Journeys of the moment

I called my parents the other day and my dad answers:
“Hello… pant pant…how’re you? Huff puff..”
“um, what are you guys doing?”
“We’re shooting lizards, there are so many running around here!”

It’s like phoning a game park.

It's been a while, hasn't it? I have no idea why I've gotten so lazy. Maybe blogging was just one of the many phases I've gone through in life. I can't stick with a hobby. It's sad. But I do want to write down some of my life stories so that when I'm old and can't remember anything, I could read (or have someone read out to me) about all the things I used to do and feel like I haven't wasted my life. So why does it sometimes feel like I am?

Here's an ironic quote:
"Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are." - Kurt Cobain
And I suppose suicide isn't a waste of the person one is.

Anyway, I was on the train a couple of weeks ago and my aunt was traveling with me. We weren't in the same coach and she wanted to see if we could move around and get seats next to each other. I wasn't too keen on moving because the people next to me were soooo interesting. They weren't talking to me but they'd just met and they were exchanging stories. There were three elderly men and one of them was obviously really good at starting conversations and asking questions. When I got in, he'd just gotten one of them to talk and that old man was telling everyone how he was a freedom fighter and all the things that he did. The third old man was one of the most ordinary looking men I'd ever seen - he'd fit right in a parota making shop in Nagercoil. And then he started his story. About forty years ago, he was a young carpenter who'd just gotten into a good arts college and creating wood works. A Spanish couple loved his work and took him to Spain where he worked as a carpenter for all these years. He met and "got together" with a Spanish woman with whom he has two sons both of whom are well settled in life.
When he said this everyone in that compartment had to keep their eyes from popping out. I tried my best to look like I wasn't listening but I'd be a deadlife not to! So the conversation starter asked him, "so, you have a Spanish wife?" and the guy's like "oh no, who gets married in places like that? we just slept together". And everyone just laughed and was having a jolly good time. Then they got to the part where they asked if his family here have met his Spanish family and as he was getting to that bit, my aunt found me and told me that she's found us seats together elsewhere and she took me away from the soap opera! What luck! But even the little I heard resonated inside of me... about how the most ordinary of people can have extraordinary stories. And everyone has a story. I'm sure that the old man would have asked me mine if I'd stuck around but mine's nowhere near as full, rich or entertaining as the ones I'd heard.
I usually get on a train, open my book and put on my headphones. This was the first journey in a long long time that I hadn't.