Where are we heading ...? - Part I

Well, Something serious and interesting :-)

I wanted to write about Indian culture after I read Arvind's blog on the same. But, I got the necessary motivation only now, after what happened in the train from Trichy to Bangalore few days back.

Here is what happened..
There were two guys and a girl in the train. From their conversation I learnt that they were colleagues(only) in an IT company and that the two guys had reserved tickets, while the girl had a wait listed ticket. Since the unreserved compartment will be crowded, they decided that the three will share the two berths, with the girl paying the reservation charges. This was fair enough. But the real shock(to me at least) came when every one settled down. Of the two guys, took an upper berth and other pair (of colleagues !!!!) went into a bed spread in the middle berth and what followed were giggles from inside!! The witness to this "BOLD"(Mallika Sherawat!!) act were myself(brought up in an orthodox family:-)), an elderly couple in their sixties and a middle aged couple with their 10 year old girl child, who was curiously looking at the middle berth with her mother constantly pressing her head down :-).

This will bring out varied reactions/responses from different people depending on their mental make up, notions on what is culture and above all the extent to which they are "bold". The old couple was stunned, the middle aged couple was speechless, I was confused (to be frank), the child was curious and the other friend of theirs was "normal". But none reacted and the train reached Bangalore on time and all of us were on our own ways.

There is nothing called as right or wrong. But, to me what they did was not ethical and an incident worth a post-mortem. I don't know whether their parents would have been "ok" with this, for that matter even if they would have been when they were in their school or college. What made them bold? Is it the fact that they are earning and are independent? Is it that they feel they are matured and grown up? Don't they bother about the society (people around)? Were they brought up that way? Will they bring up their children that way?

I have more questions and more thoughts which I would put down in the part II of this blog.

In the meantime, I'm really curious to know whether the guys happened to swap berths during the journey ;-) :-)

See you in Part II