Friday was a hectic day - work and planning for long weekend. Suddenly remembered that I had not visited Oxford and Cambridge yet. The Meccas of modern education. So, the die was cast. Decided to visit Oxford the next day.
The journey was good. Had a few students going to the Reading music festival for company. Oxford itself was beautiful. Took the tour by bus and then walked around. After watching Man U rout Fulham, returned to train station.
Had to wait, sat on a bench. There was a girl, south-east asian, reading some book. Looked like the script used top to bottom as the direction. Wondered what it was. Remembered something about Chinese.
Fortunately we both boarded the same compartment and too respective seats. After some time a silly question came to my mind. How to indicate the end of a sentence when writing top to bottom? What better to know but to get the answer from horse's mouth. I approached the girl and asked what she was reading. Ah, she didn't understand English fully. She was from Japan. She was reading Japanese. After going through the book my self, I could figure out the comma and full stop. She confirmed too. I thanked her and came back to my place.
After some time, as the train was slowing, the girl came to me. She offered me the book, as a memory of the trip. Now, my logical brain switched on. I said, "Thanks, but I do cannot read or understand Japanese. The book is of no use to me unless you teach me Japanese." I don't know how much of it she understood, but she sure understood that I didn't want that book. She smiled, said bye and left. She had to get down at that station. I had a long way to go before reaching London.
Only after the train start did I realise that perhaps I should have kept the book. That was a sweet gesture from her. I should have reciprocated. May be I should have asked for e-mail address too. And may be I should have got down with her. After all you don't meet nice people often.
Silly me !!!
