Hundred and One
"Hundred... ... They are exactly hundred.", I thought
Early in the morning... As I make my way thru the jostling crowd, and as hundreds of people try to grab their share of the train one thing that the day starts with is observing people... their little nuances... I think everybody does that with the possible difference of the time... they observe each other... as if they are telling themselves... Yeah This is the world, I am going to be in for the next half an hour of my life... This splendid feeling stays not more than a minute... and then they again go back to their own circle... drawn by themselves with a book, a Portable playstation, or an iPod...
and to think, they are missing the freshness of the early breeze, the rich smell of the trees from the Chinese Gardens and the sounds of those little babies clinging to their mothers makes me feel sorry for their ignorance... I see around me and notice the wires which have formed a mesh around me... two schoolchildren are playing with their portable gaming consoles with the headphones to their ears... an elderly lady is dozing besides me with an ipod stuck firmly to her frock... I see two professionals in the seats opposite to mine... again with the earphones to their laptops... I notice all kinds of gadgets with headphones... and unknowingly start to count the number of people with headphones...
one... two... three... the car is large enough to accommodate two hundred people... and it helps to count people when you are in the middle... fifty... fifty one... fifty two... i have not even reached half the car and still i have got fifty two with that damn thing... how can people get lost in themselves... their world and just ignore what is happening outside... anyway... there are less people in the other half of the car... seventy one... seventy two... and how come this construction worker afford this sleek mobile... and how did he know how to transfer songs.... looks engrossed in the new songs he must have downloaded some days before... ninety one... ninety two... you know they say it affects your hearing power too... shouldn't wear them so often... still nobody seems to be interpreting what I am thinking... , ninety seven, ninety eight...ninety nine .... and Hundred. I reach to the magical figure....
"Tampines....", the speaker above my head barks and the train comes to a halt as I pull off my earphones and put them into my bag to rest...
