Train rides and self-help books

The train ride to Bangalore was absolutely dismal. I found myself watching "You've Got Mail", after realizing that we had a good four hours to reach our destination. It came as a rude shock to me when the movie got cut halfway and jumped to Timbaland's video of "The Way I Are". As much as I like the song, the sudden jump from a rom-com to a music video with Timbaland's face staring back at you is not very digestible. People around me were either busy reading or making small talk with their neighbours. Children were running up and down the aisle wildly, screaming in excitement. Ah! If only I were that small and was able to understand what on earth they found so delightful so I could take part in it and atleast pass the time. As far as my neighbours (most of whom were my family) were concerned, the man in front of me was absorbed in a self-help book. It's title screamed out "You Can Win!" and the reader seemed absorbed. I almost felt like tapping his book and telling him that I had learned the hard way that no matter how many self-help books you read, you will never win that debate competition in front of the entire college. Or cook that delicious chocolate cake that looks flawless on the cover of a self-help book for cooking - that's all just Photoshop. Of course, he looked older and much larger than me so I decided against it. The men in the row across the aisle were discussing rises and falls in the stock market and how the highway system was not being worked on very well. In the midst of this intelligent discussion, one of them cracked a very lame, "punny" joke (as a friend would put it) and the two collapsed into fits of dignified laughter. I lost interest in them at exactly that moment. For the next three and a half hours, I watched the trees flit by, in a hurry to get nowhere and stopped the bread-and-omelette man every time he passed me in order to buy a plate. My sister did the same for the vegetable cutlet man. And some advice for those of you who wish to travel by train to a place that is ages away - make sure your movies do not get cut in the middle and do not book seats in the new, improved Lalbagh. All they do is give you a very bad back-ache.