At that moment I had struck me - why all those famous quotes on journeys are just about the travel and destinations or places and people - at least those quotes that come often during breaks in Travel & Living. Its also who is seeing off that matter, for sure - given that for so many millions of people that travel every hour all over the world, most of them would have been seen off by their friends or relatives or partners. They must also count to millions. For some, given the situation, being seen off (or being received) could be as important as the journey and its whole purpose. It then flashed me the teary face of my mother who came of see me off on a tough day when I had left for my engineering to Bangalore, which was then a faraway land to an average teenager from a town in the times when technology has not invaded geography. Also my unwilling seeing off my father, who had gone on his job to report in a new place, knowing the fearful nights till his return attributed to unsafe days of burglaries in our locality. And the see off on the day which had left a little time, when my father had left on an official trip, for me to explain why I had got ‘B’ grade for the first time. He had signed the progress report without saying a thing which I felt I did not deserve and that had left me waiting till he was back. And the glimpse at my family in the airport that remained in my mind for weeks, when I had left for abroad. It all mattered.

The train was far and the light behind guard’s compartment gradually faded away into the dark. Platform seemed claiming back its solitude. The boy at the food stall was clearing the emptied coffee cups into the bin. Porters have settled down on a bench and were into an animated discussion. I had reached the stairs of foot-over bridge. Side by TV was playing the ad of Gold Winner oil…