Compassion

Travelling in trains can be an excellent opportunity to study the human behaviour. The compartment offers you a cross-sectional, cross-regional, cross-religion et al, you name a category and you may find someone who fits that criteria. At times, i feel that it is a miniature representation of our country not only in terms of its compostion but also in terms of size. Of course, my conclusions can be wrong as my observations are based on a small sample size. What astonishes me most, is that, though we say that we are becoming global but i find that we are still very much local in our approcah. If someone gets in at say Diva, she may not get a seat but if someone gets in at Thane and you have your people in the train, then your seat is assured. Given the huge crowd in the compartment, its a sure receipe for germination of big fights. The height is when someone gets in at Dadar and reserve a seat for her friend who is to alight the train at Ghatkopar. Interestingly, when other people do this to them, then they will fight tooth and nail but when they themselves do it, then its a different matter.