Good Morning..

Everyday enroute to my office, I get to meet a lot of people with varied interests. Most of the people are on-the-run and do not have time to even look back, even if the two trains collided head-on. And there are these people, who will be always munching their share of "Smullers" French fries(as Americans call it the "Freedom Fries", when the French rejected their offer to fight againt Terrorism) with a dressing of mayonnaise, with such interest that you would feel as if they taste a cuisine from GODs land. Few young teens esp., the "fairer" sex never mind about the battery/currency charge on their "Door-Sampark-Sadhan", me thinks if she is on a romantic convo with (oops., locational influence :D)

Most of the seat arrangements in NL trains are face-on; one could notice the personal warmth/care each individual has to the other (not always though). I being 100% illiterate in the Dutch language, could only sense the body language/expression. Gets me very nostalgic about my days in Bangalore, specially the lovely days I spent during my stay in AESPL, the weekend Brigade road hangouts with p3a. When it comes to onsite trips the reco has to goto the awesum time I spent with one of my best colleague L, during my short stint at US of A. Thanks L for being such a nice act. I miss those times very much here at NL. The Fooseball games, the weekend trips, the hair-pulling at T office, the HUM-TUM hype created by our nice neighbours, personal talks, "combined" study of L's groom prospects, daily timestamped mails etc., buoy ai't I missing those good times. Yep, you always remember the good buoyant times, but US of A also did make me to resign from my adorable company.

I am losing track, let me trace back to what I wanted to say. Yesterday, I was awaiting my train at Den Bosch. All of a sudden, I saw a good-looking 20ish blonde coming down the escalator. Unlike Silicon Valley, the asian population here is paltry. Dutch juntaa start looking at any desi weirdly most of the time. I expected the same from this lady, so I shifted my focus to the Clock/train Information hanging on the spoor (platform). Now I got to learn some Dutch literal to survive here. All of a sudden, I hear "Good Morning" and when I look back, it's the same lady. Woww.. by the time I could even respond she had gone past and was with her friend,needless to say with a boy :-). Now if I were to be a local I wouldn't have shifted the focus and would have responded in a fraction of a second. BEing, brought up in a typical Indian conservative culture,do not have the habit to wish strangers :(. When we do that in India, we are seen as if we are the regional sales person of "3 for Rs. 100" socks brand.

Most of the Dale Carneige's "People-Management" books teach you this. Greet/wish people esp., strangers, you never know if they are your future managers or wud-be friends. I would not loose my bank balance if I greeted a person with a pleasant smile. Most of the time, we end up finding so-called online Friends via WWW. True, I do not oppose this concept, but it will be something like finding dandruff amidst the "hair-jungle"of our H.E Devegowda.

Preferably, people like to communicate in a way, "I am interested in you, are you interested in me". No individual in this world has any room for others woes. He/she would be interested in a companionship if she (to be read as he/she but more affinity towards fairer sex: D) senses that you are there for her. Any individual can make thousands of friends in a given amount of time. At the end of the day, what stands out is how many can you count on. Sustainance of friendship (any relations) always is a big task. Many relationships go awry, due to very measly incidents. Experienced people always reiterate "Friendship is based on real facts altough marriages are even performed on bed of lies".

The best thing which I can take-off from here, can be, I now understand the power of communicating heartily with others. Felt like, artificial-plasticised convo always end up in THE END. Hope I wouldnt be a wooden-log, when it comes to communicating, when I return back to India.