Throughout my train travels there has always been someone (if not many) who just creepily watches you sleeping. The beauty about the great Indians which surround me is that they don’t! I’m sure originally they found it an interesting situation to be surrounded by people of black and white skin, but after that they were just as happy to make conversation with us as they were the others. It was nice to be treated the same. As if the colour of my skin didn’t make me a bizarre species which needed to be x-rayed and harassed.

One particular guy probably seemed concerned to the minimal amount I was eating (given that I didn’t get cash from an ATM before getting on the train) so everything he bought, he was adamant that he shared. There was no saying ‘No thank you’ as he wouldn’t accept it. But not in a rude or forceful way, in more of a friendly and endearing way. He even bought me ice cream along with his other friends. That’s it, we were all officially friends like I had learnt in Hindi.

All of us happen to be going to Patna too. Who knows? Maybe we’ll spend a day hanging out again. I hope so.