Omens & Me

It was 7pm on Friday; my train to Bangalore , Mysore Express, was supposed to leave from Chennai central at 9:45pm. My ticket was still waitlisted, no 13 – the unlucky number – it had not budged from that position after 4pm. I cursed my luck and started towards the railways station. My mind was racing, all the trains and buses were going to be packed today, thanks to the 3 day holiday. Waitlist means that I will not be permitted to enter the compartment with the ticket. Which means – I have to travel either in the general compartment or travel by bus.

I had made up my mind; I would check out the train first. Since the charts are put up at 7pm, I knew the status as told by the Interactive Voice Response system was accurate. So I wanted to go by the general compartment, avoiding the rush and the painful journey in the non-volvo buses. I was thinking about the rush in the gereral compartment and the long night ahead of me. In the hurry, I forgot my slippers back home, which I realized after getting down from my 2nd floor flat. So I kept my bag and climbed all the way up to my house to get the slippers.

Now many of us would have considered this a bad omen – to get back into the house after you have left for an important occasion – but that was not true for me. Over the years I had realized that whenever I got back into the house – mostly due to my forgetfulness – I would achieve what I set out to. So as I locked the door for the second time, I knew that I would be getting confirmed tickets. The omen also told me one thing – I would be benefited in the short term, but will have to suffer in the long term.

I went to the bus stop near my house and wait for a bus. This is the first time I was to board a bus from this bus stop and I was under the notion that all buses going to “High Court” would take me to the central. So I get into the first bus, which was to go to “High Court”. After boarding the bus, I get to know that this particular bus would not be going to the Central, but all other buses with similar numbers would be going to the central. Now that is what I call rotten luck.

I got down at the next bus stop and wait for another bus. This one takes its own sweet time to come. I start praying to god and finally a bus appears and to my utter surprise it was half empty. So I got a seat near the window and under a light, so that I could read my novel. The bus journey was not a smooth one, owing to the numerous traffic jams, and the bus took a circuitous route to the station. Finally I arrived at 9:15pm, and headed straight to the reservation chart to check the status of my ticket, with my heart in my mouth.

As I had mentioned above, the omen proved yet again. I had a confirmed ticket to Bangalore. Due to the lack of time, I had to be content with a chicken burger for dinner and reached home without much hassles.

Now the other part of the omen had to come true, that it would not be beneficial in the long run. This part came true when I returned today morning to my home. I had come early since I had come by bus – I reached the front gate at 5 am. I found the gates locked and searched for my keys, and to my dismay, I found that I had taken the duplicate set of keys, which did not contain the key to the gate. So I was forced to wait outside the gate, hoping that someone would get up and open the gates for me.

Luckily, after 20 minutes of waiting one of my neighbours got up and came over to the balcony. I shouted at the top of my voice and he came to my rescue.

Try as much as I can, I can never stop myself from forgetting things when I leave home and try as much as I can, the omen never fails to prove itself again and again.