Comfortable Silence...

" SILENCE " One word which has different interpretations. In primary school, when I was asked to remain silent...with finger on mi lips..it seemed like a punishment.Damn..i was thrown out of the class if I did not remain so.. During High School days, i craved for silent surroundings so that i could study in peace. Aha..then came the unforgettable college days where I discovered 101 ways to interpret silence. If my closest friend was silent, it meant it is probably the most dangerous time to fool around, when my prof. went silent in response to a question it took me a fraction of second to infer that he does not know about the subject, when the entire class was silent - it meant that the attendance sheet is yet to be circulated in the class.

When I travelled in the local trains and buses in mumbai, i came across yet another kind of silence...perhaps the most comfortable one ! The silence between the commuters. No one bothered to speak to each other,no one really cared who you are or from where you come, it hardly mattered as to who was sitting besides you. You had space of your own even in a 2 by 2 seat where you were not answerable to the person who was sitting at a distance of not even 1/2 a cm. I guess, this is one of the metro cultures which I love the most. Had the same situation been in my home town - bikaner or jaipur, people on board would have become best pals with each other by now. I so remember when i was travelling from Bikaner to Mumbai in a train with my grandmother, she had almost managed to figure out a far off relationship with another family who happened to be in the same cabin as ours. The link was traced from chacha, kaka, mama, bhatija and all possible permutations and combinations of relations were applied to arrive at a conclusion that my co-passengers were related to us. ***Phew***

But what the heck, i love the soltitude in a crowded bus and the silence which exists !