Of train journeys, TT's and sisters with bright ideas!! :P

So this weekend yet another really close friend of mine got married (yet another person gone from our evergreen bachelor club!! :P). My sister preethi had come down from dubai for the wedding and on Friday evening we left for Madurai to attend the wedding. Now given me (lucky me!! :-\) and the affinity which the Indian railways (or for that matter any means of transportation, be it flight, train, bus, car, bullock cart…) has for me I should have guessed that something untoward would happen. The first blow of the day came when another friend of ours who was supposed to accompany us called and informed us that she had been hospitalized and wouldn’t be able to attend the wedding. We were extremely disappointed when we reached the station to board our train.

We came to our compartment and decided to check if our names were present in the reservation chart and discovered that only my sister’s name was there. We checked our tickets to see that though money had been deducted for three tickets we had been allotted only one seat and the other two just said 0000 ,0000. So much for one extra seat. Screw all online reservations. Down with irctc site. Burn all fat dark TTs in black coats!!

Neither were we given one more seat that night nor did the money for the two seats gets debited to our account!! And on top of all this the TT glares at me and says “your name is not there in the chart. You oughta pay a fine”. :-\ . i cant help but ask "Why me God? Why me?? "

So the whole night preethi and I spent sleeping literally on top of each other cramped in one side upper berth, unable to breathe and totally unable to move and realizing that if I moved I would poke her eye and sprain my shoulder and if she moved she would kick my nose and get a back ache. Preethi genius that she is (note author’s voice dripping with sarcasm. :-\) suggested an arrangement and said “Arey shruthi I am telling you. We can sleep really comfortably after this”. Maybe it was the night, maybe I was too sleepy or maybe I suddenly felt like humoring her and I actually listened to her silly idea and nodded my head. they say a picture is worth a thousand words. So in the picture below I have tried to capture the exact arrangement of our arms and legs which preethi suggested!!

Errr. Actually the picture looks way too comfortable. I assure you we were anything but that!! The berth seems too big and And we are most definitely not stick figures. Fortunately we are vertically challenged and unfortunately we are horizontally blessed (in other words, we are short and stout!! :P). With our legs on top of each other (and oh yeah!! Mine stink too!! :P) and dangerously close to each others waists we were at the risk of wiping out all possibility of any future generation of Ramanan’s if u know what I mean. Ultimately after some polite words had been exchanged and I told preethi what exactly I thought of her “splendid” idea in a few un parliamentary words we changed the arranagement!!

After the whole ordeal we came to one conclusion. That both of us badly needed to lose some weight and reduce our girth if in future both of us wanted to occupy one single side upper berth in any train. :-

Well I did mention that I would write no more posts about my travel travails. But as we tried to catch some sleep that night, without maiming or killing the person and were relieved beyond words to finally arrive at Madurai, preethi, all groggy eyed, grinned, gave me one look and said “Write about this on ur blog man!!” and with my head cocked to one side (not in style but as a result of an exceedingly uncomfortable position my neck refused to straighten) I could only grin in approval!!

I am jinxed

I am jinxed. I am soooooooo jinxed. Why why why why why me? Why is it always me? Why does Murphy like to **** (four letter English word starting with ‘F’ and rhyming with duck and truck to be inserted here) my life up always.

When I board planes they get cancelled, when I try to get into trains I don’t get a reservation, when I get into buses the bus will break down 9 times out of ten, when I go to withdraw money at the ATM the ATM will run out of money, my only favorite thing on the office lunch menu will miraculously get over EXACTLY when my turn comes. When I am driving the signal is always red, when I am walking the pedestrian crossing is always red, when I watch saina nehwal play a match, she loses, when I ask for a particular book at the book store it is never there, when I write code it, never works, when I am typing a mail or a post and forget to save it, 10 times out of 10 I will accidentally switch the main switch off with my leg, when I sometimes blog/read blogs from office my manager will pass by, when I do an exam well everyone in the entire country does it well, when I do an exam poorly everyone in the entire country again does it well.

I am SICK and TIRED of my wretched unlucky life.

The other day I had to withdraw some money from the ATM and went to the ATM machine in office. The machine worked perfectly for the person just in front of me. my turn came, I went in put my card inside and what does the blasted ATM machine do? It eats up my god damned card and says “Sorry, this ATM is temporarily out of service”. Here I am standing outside the machine without a single penny in hand and there the ATM machine happily gobbles up my card and expresses regret over doing so. I kicked the machine, pressed the cancel button, pressed the exit button, pressed the cancel and exit button together, pressed the cancel button and the exit button in quick succession but to no avail. So I called up the darned bank told them that their ATM machine has this weird problem of gobbling up cards and not giving it back, blocked my card and turned around and what do I see? The machine is working PERFECTLY and the person who was standing behind me is putting his card in, withdrawing money and giving me a condescending look which says “Jeeez, 22 years old and u cant even withdraw money without goofing up?”

I mean it could have happened to the person in front of me, it could have happened to the person behind me, it could have not happened at all but no. even inanimate objects like ATM machine sense a jinxed person and start acting up.

2 days back a friend and I were watching saina nehwal play against some Indonesian player. And she lost and I am like “Jeez. Maybe we shouldn’t watch when India plays in the Olympics. Thank god we didn’t watch Bindra shoot man. Heh heh!!” and my friend says “Actually no, I watched bindra’s shooting live. hmmm’. and I am like “ :-\. Ok great!! Then its just me.” Poor Nehwal she was leading by 9 points when i switched on the TV to watch her play. I mean heights.

I try my level best to be positive and optimistic and try telling myself that it could have happened to just about everyone. I try telling myself that there must be people whose mobiles fall into the lift shaft from the fourth floor EVERYDAY, that there must be people whose buses break down at 12.00 in the afternoon on a really really hot day EVERYDAY, that there must be people who get caught by their manager for having embarrassing messages on their communicator windows EVERYDAY , that there sure must be people whose ipod gets infected by a deadly virus and they end up losing 800 songs everyday!! :-\

I am tired of being optimistic also. I am tired of thinking that there will be a day when I will get up in the morning, open the tap in our house and find water coming out and not rush to my grandmothers house everyday to take a bath, tired of thinking that there will be a day when I will step out of the house and not have my white salwar splattered with dirty water by an insensitive motorist, tired of thinking that there will be a day when I will reach office smoothly without the bus breaking down or getting caught in traffic, that there will be a day when I will enter the restroom in office and find both tissues and soap present (everyday either one will be missing!!), that there will be a day when my code will run without issues, that there will be a day when I don’t accidentally switch off my comp.

I am not being pessimistic, neither am I being optimistic. I am just being practical when I get up everyday in the morning and remind myself that there will be no such day and tell myself “Your day is gonna suck Revs. You might as well be prepared for it and brace yourself.”. This at least makes me value the small things which bring happiness into my jinxed life, like a courier from a friend with a lovely note and a chocolate, a mail from another friend over the seas, a silly chat with my sister, chain mails from college friends, a word of praise from a reader, an uuuu from a friend, music by Rehman, Atif Aslam’s voice. Hmmmm
You know what? Life aint all that bad!! :)

P.S: Read Part I and Part II of Jinxed HERE and HERE.
Sigh!! Now i have started a series!! :(