This was probably the second time I was travelling in a IInd class AC compartment of the Indian Railways. I entered the train at the second station of its itinerary. It was around 9 PM on a Sunday. A lower berth was allotted to me and when I found my seat in the compartment, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the other three berths were empty. A journey of such kind would would make me feel very happy - for some inconspicuous reasons - and so it was with a pleasant feeling in my heart that I started arranging the sheets and pillow on my berth while hoping that nobody shows up for the three seats. The train departed from the station as I lay in my berth making myself comfortable. I switched the lights off, turned the fan on as I was feeling a little hot after a slight run that I had to make to board the train, not because it was departing, but because while in India, do as the Simran does - run while boarding an Indian train because ja Simran, jee le apni zindagi.
I was comfortably snug in the inexorable world of dreams that was about to please me for the next 9 hours or so. But as soon as I started falling asleep, and after a couple of stations had passed pretty quickly, the other three people boarded the train! Damn it. I was shattered. But sleep started to take me over and I was doing okay then. After they - two of them were a married couple with a wailing baby with them, and another a single man of around my age - had taken their sweet time to arrange their berths, they lay down. And then the unthinkable happened. The husband, let's call him H, decided to keep the light switched on. I briefly turned in my comfy bed and facing him asked him, politely, to switch it off. H without any pangs of guilt or request in his tone, told me that the baby will cry if it's dark! I wanted to tell him to go back to his past and ensure that no baby comes out of his marriage. But I stopped myself feeling a little angry more because he did not request it to be kept on but decided it for the all of us. It made me furious. But I did not say anything. And kept quiet, although reeling in anger.
I was telling myself all the stuff that I read - you are not angry, you are feeling anger, and that you should let it go and not act on it. I think it was fruitful for some time and I was again being lulled by the sleep.
And then I was shattered again as H, after a brief discussion with the wife, W, decided to switch the fan off. This was too much for the inner counselor to handle and I lost my patience and my cool and everything that is good in me. I turned around and told him to switch it on, and also that I can not sleep with the lights switched on and asked him to switch it off. He said that the baby will cry and then you won't be able to sleep, to which I said that let us see when this happens. Long story short, we both had a brief war of words - where I was super angry and failed to maintain my polite tone which is what usually happens to me whenever I am irritated. Anyway this is how things went. But what is more important is the following dialogue that I delivered: "Mujhe light mein neend nahi aati hai and mujhe kal boht travel karna hai," to which he had replied by saying that "humein bhi boht travel karna hai kal."
This was the last discussion between us. Lights remained off for some hours and then after some hours the baby started crying and then they switched the light back on. I was too tired and restless to care about it then and let it go.
Then I got down at station A to change my coach as my parents were travelling in a different coach and I had to meet them for some time before finally de-boarding the train after a couple more stations. I didn't think any more of this lights-make-baby-cry fiasco and went to my parents coach. After an hour or so, I had to get down at station B which I did. It was early morning 5 Am and I sat on a bench to book a cab to take me to the airport from where I had a flight at half past noon. While booking the cab, I saw a man walking in front of me who briefly glanced at me at precisely the same time when I did. It was H. He also had gotten down at the same station, and I can't help but wonder that he must be surprised by seeing me at B when he saw me getting down at A. Anyway, so this quickly ended our co-incidental meeting - in which I gave him a brief smile partially in attempt at proving to him my human-ness, and slightly due to being genuinely surprised at seeing him again.
This account of the incident is getting too long and so I would like to cut it short now.
I went to the airport and waited for my flight for around 6 hours during which I roamed in pretty much all of the airport, slept at at least 3 different locations, and peed thrice. After all this effort, I finally boarded the flight, feeling relaxed that I will now reach my destination. Some minutes before the flight was about to fly, I saw H carrying his baby and going to the washroom. He looked at me and we smiled at each other. While coming back, I looked at him and said, "Coincidence".
Funny thing is that I had been reading some short stories while waiting at the airport which dealt with concepts like free-will/destiny and contained somewhere a sentence which I really liked and pondered over earlier: "Coincidence and intention are two sides of a tapestry".
Also, I wanted to mention a quick unmistakable idea that I had just moments before I saw H in the flight - a guy sitting a couple of rows in front of me turned his head to see something, and I looked at his eyes and it occurred to me instantly that his eyes look like that of one of my college seniors, and almost suddenly another thought appeared in my mind that H also seemed to have similar eyes, and it was moments ahead of this thought that I saw H.
So this is a queer bunch of coincidences that I wanted to keep in my memory. This gives me an indication that sometimes my thoughts may act out in reality just moments after I have thought them but only if I don't attach a possibility in my mind for the thought to be acted out in real life. And second is that the magnitude of the coincidence is huge - H could have been travelling to any city and could have taken any of the numerous flights on a Monday morning. But he took the same flight that I had to take after a wait of more than 6 hours. And that such a person I would meet in my compartment. This is too coincidental to be passed off as a mere stroke of chance.