Random Stranger: 10/29/2010

10/29
OCt 29

A week has passed in this dusty city of Gurgaon. I am actually pretty exhausted from a week of
hustle bustle, meeting lots of potential customers and learning what Busniess Development is all about in India.

It was Friday evening..and I was sitting in a metro on the way to CP, during the prime time
traffic of the 6PM musty Delhi evening. I was thinking about meeting
up a cuz in Delhi...so I called him up on the the train. The noise was so great...the hustle,
bustle....I mean its just a sort of EXCITEMENT
that resurrects in me whenever I am here, the feeling of reserved ENERGY wherever I look.

Anyhow, I couldn't handle the voice call..it was just too loud and noisy..so after yelling
a few times..I confirmed my notion of why SMS was a preferred method of communication over here over voice calls.

After giving up on talking to my cuz (believe me not a typical sign of a capricorn)..I felt
a bit clueless about where to go..so I asked my neighbor on the train "Cuch 5-star hotel CP ke paas ka hey"...
He must have thought I"m an alien with my Western surfer like accent..thus he really didnt' have
much to offer in terms of places.."mujko malum nahi hey.." he said in sort of a montonous tone.

But then..in the corner of my eye..I saw this very calm and somewhat attractvive mature lady,
sitting across from me, in the corner...She was looking at me and I noticed her lips moving ..."Imperial Hotel is a nice place to go..
and walking distance from Rajiv Chowk (the stop at CP)...u should go there..." she said. I looked at her..
gazed for a few minutes..and then in the shyness that most ppl dont' know about me. I looked away.

I had noticed her even before I spoke to my cuzin..she did look differnt from the rest of the crowd on the train..
and she had caught my eye. She was very charming for an older woman, probably in
her mid 40's....quite composed and stylish...

When we reached CP..and the doors of the metro flung open..I was among hundreds, if not thousnnds of
ppl entering and exiting in a totally chaotic and typical Indian manner..And as I was about to depart,
I found myself standing right next to her...So,I built enough confidence in me to speak to her...
"Are you visiting India as well?, I asked?....

In the next 30 minutes...it was as if time flew by..We crossed outside the metro..into the
streets of central Delhi..past the known and immensely crowded undeground market, Palika
Baazar, and into a streeet filled with merchants and shop owners, Ganpath market..

She was a fashion designer..and that too, originally from India but living in Europe with her husband..whom she
had randomly met in Goa....

She had lived in many many places of India and Euorpe..from the mountain sides of Nanenthal (where she grew up)...to the city of
Mumbai....and now, her husband and her were looking to start a small boutique business, sourcing materials from India to design scarfs, mufflers,
and other small items as a start, and selling them in the doorsteps of small business in the small towns of Europe.. She was going to travel
to the mountains with her husband..and seemed quite OK with not being settled in one place.

We talked and walked the streets of crowded market..and I got to know her and she got to
know me in what lasted a mere 20 - 30 minutes..but somehow, it just seemed like an eternity. And in
that hustle bustle of the HIGH ENERGY of the market...filled with the buzz of people out and
about, in search of gifts and clothes for their Diwali shopping, I was somehow mesmerized by her. Not necessarily
because what she was doing, or why she was here, but for reason that even I have difficulty in understanding..

She was someone, who in a mere few minutes, I just felt I totally connected with....so calm, so composed..so opposite of the my crazy
self..

I dont' know what you can call these RANDOM encounters..but I Do know that there are very
few people in this world you can really connect with..and Jesse..this lady from the Metro..was one
of them...