Chronicles of a Lucky Man
Some people are born lucky while some get luckier by the day. I think I can say the both for myself.As most of you were aware, I just returned from the East Coast of US, namely New York and Philadelphia, and my travel back home has compelled me to believe that I have to be one of those 'fortunes favorites'. Let me recount my amazing journey (optimistically) or my ordeal (pessimistically) for you all to decide.
7:48 AM
I left from my brother's place in Philadelphia walking to the 30th Street Philadelphia Station, hoping to catch the 8:18 train to Trenton and from there, the direct connection to Newark in New Jersey. As I walked over the bridge across the river smiling at passing joggers, little did I know what I had in store for the next 12 hours. The first hiccup occurred around one block from the train station when one of the wheels of the suitcase I was carrying broke down, probably because of my adamant insistence of carrying it over rocky and jagged surfaces. Well ! A bad starting omen, but when one is 24, one does not believe in omens.Cheerfully I lifted the suitcase to my shoulder I continued. That one block for me was about the same as Rodger Bannister running the mile in under four minutes. But I reached the station...
8:12 AM
After buying the ticket to Trenton, I was rather surprised when the train arrived on the platform about 6 minutes early. The board boldly showed 'West Trenton', as I boarded the train, and an intelligent man would ask before he settles down. But after staying in Wharton Business School for a couple of weeks, and taking valuable advises from some of the prospective CEOs of the world, one generally starts trusting his own decisions and asking question to lesser mortals seems so inane.The view was so mesmerising as the train chugged along, that it wasn't till the ticket conductor's loud chuckle did I realize that I was in the wrong train. Trenton it turns out is completely different from West Trenton !! Hello.. panic.. "So whats my option officer ?"After much debate and pondering I decided on the conductors assurance that it was a much better idea to carry on till West Trenton rather than get off at the smaller stations and hopefully catch a train to Trenton, which is about 15 miles away. So much so for confidence in me.. But I reached West Trenton ...
9:10 AM
Here I was standing alone on a platform resembling more Platform number 9 and half from Harry Potter rather than a real station in the most developed nation of the world. Train to Trenton from West Trenton... bad idea.. none till the afternoon... screwed !!Looking around I see breathtakingly beautiful cherry blossom trees on full bloom, some pink some white, a green hilly landscape and a few pointed houses, and finally one gas station.Hardly a time to be poetic I decided to ask the gas station owner for help. The owner turned out to be a nice old man willing to talk at lengths about my degree, my interests, my parents and my birth country, Holding on to my thinning patience, I kept reminding him that all I needed was some taxi/bus/ anything to get to Trenton.Finally he gets to the point, he calls his friend who operates a private taxi to take me to bus stop. I thank him profusely as he mentions his intension's on visiting India on the other side of the globe and offers me coffee. His friend arrives and seems happy to drive me to the bus stop for a bus to Trenton. Over the way, he mentions how even after his job got shifted out to some third world country, he still managed to put his kids through college by doing the taxi business and what he think about economic reforms. Interesting views, especially to a third world ears and though being completely lost, my mind still ponders over global economic disparities and we strike up a lively discussion in the car. Impressed he refuses to accept money and finally on my insistence takes only a fiver for a ride easily worth twenty. Anyway, the bus is there and I am on my way along the bumpy country road..But I reached Trenton...
10:35 AM
The deserted Trenton Station can mean only one thing.. I missed the New Jersey Transit. shoot.. back in the soup.. I finally start asking people. A person nearly pushes me on the the R7 train promising me that I can catch the New Jersey Transit from Princeton if lucky.Know what,.. I do..God bless that man. Though spending a couple of dollars extra..I reached Newark Airport.
11:55 AM
The worst was yet to happen. Murphy's law, "When something has a chance of going wrong, it will..". I believe it.I can't get to the flight (reasons not willing to disclose in fear of public embarrassment).So here's the status report, I am in New Jersey airport not being allowed on the plane after travelling all the while from Philadelphia, tired and sleepy trying to contact my brother who is presently ignoring calls. Not very enthusiastic, I presume. But as I meet the airline staff I be myself, the poor graduate student with nowhere to go in the cruel city and holding a ticket at least (even though presently status of the ticket can be medically classified as in 'coma'.) Persistence, Patience and finally by flattery.. or luck, I get to be standby on the 6PM flight. Six hours to kill as I walk towards the security check.. Maybe late,But at least I made it to the flight..
1:20 PM
Congratulation.. I have been selected for complete screening at the security check. The joy of being the 'chosen' one is soon overshadowed by the prospect of a body strip search.Everything.. well nearly, comes off.. lots of public embarrassment as intimate private stuff from my bag is minutely checked. Well, if I was a terrorist, I personally wouldn't think too highly about stuffing explosives in my underwear but if the guards believe that there is a risk, then there is, so my exposure is complete. With an unhappy smile, which I reply with a flashy one the guard lets me go, and as I make my way to the gate I think, at leastI made it to the Gate...
5:45 PM
After some agonizing five hours on the airport gate being mocked by the airline staff.. "You've seen the Terminal (Tom Hank's last movie), you know what to do if you have to stay here", complimented by the magazine selling clerk.. "Thank you sir, for buying your fifth magazine, you must be quite a reader" and being yelled at by the janitor, "Can't you raise your legs when I am cleaning the floor".. the boarding is announced.But I am standby and I have to wait..Repeatedly I go to the airline staff.. repeatedly she shoves me away.. pleas, threats, coffee nothing work as I finally come to the terms that I might get stranded.Last call, doors closing..suddenly I get a call.. seems like some snotty idiot did not want to sit on the middle seat next to the bathroom and I am asked if I would accept.. "Hon.. right now I am ready to go on the toilet seat". Might be uncomfortable and the flight to Los Angeles might now have been routed through first to Chicago and then Phoenix, but guess what, at least I am flying..
10:15 PM
Finally..We encounter bad weather. Is this the climax of my journey or is this the last chapter ??The plane stall.. fall.. and rolls. At this point, I wanted to stand and clap, "boy!! I am so lucky", but the air hostess restrains me. "We might have to go over to Denver folks, seems like a storm down there".. as if I did not realize that sitting next to an old lady throwing up in a leaky paper bag.The pilot decides to make an attempt at the Phoenix airport, and after a really bumpy ride, I am in Arizona. It might have been a close call (says the Christ-greatness lecturing lady next to me) but at least I make it to Phoenix..
11:55 PM
The last leg of the journey is unusually uneventful, other than the minor instance of me nearly falling on to the lap of my much irritated neighbor while sleeping, but guess what I am in Los Angeles.
So friends,
What do you think.. real lucky... damn right..
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If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
Rudyard Kipling - IF
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Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
- Robert Frost
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
- Rabindranath Tagore
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