Shhh …. Silence Please

Normally, I and Santanu don’t talk to each other on bus, train, flight

or whatsoever as we are normally lost in our own world and both try to

respect each others silence. We have books, newspaper, ipod for that

time but this particular evening we happened to talk so much while

returning to Zurich from Luzern. One of the reason maybe that by now we

are kind of used to watching beautiful sceneries from train as it runs

along lakes, rivers and creaking sometimes as it passes by the running

hills unfolding before us.

Anywayz, it was almost 20 minutes left to reach Zurich when one lady

from back seat of Santanu came to us asking ----

Lady - “Do you speak English?  Santanu - Yes, we do(replied enthusiastically thinking may be she overheard something and want to ask us something) Lady - I think you might not have noticed that sign (pointing to the picture showing silence compartment on opposite window) as its not there in your window. You are in silencecompartment. Us – (in unison) Oops!!! – Sorry

Dumbfounded to hear that; we had been talking non stop for a while now.

It was so silly of us that we did fail to notice none of our

co-passengers in that compartment were speaking. We traveled almost many

schanghain countries but never happen to come across like that. Being

unaware that even a compartment like this can exist we could not express

our feelings to each other (Hain! aisaa bhi hota hai) till we reached

Zurich and got out of that train.

We were not hurt by her comments but it might have been better and less

humiliation if she warned us before, not waiting for the very last

moment.

YES, it was another new experience with Swiss Railway, next day while

traveling on a normal compartment Santanu silently sneaked into one of

this special compartment to get this picture.