Timely, welcome reminders
It was at Bahnhof Luzern (Lucerne's railway station) that I learnt what 'ausfall' meant. Failure/cancellation in German, I found those words in red alongside my train to Milan. Oblivious, at first, I used google translate after a whole 15 minutes, trying to convince myself all the while that that word in red meant nothing fretful. But my delusional mind was prepared for the inevitable as the time of departure was closing in and the queue at the information kiosk was long. My train, as I soon found out, stood cancelled.
As I soon discovered, there were quite a few who were caught in the same predicament as I was. What was a direct train, now had a stop in Arth-Goldau, and then a change of train to Milan. And also an hour's wait. But I had a connecting train to Rome at 3 pm, which I was certain to miss had I waited around. So I hopped onto another train that was headed towards Lugano from where I would've needed to change into another. I took the bait in the fear of missing out on my connecting one.
I took the first seat available but noticed a couple that were on my first train walk past. I went up to them and asked if they were headed to Milan. Positive. Phew! The ticket checker soon came up to scan our tickets and asked us to get off at the next stop, not masking his annoyance that we got onto this train, instead of waiting at Arth-Goldau for our next one. The girl came up to me and said we would have to get off at Bellinzona, which was half hour away. Two things struck me then; the couple was British - their accents gave it away, and, I wasn't alone on this adventure.
We found a waiting room at the station, grateful for the air conditioner, and parked ourselves there after realising we had to wait an hour (and more) for our train - the same one that we tried evading earlier. The hour breezily went by as I found out the couple were from Kent - the guy a priest, the girl, a teacher. On finding out what I did, their lack of interest in cricket was obvious, and welcome really. It was my time of detox - off everything cricket. I couldn't have asked for better company! As I discovered, they were traversing through Europe to make use of their last year as a part of the European Union. "Brexit!" they exclaimed sarcastically with a chuckle.
She was a geography teacher, with a love for her subject I had never seen before. He wanted to work full-time in a church. They lived on the boarding school premises of the school she taught at. His church was associated with an NGO close to Chennai for underprivileged children. He was due to visit India in the next couple of months. They both took to writing and had blogs of their own. She tried to read as often as possible. He read more often. She was keener towards self-help books. He liked anything he could get his hands on. She had chickens at home when younger. She liked my hat that I bought from Salzburg. She loved being a mother-like figure to the hundreds on campus.
And she had a younger sister, who had passed away from cancer.
Her blog, as I eventually found out, was something she began to document her journey through her sister's cancer as well as her experience of ticking off the 22 bucketlist entries that her sister couldn't herself. It was left to her to fulfill her sister's unfulfilled desires. It was melancholic, yet beautiful at the same time. But it made me think, that's what siblings do for each other, don't they? We make up for each other's weaknesses; we are each other's strengths. We want to tear each other apart from time to time, yet we've got each other's backs.
There was a reason, I thought later on my train to Rome, for the series of events to have transpired the way they did. Most times you take for granted the best things and people in your life. Timely reminders to be grateful for which, are welcome messengers.
Just as Milan approached, it suddenly occurred to us that we knew quite a bit about each other, but didn't even know our names.
She was Sarah. He was Craig.
And I called Meghana.
As I soon discovered, there were quite a few who were caught in the same predicament as I was. What was a direct train, now had a stop in Arth-Goldau, and then a change of train to Milan. And also an hour's wait. But I had a connecting train to Rome at 3 pm, which I was certain to miss had I waited around. So I hopped onto another train that was headed towards Lugano from where I would've needed to change into another. I took the bait in the fear of missing out on my connecting one.
I took the first seat available but noticed a couple that were on my first train walk past. I went up to them and asked if they were headed to Milan. Positive. Phew! The ticket checker soon came up to scan our tickets and asked us to get off at the next stop, not masking his annoyance that we got onto this train, instead of waiting at Arth-Goldau for our next one. The girl came up to me and said we would have to get off at Bellinzona, which was half hour away. Two things struck me then; the couple was British - their accents gave it away, and, I wasn't alone on this adventure.
We found a waiting room at the station, grateful for the air conditioner, and parked ourselves there after realising we had to wait an hour (and more) for our train - the same one that we tried evading earlier. The hour breezily went by as I found out the couple were from Kent - the guy a priest, the girl, a teacher. On finding out what I did, their lack of interest in cricket was obvious, and welcome really. It was my time of detox - off everything cricket. I couldn't have asked for better company! As I discovered, they were traversing through Europe to make use of their last year as a part of the European Union. "Brexit!" they exclaimed sarcastically with a chuckle.
She was a geography teacher, with a love for her subject I had never seen before. He wanted to work full-time in a church. They lived on the boarding school premises of the school she taught at. His church was associated with an NGO close to Chennai for underprivileged children. He was due to visit India in the next couple of months. They both took to writing and had blogs of their own. She tried to read as often as possible. He read more often. She was keener towards self-help books. He liked anything he could get his hands on. She had chickens at home when younger. She liked my hat that I bought from Salzburg. She loved being a mother-like figure to the hundreds on campus.
And she had a younger sister, who had passed away from cancer.
Her blog, as I eventually found out, was something she began to document her journey through her sister's cancer as well as her experience of ticking off the 22 bucketlist entries that her sister couldn't herself. It was left to her to fulfill her sister's unfulfilled desires. It was melancholic, yet beautiful at the same time. But it made me think, that's what siblings do for each other, don't they? We make up for each other's weaknesses; we are each other's strengths. We want to tear each other apart from time to time, yet we've got each other's backs.
There was a reason, I thought later on my train to Rome, for the series of events to have transpired the way they did. Most times you take for granted the best things and people in your life. Timely reminders to be grateful for which, are welcome messengers.
Just as Milan approached, it suddenly occurred to us that we knew quite a bit about each other, but didn't even know our names.
She was Sarah. He was Craig.
And I called Meghana.
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