Middle-age madness

The Sohal family, bless their collective souls, were very excited last week, as the lot of them were going to Europe and the US for an ext...

The Sohal family, bless their collective souls, were very excited last week, as the lot of them were going to Europe and the US for an extended family holiday. Evidently, familial excitement spread to Nischint as well, and on the day of his departure he was very happy, bordering on ecstatic.

While going home that evening, he was telling me about his trip, speaking loudly, as all excited people are wont to do. We were in a train and finally got a place to sit, next to an elderly South-Indian man. A very normal elderly South-Indian man, or so he seemed. Because when we sat next to him, we realised that he was blowing razzberries, ie: sticking his tongue between his lips and blowing air through them, making a very rude, unacceptable sound.

We ignored him for him for a while and Nis went on about his trip, when suddenly this guy lunged for his briefcase, and took out this book, showing it to me. Thinking that he was offering the book to me, I reached for it, before he snarked at me and grabbed it back. By the way, the book was ominously titled How To Make A Will. Maybe this guy had just recieved bad news at an AIDS clinic, and was understandably disturbed! Feeling sorry for him, we ignored him again.

Santacruz station came up, and this was the elderly South-Indian looking man8217;s stop. He got up, gathered his things and proceeded to exit the train. When Nis moved to claim his window seat, the guy suddenly turned around and screamed, 8220;So what if you are going to London! Even I go to London. I went to London only six months ago!8221; And then he stormed out.

Stunned, we followed his departure looking through the window, when he came to the window, grabbed the bars and screamed 8220;This is not over. I will finish you, I will finish you. This is not the end. Bloody bums!8221;

Then this other elderly looking gent looks at me with disgust and says, 8220;You people are so rude !, you have no manners ?!. My neighbour went to US last month and I didn8217;t know about it till he came back.8221; Okay. What8217;s the deal, here? The old guy just screamed through the window and this guy was calling us rude, considering that we did absolutely nothing to either one of them.

The entire train looked at us. We felt like beggers at a banquet, like whores in church, like wheat in a pod of peas, like8230; we did not belong in that place, that place full of frustrated middle age men, with dead end jobs, screaming, snotty children and middle age wives.

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We just did not belong there, and I8217;m so glad.