Spicy Tidbits

I remember one rainy day in particular. School had reopened and it was first week of june and I had the pleasure of holding my brand new raincoat. As usual to get a set in the local train from Thakurli to Ambernath, I rushed and dumped my school bag and my raincoat on the carrier above seats. While getting down at Ambernath, a kind gentleman remembered to hand me my school bag and raincoat. I got out of the train and put on my brand new raincoat (it had pink and red and green floral design), cap pulled over my head, my bag tucked inside the raincoat, I started walking towards my school. It was over 15 to 20 minutes walk from the station. There were two routes, one the long winding road and it took us 30 minutes or more. There was a short cut and it took us to school in abt 15 minutes. We had to cross a chemical factory. there used to be huge heaps of sulphur. There was also Wimco safety matches factory. These and few cinema halls including Laxmi and few more were my roads to dream about everything other than school and homework. Thus, pleasantly dreaming of everything else, I managed to reach school and finished classes. seriously do not remember what classes I had. But I am sure they must have been my regular ones including Starting with English period, Science, PT, Math, Drawing and either History or Geography must have been there. I ran to take my raincoat from the stand next to the classroom door and vamooshed in no time after the class prayers. Rain or no rain, I wore my raincoat and caught the corner seat next to the windows. got out of my raincoat carefully folded it and put it on the overhead carrier. I put my satchel on my lap and kept gazing out of the window to check if I found any familiar faces boarding the train. I must add here, there used to be a 15 minutes halt at Ambernath as it was the last destination for the break journey. The onward journey began all the way to over 50 km before reaching Victoria Terminus. My home was just 15 km. anyway, on that day I did not find any interesting and familiar faces therefore I decided to take a nap. every few kilometers, looked at the distance covered by opening my one eye just enough to take a peek and go back to my snooze. Maybe it was my third peek at the distance covered and I realised the train was about to halt at Thankurli. I rushed pushing people blocking my way in the compartment. The train halted for just about a minute and I was just one second away before the train started. Managed to land on platform. Heaved a sigh of relief and realised I had left my brand new raincoat in the train on that overhead carrier...