The Breifcase

Hey!! Well here's post no 4!! Tah- Dah!!!



I thank you all for taking the pains of reading this stuff and giving me all that wonderful feed-back!!



Well, I ended my last post with a very simple sentence..."Such is life...". Simple? Think again. Philosophers all over the world have tried to find out the meaning of life and me sittin here pattering away on the keyboard simply says 'Hey! Thats life!!..." Weird? You bet. People say stuff like- "Life is just a chance to grow a soul" or "Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death." (Ugh!! Heavy stuff!!)


Normal people (Like me and you...? Hmm...Thats sumthing to think about) get away with stuff like "Life is like and ice-cream, eat it before it melts" or "Life like a boat, climb aboard before it sails away..."(Ho Hum). My favorite being ," Life is anything that dies when you stomp on it" and "Life should be like toilet paper...Long and useful"! Ha ha!! Ahh Long live these Wize-cracking Wizards!(And im not talking about Harry Potter here...!) Anyway, my point is, some people take a lifetime to understand life, for some it may take minutes; some, well- are to busy to give it a thought and some just dont bother. For me- it took a briefcase and 60 seconds.

We were in a train, on our way to Nagpur for a short holiday- and a family function. The first thing I do when I get on a train is grab a book, select the best of the 4 seats(Mostly the upper ones) allotted to our family of four and settle down reading, without interacting with anybody. My sister however, pesters my father to buy a book-(ie magazines,comics n stuff) and chats up with people if she can. People sometimes get surprised to know we are sisters.

When I finally got bored of my book, I popped on my headphones and started listening to my iPod. After what seemed like 20 minutes my sisters head popped up.
“Answer this…whats the height of stupidity?”
“I dunno, What’s your height?” (Good one naa…??)
I snickered at my answer
“Ha ha very funny….”
“What do you want?” I interjected before she said something else.
“I want the iPod…you’ve been listening to it since ages!”
“Its just been 20 mins!”
“No, its been 3 hrs”
“Yeah…rite” I replied sarcastically.
“I'm not moving until you give that to me.”
“High hopes”

She stood there (Mind you I was on the upper berth…so she was kind of hanging by a pole). I really have to admire her patience! She stood like that for ten minutes!!
“I refuse to give up
I refuse to give in…”
Shes still standing there….

“ I don’t wanna give up…
I don’t wanna give in…Oh no…”
“Ahh!! Take it and get lost!!”
“Yaay! Toodles!”

I was left grumbling to myself. iPodless.
“Sisters! Bah!! Wait until next time…ill get back at you…someday”

I returned back to my book. The train screeched to a halt at some station.
The bogie was pretty crowded. I suspected it was the holidaying crowd going home for their holidays. One gentleman entered in, in quite a hurry. (I noticed him out of all people because –1. He was out of breath, looking hassled and 2. He was wearing a loud orange shirt on brown trousers!! A major fashion faux pas I must say!) In his hand was a black briefcase.
He was talking to a person sitting in front of me on the bottom berth.
“Excuse me Bahisahab. Can you please take care of my bag? I need to go down to the platform and meet some one.”
Bhaisahab was least interested in what Mr Loud-shirt was saying. He hardly looked up from his magazine he was reading and grunted a yes.
“Thank you”
And saying this he placed his briefcase near the window and left. Right above the place where the briefcase lay was a sign reading “Please report any unaccompanied baggage to the authorities, for your safety and others”.
I sat bolt upright.
I saw Mr Loud Shirt hurrying towards the doorway
Ohkay, don’t panic…the guy probably must be here somewhere, don’t jump to conclusions.”
“…report any un-accompanied baggage …”
“There must be hundreds of bags lying around like that!”
“…for your safety and others…”
I gulped.
I frantically searched for any sign of a bright orange shirt in the gallery. I found none.
My heart raced as I thought of the unthinkable. My mind wandered to the 11/7 train blasts in Mumbai the previous year. I looked for my parents. Dad was reading ‘Outlook’ which had a man with bloodshot eyes holding, what looked like an AK-47, staring at me from the cover.
“This is crazy” I thought. Was I seeing omens?
Mom was sitting a bit far off, I couldn't see her. My sister was no help at all. She was on the berth below me. I could hear her sing.

“…with their tanks and their bombs;
and their bombs and their guns,
in your head…in your head ,
they are dying…”

“You have the WORST timing ever, sis” I thought.
I sat there and sweated like a pig, even in the cold A.C bogie. My heartbeat increased every second.
“A few minutes ago, I was worried about my sister and a stupid iPod.” I thought. “Before that, I was worried if I packed my bag properly. It all seems so…insignificant now…”My eyes rested on the briefcase. A ragged old, black briefcase.

Sumthing struck me...

Now that i was thinking about death, did I realise the importance of life. Never did somebodys misfortune or hardships stir me more than my own plight did. Strange as it may seem, I had a new positive outlook (Not the magazine) towards life. Life seemed...precious. I wanted to live- more than ever before.
My life IS like a briefcase. Packed with so many things- both important and unimportant(…for me but significant for my living) lying pell- mell inside it, appearing to be over-stuffed with emotions but always having room for more. My life is not like a ‘book’ which one could read cover to cover, it is a briefcase…a ‘depot’ of my emotions, feelings and thoughts. I wanted to keep on filling it..till it burst (I vigorously shook my head...Anything BUT burst...)...till it overflowed.
“Beautiful…” I mockingly sniffed, “If I survive this, I'm gonna jot this down somewhere”.
IF…
The train hooted. My pulse raced.

"Oh my god oh my god…"
Mr Loud Shirt was nowhere in sight. The train started to move. I had to tell someone.
“Its now or never…here goes nothing…” .The train was picking up speed with my every thought.
Just as I opened my mouth to call out to my Dad, there he was standing at the doorway out of breath (Surprise!!) again. He walked in. Git.
“Thank you bhaisahab. I almost lost the train!”
Bhaisahab merely looked over his magazine and grunted again.
Sheeeesh!!
I was besieged by an un-natural calm. Like there were no more worries in the world. I still don’t know why. I must have had an odd expression on my face as it made my father ask me, “ Are you okay??”.
To which I replied, “ I'm fine Dad, never felt better”.
My sister switched to a new song (Thank God!), by Bryan Adams (Bless her!!)
“On a day like today,
No one complains,
The sun’s gonna shine,
Shine through the rain,
On a day like today,
You never wanna see the sun go…down…”

Until Next time...

Peace!