Side Lower

Its 5:30pm in the evening, Kaushik just logs out from his work. As soon as his work got over, his phone rings, the screen reads "Papa". Those who stay out of hometown its a very common thing to get a call from their parents atleast once a day. kaushik is an exception, when in Bengaluru, his father calls him thrice a day. Kaushik picks up, and a deep strict voice from the other side" Se facebook link deithili dekhilu"( Have you watched the facebook link which i sent you?). Kaushik replied " Nai papa dekhini, mu facebook delete karichi phone ru"(No papa, i haven't watched it as i have deleted facebook). His father sarcastically replied " Kain dekhibu  kharap jinsa sabu guda na" ( why you will watch them also its too bad). Now Kaushik was left with no option, he opened playstore and re-installed facebook.

Irony and nostalgia are two different things hit Kaushik in real time. Kaushik, during his school days, was a quite active in facebook. During those days, facebook was trending social media platform but had a simple interface, posting photos, getting likes and comments from friends. Kaushik's father scolded him due to facebook as he thought it was impacting his studies. When Kaushik was leaving for Bengaluru for his higher studies, he installed facebook in his papa's phone and his papa then became his facebook friend. The above statement is quite explainatory why Kaushik deleted facebook. Years ago, Kaushik not only installed facebook in his papa's phone but also taught him to use it. thats not a bad thing, but expalining that everything that is posted in social media like facebook is not true and can be fake too is another headache. Kaushik puts his credentials and his feed appeared but another icon asking to sync is contact in facebook appeared and unknowingly Kaushik synced his contacts with facebook.

Artificial Intelligence is the thing that allows us to sync contacts in social media, the bright side it makes your life easy but it has its cons too. Now Kaushik clicked on the link which his father sent. As predicted by him, it was a video which depicted some verses from Shrimad Bhagvad Gita and its importance in human life. The video ended and Kaushik scrolled down, facebook suggests people you may know, and there was this name "Agnivesh Rath", the profile picture displayed a man in his late thirties, his wife and a cute kid. A perfect happy family picture, the man's face seemed familiar so Kaushik digged into his profile and uttered "No way!!!!". Radhika asked " Kan hela?" (What happened?) and story begins.

5 Years Ago...

" Anna Yellidiya???" ( where are you, Anna?), Kaushik was calling Ola which he booked. " Yellige hogana Saar( where you wanna go Sir), the driver enquired. Kaushik replied " Bengaluru City Railway Station". The cab reached in 5 mins and Kaushik told the OTP and it took the cab nealy 2 hours to cover 11 kms. Just Bengaluru things!!!. The driver again asked " train yavaga sir ?" Kaushik smiled and replied " 1:30 PM,Anna". Kaushik Paid the cab fare. then went inside, luckily his seat just got confirmed. Prashanti express is a daily train that runs from Bhubaneswar to Bengaluru and vice-versa. Due to tight exam schedule and lesser number of holidays Kaushik always booked tickets 2-3 days prior to his travel and it gets confirmed by travel day itself. 

Kaushik checked the dashboard at the entrance of the station which depicted train no. 18463 Bhubaneswar to Bengaluru Prashanti Express arrived at platform no.2. Again Kaushik checked his phone to see his seat number, B3/012/Lower. He was happy and disappointed at the same time. Happy because his seat is confirmed and disappointed because he didn't get his preferred seat. The side lower berth is the most favorite train seat of almost every indian. Side lower has its own advantage, one can spend the entire journey sleeping, Phone/lappy charging point right on side of the seat. outside landscape view. A person with a side lower seat literally owns the seat unless the ticket is RAC. The same is not true for the people travelling in lower and middle berth. People love to spend their entrie journey sleeping choose upper and side upper berth. Thats a generalised fact about train journey.

Kaushik, 21 years old lad is not so different, he also wants his journey to be comfortable so he choses side lower but the indian railways site allots seat based on availability and this algorithm breaks the dream of people who want a side lower seat in train. Its journey time " train no.18464 Bengaluru-Bhubaneswar Prashanti express will depart from platform no.2 at 13:30 hours."

Its 1:20 PM, the doors of the trained opened, Kaushik found his seat, locked his luggage under his seat and waited for the journey to begin. In 10 minutes the compartment turned into mini-odisha. all the seats filled except seat infornt of him. seat no.9. The uncle sitting beside Kaushik went to another seat to as he got the seat along with his family, two persons captured the upper berth as they found from the TC there was no passenger to those seats until Rajamundry. Kaushik puts his earphones and starts watching episodes of the flash which he downloaded for the entire journey. Although the entire compartment was filled with people there was a weird calmness in the seats as the seats are yet to be filled with passengers and two people already slept from the beginning of the journey.

