A Morning Musing

Every morning I take the Metro to my place of work, and accounting for the huge populace commuting each day, its not surprising that I meet a new set of people everyday. Looking around me, I wonder how strange it is for people of all age-groups, professions, religions and castes to have gathered together under one roof, en route to their destination. There may be an old lady, with a rosary in her hands, mumbling prayers, or a little child questioning her mother about everything she sees from the window, or a young lad deeply engrossed in his Chemistry book, or a Sardarji casually reading the newspaper, or a trader making deals on his mobile phone, or a salesperson settling his sales' sheets, or a clerk who closed his eyes for a nap to pass his long journey.

There are so many people in the same cabin, but there is no fuss. There are times when there might be haggling for a seat, but that's all in the passing. After the seat has been acquired by one of the competitors, there may be regret for a moment, but its all routine in the end. At other times there are chances of a minor push when you are trying to get off or onto the train followed by a stare at the perpetrator, but such occurrences too quickly fade off memory.

On rare occasions, I do come across someone I met in a previous journey, with whom I shared a casual word or to whom I offered a look into an ad in the newspaper I was reading. This time around the chance meeting results into a friendly smile. Even though I don't know the name of that person or where she lives, I feel very happy to have met a familiar face.

Today as I got off at the station, I thought that each day I spend time with a microcosm of the world we live in, and the interaction with it is, what can be described as, "amicable and calm". But, I am unable to understand why a drastic transformation takes place when such microcosms combine into what we call the World? It's not a new question at all. Just one of the few important ones that we have been unable to answer. In case you figured out the answer, please let me know...