Bye

I am not good at it. How ever hard I try to show off the sadness on my face while seeing people off, I almost every time fail. Every time some one we know has embarked on a tour or a small holiday, we tend to set into that mood a day before the actual journey. We talk to them all through the day with so much love being shown in our conversation with them. Even at the doorstep when they are about to leave, we shower many lovely, sugarcoated words and the conversation will be full of natural love and liking. But the moment we have to leave to the station to drop them, we suddenly feel out of words for we have talked so much, we will be left with nothing but a few glances here and there waiting for the train to move on. The anticipation for the train to move is only to escape this uncomfortable situation.

Generally what happens is half the family would be willing to go to the airport or railway station to see off the guy but not everyone will get the chance to go. Most of the people who succeed in going prefer this as a reason for some outing rather than bidding the guy a goodbye. Remaining few just stand there to watch the other guys talking. Only the eldest of the group generally goes on talking with the guy and remaining just stand to listen to his talking. Most of the conversation will be on how the Government is faring, how the previous few days went, checking the whole baggage, what to eat during the journey and if the guy is going somewhere to study or work then he has to listen to all ‘important’ things from almost everyone. Apart from his luggage, he has to carry things, which he has to give to some one else. He will also be carrying with him a list of all the relatives he has at the place he is going. What a funny scene it would be with all the relatives collecting at one place to send him off and saying all type of good things for his future.

On a few occasions we get to see people bending to touch the feet of the elders to take their blessings in the station it self. What were they doing in their house? It is some thing like last minutes studying we generally do to take in as much as knowledge to write well in our exams.They might be doing it to have as many blessings as possible. I respect the tradition of bending and taking blessings but why do it in public as though the public will appreciate their respect for elders.

Humourous incidents also do tend to happen while we are going some where. Last time when I was going to a small holiday with my friends, one guy, who was talking on the phone suddenly came to me and asked me to take care of his belongings and went somewhere to find his friend. How should I know that he is a good guy and not an anti national? After waiting for 10 minutes, I, along with my friend complained to the police officer who seems to be in a bit tension himself. He had the detector but when probing on using it, he said there was no charge in it. Good God! After leaving the bag with the police, while we were waiting for our train to come, the guy came and was actually surprised that I gave the bag to the police. He was not giving me a chance to say even though he blamed himself for such act. By the way, did I say that the guy was from the Navy?

Even if we care for the person who, we will be seeing off, we will never be comfortable standing in the station with him standing at the trains entrance leaning forward to talk to us. You can guess how many of them like him would be standing at the entrance? All the time while the guy will be leaning, he would be thinking of what to talk and waiting for the green signal to go off. The people who came to see him off would be doing the same thing. When the signal goes off, then these guys realise that they are actually being separated. They shout loudly to convey their regard to their respective families.

The mind of the person leaving would be inspecting the surroundings of the station while the guys who came to drop him would be checking the best place possible to stand and talk to this guy. Seeing off any one who is dear to you is not a very happy moment. Some people show it and some do not. That does not entitle us to create all these type of comic scenes even though they are emotional to many. Unfortunately, everything about the guy will be forgotten the moment his train or plane leaves. All the hungama created by the group of people suddenly seems to disappear as though there was no such thing ever happened. The person who boarded the plane might not think about the people who came to drop him. Everyone seems to be falling back into his or her regular life.

Yours Always,