Thread of hope on the road

The global traveler might see a rather rare sight when they arrive in India. Some cars may have a small Lemon dangling in the front, right below the Bonnet. No, this is not to shift the center of gravity to some other position nor it is for a quick lemonade when the driver gets thirsty. It is to just ward off the evil eye. I am not sure how the Lemon wards off the evil eye, some research required here. You may also find some Green Chillies hanging or a combination of Chillies and lemon. What ever it is, I am sure it is for the same reason.
I must talk about what happened to my car when I had got it mint fresh. The first day I was all excited and wanted to take my dad around for a drive. Told dad that driving was a piece of cake and he got the courage to sit alongside me. I started the car and I had to reverse the car to take it out and right behind there was a Honda City. Before I knew it my car was kissing the other car. Talk about how magnetic Honda City was, the Fiat could not resist it. It took my dad three months before he sat with me in the car again.
Soon after this incident my bro took the car to his friend's house and it returned with a nice black thread hanging in the front. Yes yes readers are so clever they guessed it. It was a small rope to ward off the evil eye. His friend's mom had got it from a far off place for her son's car and ours (very sweet of her). After the first day's incident I doubt I can recall of any other incidents. With the kind of traffic on the roads of Bangalore, lemon, chilly or a small thread of hope is enough to hang on to. We need it.

Rapunzel let down your hair

It was the weekend chore that I had to do, orders from my boss (I am married you see). I was told I need to chop that hair of mine and it better look good this time. So I paid a visit to the barber. This barber is a truly integral and important part of the society. Imagine a world without barbers. We would be dressed in Armani suits giving presentations to a room full of guys with hair which would put Rapunzel to shame. Also one really needs to respect the barber, after all he has a Blade and a pair of scissors in his hands. My barber did what he is best at. Snip and Snipe and I was in ship shape (I thought). One never really knows what transpires in front of the mirror. Anyhow he cuts; I would think it looks all right. Only till the time you reach home and see that look on the face of your beloved. I really had it messed up today. Gel can spike it up a bit. Or a heavy dose of Hair Oil might help. But my wife found the best solution to the problem she gave me a cap.

Magic of Indian Railways

As the title of the blog goes, one meets the most interesting of people on trains. Couple of days back I was on a trip to attend my best friend's wedding and we were about a gang of eight. In the same compartment as ours without our knowledge there was a man with immense talent. Later we got a sample of that. Readers will find it very interesting to know that this man by the virtue of handwriting had a lot to tell about us.

We just got talking and spoke to us about how he has visited every nook and corner of India. He worked for the Govt. Of India and he would be posted at various villages and towns. He told us about one hobby of his. He asked all of us to write the alphabet T in lower case on a piece of paper. We all wrote a "t" and he took turns in telling our personalities. He analyzed the writing and he called the process " T - Therapy". He gave each one of us a clear description of our personalities. I am sure it was not faked or made up. The entire concept was very interesting.

The study of analyzing handwriting with respect to human psychology is known as Graphology. He did a very good job and sparked off an interest in all of us to learn more about the subject. We were already very impressed with him and just then like a non-stop thriller he told us that he had another hobby of collecting key chains. His house is apparently a museum of key chains and he will soon enter the Guinness Book of world records for the maximum number of key chains!

This is the magic of Indian Railways. I can give you statistics of how it is one of the largest employers or how it has the largest network, but I think how it has a lot of character is what this post is all about. Long live the Indian Railways.