Few moments later, A tall guy in his late twenties came and puts his bag in the side lower seat. Since there was no one, he comes and sits infornt of Kaushik. Tall guy, heavily built, gym body with a pair of airpods in his ears and iphone 7 in his hands. Kaushik kind of ignored at first but the initiated the conversation. Hi bro, Aaj koi nahi hai kya , train Khali khali lag raha hai. Kaushik removes his earphones and replies " Baaki seats to filled hai, yahan sirf aap abhi aaye ho, agey dekhte hain, log to  ayenge jarur, the guy replied" han dekhte hai, by the way, I am Agnivesh and you?"Kaushik shaked hands and introduced himself " Kaushik". The next question followed " Odia"?Kaushik replied " han". Agnivesh yelled in excitement " Arey bhai, Ghara kouthi ?" ( this is the first question odias ask each other when they meet each other somewhere outside Odisha). The train journey is not going to be monotonous and boring anymore, Kaushik got a travel partner, they both talked and became good friends in no time. The bond grew strong enough in just few hours of journey. Agnivesh also from Bhubaneswar, working at a MNC in Bengaluru while Kaushik was a student persuing his graduation. Both shared their extreme passion for the game "clash of Clans". In this journey so far , Kaushik got a travel partner, a friend and an elder brother figure. They discussed almost everything, games, food , cricket and ofcourse girls. Agnivesh shared his ipad , iphone7 with Kaushik to play Clash of Clans. He told, Bhai Bindas khel meanwhile he took Kaushik's Lenovo K6 note and upgraded his CoC base. As the journey progressed, every fellow passenger who sat with Kaushik and Agnivesh thought they are brothers, nobody could imagine that this two lads just met few hours ago. Agnivesh even paid for Kaushik's dinner. Day 1 ends.

Day 2 when the train stopped at Rajahmundry, new set of passengers boarded the train. Kaushik and Agnivesh were enjoying their journey such a way that they didn't bothered who else were boarding the train. They even started adressing each other by their nicknames. Kaushik was calling Agnivesh " Guddu Bhai and Agnivesh called Kaushik, "Chiku". But both were unaware life was going to change in few stops.

Afternoon, when the train stopped at Vizag. Guddu and Chiku were taking nap." Excuse me!!!, this is my seat. A sweet voice uttered those words in the most polite manner possible. Guddu woke up, and gave the seat to the girl. she settled herself. she looked at Chiku and asked " Ehti au kiye basichanti ?" Chiku saw the girl this time, must be in her twenties, fair, Dressed traditionally in a peach colored salwar suit matching the color of her bangles. the orange color bindi complemented her beauty in the most profound manner. Anyhow she changed her question rather translated Is anyone sitting hear? Chiku composed himself and replied " Na Kehi basinahanti, apana basantu( Nobody is sitting here, you can sit). Mwanwhile Guddu came from washroom and asked " Chiku, Colddrinks peebu(chiku wanna have cold drinks). Chiku was in a different zone now, an extremely beautiful girl is sitting in front of her and the conversation has just began. So he said no. TC came and enquired "Shristi Jyotika Mishra", the girl showed the SMS in her mobile phone and took her seat. "Chiku", Se tama bada bhai ki? (Chiku, is he your elder brother?) Chiku said " Mo naa Kaushik (My name is Kaushik) and narrated the whole Day 1 story how Chiku met Guddu. Shristi seemed impressed. " Mo sana bhai naa v chiku" ( my younger brother name is chiku too). You all must have figured out what just happened. Kaushik aka Chiku stops for now, enters Guddu aka Agnivesh , sits besides Chiku, Shristi and Agnivesh greeted each other as the train departs from vizag towards Bhubaneswar. Chiku just asked Guddu " Bhai mu tama seat ku jauchi ( Bro, I am going to your seat). Guddu showed his approval to chiku through a thumbs up.

Guddu and Shristi got engaged in conversation while Kaushik took over the side lower seat put on his earphones and watched the remaining "The Flash" episodes for the remaining part of journey. while taking breaks in between episodes Kaushik witnessed the giggles happening in conversation of Agnivesh and Shristi and thought " they look so good together but at the end of the this journey Shristi, Agnivesh and Kaushik may never cross path with each other". Towards the end of the jouney when Kaushik was taking out his luggage Agnivesh told " Hey Bhai sun, shristi is my college junior". Conversation led to connection, Kaushik smiled. At 9 pm, Pashanti Express reached Bhubaneswar Railway Station. Kaushik bidded his goodbyes to Agnivesh and Shristi. After Kaushik got off from train, Agnivesh came running to Kaushik hugged him and told " To phone re mo number save karichi , lets catch up some day in Bengaluru.( I have saved my number in your phone, lets catch up some day in Bengaluru) Kaushik said " Sure Bhai, we will. And Bhai you and Shristi look good together. Agnivesh looked at Kaushik and said " Okay, I have exchanged number with her too" and winked. 

Few days later, Kaushik's phone crashed and he lost all his contact and never contacted Agnnivesh again. Present day, when Kaushik narrated the whole story to Radhika, she enquired " whats the point of the whole story?" Irritated Kaushik scrolled his phone opened the profile of "Agnivesh Rath" and Showed the life event where it mentioned Agnivesh Rath married Shristi Jyotika Mishra". Radhika smiled and said " Indeed a journey to remember , you got your favorite seat "side lower" and two strangers found each other for life but I never thought excahnging number will lead to marriage. Why you are thinking that much, they are together forever in the end, Kaushik replied and uninstalled facebook once again.