Endless

It seemed like a normal journey from Mumbai to my hometown. Like every time the train left Mumbai Central at 7 in the evening and like every time the first stop was going to be Borivali. When life becomes so monotonous, you rarely like experimenting and hence like every time I was sitting at the corner seat and was engroseed in some book to cut time, rarely expecting any thing interesting to occur in the journey. But then the unexpected happened.

Now everyone has a definition for unexpected. In this case the matter was so trivial that I could have easily overlooked it and continued with my book. But something made me look at him again. This guy was sitting on the corner berth with his eyes closed and head rested. Everything appeared normal with this guy, 2 eyes, 2 ears, one nose and I can go on and on but I think I made my point. However the reason the subject made me turn from my PG Wodehouse masterpiece was that his face appeared amazingly familiar.

How often does it happen that you see a face that appears familiar and yet you cannot recall where you have seen that person? For me it is the most exhilarating situation where there is a face right in front of me, crushing me every time I look at it because every time I do that, the more sure I become that I have seen this face somewhere, but where, that is the quest left to be answered.

Now this guy had nothing worth remembering. He was middle aged, dull complexioned and had a slim built. He was semi-formally dressed although his attire showed that he belonged to lower middle class and the tiffin in his hand showed that he must be returning from work at this time of the day. And like any other guy returning from a hard day's work, he had preferred to doze off on his train seat to momentarily ward away daily troubles of house bills, kid's education, office progress and many others that haunt a middle class guy. But little did he know that his very face was giving me a hard time and the 'curiosity' of knowing why the face appeared so familiar was killing me.

Although I might have called it 'curiosity' but then on a second thought this appears a pretty inappropriate terminology to use. It is a different thing to as oneself, 'Where did the universe start', 'Where is Angola situated' or 'where are the safest kissing points in IIT Delhi' because these questions come under curiosity and such questions have fixed methodology for knowing the solution.Moreover you know that by the end of the day, even if you fail to find one, then there will always be somebody who would be knowing the answers. But unfortunately googling 'where have I seen this face before' doesn't help much and that is a question you yourself have to answer. Hence there I was sitting on a train window seat, staring at an unknown guy whose face seemed weirdly familiar.

'Weirdly' because I knew that this guy surely doesn't know me. I have not talked to him, nor have I met him. Also he is the very same person and not a look alike I am searching for. If my intuition is right, then his face must have passed me in a flash, like in a market, college or office. But then why out of thousand faces would I remember him. And why would I meet such a person in a city that I rarely visit. Maybe I have seen him today somewhere in the afternoon, maybe in newspapers, in the wanted section, or he might be a terrorist......wait a second, this thought process is proceeding in a gravely unstructured manner, and the one thing that I had learnt from the billion scolding, comments and suggestions that I received from my 'super awesome' mugga party during job prep was to solve problems in a structured manner. So let's see, this guy is definitely a mumbaikar, hence I must have seen him in Mumbai. Now in Mumbai I was either at home, or in my uncle's office or in Santacruz to visit a friend. Now this guy was definitely not from my house or office and as for the brief Santacruz visit, I don't think at that time I would have been in the mood to observe any random guy's face. So that leaves news articles, magazine pics, endless shopkeepers I must have visited, wanted section photos and people I see during my morning walk.

Yeah.... It sucks. Back to unstructured thoughts.
And then I went back to my random brainstorming on this intoxicating wretched familiar face with a background voice hammering my brain...
where...
where....
where...

But just then the train halted at Borivali and he opened his eyes. And with each passing moment as I became more sure that it was no déjà vu and I had seen this very man somewhere, he searched for his tiffin, found it under his seat and got up to get down. And at that moment I got a look at his seat number and then a wide smile spread on my face....
.... How stupid of me!!


PS: Read the title.