Nothing Substantial to write about

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post I have started a new job. It is a group of companies with different office locations and I work in one of the branch offices. I must confess that on my first day when they set up my computer and email, I checked to see how many desis were working in that company. Then I found, out of how many of those belonged to Maharashtra. I know it sounds pretty provincial but what the hell….enquiring minds want to know. So I started stereotyping to find what they were doing in that company. I found that all desis, including myself, were pretty much doing geeky things. Maybe there is some truth in painting with a broad brush of generalization. I was also pleased to know that there were other foreigners working and I am assuming it is a pretty diverse place. This was such a contrast to my old job where I was the only Indian and foreigner. I was asked a lot of ridiculous questions, which used to annoy me. Sometimes I would make up things just for fun! I would come home and regale K with anecdotes of all the nonsense I have been telling the ignoramuses at my old work place. He always laughs at my imagination and my ability to poke fun at myself! Anyway that’s all I am going to write about my work place, old as well as new.

Anyway on Saturday I took a train to the City at an unearthly hour, to meet one of my dear friends who was visiting the City. I thought I might peacefully nap the entire time. I was sitting in the second car and was peacefully napping until when the train pulled out of Newark International Airport Station. I was rudely awakened by a male voice yelling in the first car, “Hello….Hello can you please not talk on your cell phone. People are trying to sleep here.” The guy had a distinctive foreign accent, to which ethnic group it belonged shall not be disclosed. He continued yelling, “You are not in your living room but in a train….so please SHUT UP.” We did not know whom he was yelling at because we couldn’t hear the other person on the cell phone. Everyone in our car woke up and started looking around for the errant cell phone user. At that very moment, the woman stopped talking on the cell phone and yelled back in a foreign accent, which also won’t be disclosed, “You don’t own this train and it is a free country.” She continued talking on the cell phone and briskly walked towards our car talking in a foreign language with the guy following her and yelling, “Hello hello…how are you??….ha ha ha….what are you doing at 7AM.” By that time everyone in our car were woken by this ruckus and were looking stunned at the spectacle. The guy chased her out of our car and walked back and sat down on an empty seat right in front of me! I thought the whole situation was so funny and wanted to laugh out loud….but couldn’t as I was scared of the cell phone Nazi sitting in front of me. I thought maybe he doesn’t like people laughing too and might chase me out of the car as well! I am completely annoyed by people talking non-stop on their cell phones but just ignore them than make a fool of myself. Like I mentioned in yesterday’s post….there is never a dull moment in New Jersey!