India Research Labs, New Delhi. However, if you want to know about me, this article is meant for you too. But please don't laugh too much on me as all these actually happened in my life.

It was 14th of May, 2004. I am waiting for my train to New Delhi at Nagpur Railway station with my parents and sister. My parents were supposed to leave by another train(which was supposed to come after mine) for Durg where we live. I had barely a week to spend time with my parents after the semester at IIT and now, I was about to leave for internship at place supposed to be capital of India. So, I was spending whatever time I could spend with my parents. Now there was announcement on speaker," Train No.8xxx Kurla-Howrah express goinf from Kurla to Howrah is arriving shortly at Platform No.4"

"Oh! that train name sounds familiar. Yeah! It was in one of our tickets. Is it my train? Oh no! this train is not mine . It's of my parents. How can this train arrive before mine?", that's what I was thinking. For the first time in my life, I really felt like crying while getting away from my parents and sister. Am I lying? OK Ok, for the second time. First time, it was when I left for IIT for first time. But this time, I was more nervous as I was about to travel alone and that too upto Delhi!Anyways, I said Bye to my parents with an artificial smile on my face with crying heart. However, my smile always looks artificial so there would have been no doubt.

As they left for another platform, there was announcement for my train. I looked at my ticket and found that it's upper berth for me. I thought It will be easy to cry out there and nobody will see me.

Train Arrives
I enter a coach called AS-3 and look for my seat No.3. Hey but what did I see there? One...Two...Three...Four...Five... Six... Yes 6 beautiful gals sitting there at seats adjacent to mine. OK Now Parateji forgets all about crying. How can he with such gals around? But before I started looking dumb, I thought I should speak something. Speak?? What to speak?? Speak You fool? I was just looking into eyes of one gal who was also looking towards me. The words which came out of my mouth were.." Is this As-3?" Afterall my seat was occupied and I could not believe god could favour me with this.

"yes it is", one of them says." We have been waiting for you only", another says. Oh I felt flattered but here comes voice of another girl," You are the person with seat No.3, right?"
"Yes, I am", I answered politely. " Actually, we have this friend who has seat no. 3x.If you could please exchange seat for us.....", said the prettiest of them. Oh No! Before allowing me to talk and dream about them they have shattered my dreams of a nice journey. And that's why they were waiting for me. OH I was missing my parents too much but what if the seat exchanged is not upper berth..where will I cry out? "OK, I am ready to exchange but with a condition that the seat is reserved upto Delhi", I said. Hey hey, there faces started frowning and one of them told me that seat is reserved upto Bhopal only. "Yeeee.. I will be at this seat only", I thought. Happy once again. And no more crying!!

The journey
And the journey began happily. One of those gals went to her seat No.3_ and I was with 5 of them.All were coming from Bangalore and were going to Delhi. They were also 3rd year passed students. One of them took out playing cards and started playing Bluff. I watched them playing for around 20 minutes and then they offered me to join them. One said, " Do you play Bluff?".
"Yes, I do. But I last played 2 years back. I play other games now", I said.
" You can play but we are very strong players of bluff.. so be careful", another said. "Hmm.. OK .. I am weak player though", I replied.

And game began and ended and I won. It was a surprise for me. But it was because of that strong player adjacent to me who showed what she was putting down with her fixed strategy that allowed me to win. ' By the way what other games do you play, Abhinav?', one asked.
" I play Bridge", that was answer to impress and my friends know how strong I am at it. All of them were impressed.

I was thinking if this is the start then god knows how many girls I will be meeting in New Delhi!!
But all these were extra modern gals. I pitied one of the who was about to get married with a boy she loves. While involved with them in their shitty girlish talks (which I was enjoying), she started telling, " You know..what my bua saas (Husband's aunt) will do? she will churn out makhkhan and make ghee out of it". Oh ! That was a big torture to listen about soon to be her family. I thought How will she adjust there.

Anyways, it was nice to have someone to chat while long journey. And the next day..my destination ..NEW DELHI arrived.
Hope to meet you soon.
Bye
Ghantadhar