Training on the train

Often when you are at a new place, your eyes would observe more than what your brain would want to. At times these leads to interesting subjects as this time I felt like sharing the wonderful ways how people spend time at train journeys which are part and parcel of London lifestyle. Let's call it good planning or whatever, but people are mostly encouraged if not persuaded or forced to use public commute. Train travels back at home often turns out to be entertaining too if you can start a conversation. The objective of this write up is to give my friends on the web certain ideas on how productive their trips can be made. I have observed very similar actions during my days in Singapore which gave me the drive to jot down this time.

The most relaxing, entertaining and interesting thing that many of us would love to do on a cozy climate controlled place such as trains in London would be to engage in an intriguing book. Books are world of its own and nothing to comment about. Anybody with interest, time and material(book) in hand, would definitely love to be hugged to it. The books are one of the most common pals on train. Call it style, fashion or interest but it certainly takes the centre stage. The next time killer would be newspapers which are given out free in railway stations or underground stations. People grab their free lot and enter train to skip through the advertisement heavy pages of the local newsprints. It often becomes a pain as certain busy people leave it in the train itself once it's purpose is served. This then glides in the train to get the automatic doors jammed leading to manual interference to clear it and cause delays to trains.

Another travel companion is music. Often people keep themselves busy with music plugged to their ears. Even noticed some guys playing loved music on speakers in public places which may not be likened by many, prime reason being music is only interesting if you have a taste for certain genres or mood to devote. Everybody has that kid in them when it comes to computer games. We all might act as serious grown up guys on every other incident around us but computer games or mobile gaming gets us back to what we really are. It is not virtual reality as people call it is the reality, I would say and whole grown up thing are just act of the mastermind brain in us. Common games being candy crush, FIFA & few others which I don't know but can only recognise.

I always tried to avoid naming any brand while writing and marketing for them by any means but two common gadgets that I find to be part of London's train life is Kindle and iPad. Nope, this is not because of my affinity to a fruit company. Some people always seems to be reading from their kindle and some others reading, watching movie, gaming and much more from iPad. The London world knows very well how to keep them busy and engaged. Another interesting gadget is the partner for a year gadget named mobile phones. You could see all kind of people doing all kind of things on their mobile. Mobile remains a part of the show-off for all and a common thingy whatever other activities they might be engaged with while on trains. Now what people do with their mobile is not in scope of this blog as it would require a website for itself. Mobile also looks like a replacement as common mans iPad or kindle or all in one device. Many people are engaged on long calls with friends, family & managers often on overground trains and underground trains gives a good reason to ignore calls as there is no range down there.

Another crowd favourite activity is sleeping. One or other day all those who keep otherwise busy on trains would take a nap or two. Sleeping on trains is more as the climate is well controlled inside giving you a perfect cozy climate to sleep. Sometimes people spend time on talking to prefect strangers and getting to know people, culture & life around them. It gets more interesting when the stranger is from a different continent or country than what you are from. Many brainy guys in there seems to be lost on their thoughts, maybe working on new ideas or creating a fantasy world in the air. At times we can't recognise whether someone is actually sleeping or thinking.

One of the worlds favourite pass-time is encouraging women to dress well and give a supportive glance. You could see and get yourselves lost on the world of fashion. Interesting find is that it is very rare that you find two women wearing same dress any place you go. But men seems to be having less choice in this area as all other areas. The highlight of the apparel aesthetics in London is the jacket and suit. You can try to find the various designs and model and this could leave you counting your whole life. One of my previous blogs I wrote that whatever dress you buy, whatever it's price is, you end up wearing a jacket over it which might in fact prevent it from getting worn out. Many women seems be so busy back home with household chores that they are forced to effectively use the train time for applying makeup. I have seen women using whole 20mins on a moving train applying just something which I don't know on their face. They hold a vanity mirror on one hand and balance themselves on the train well enough that the other hand works on their face. People are so innovative that at times when there is no vanity mirror the front cameras of the mobile is used. That is worth extracting each penny spend on those expensive gadgets. 

Away from the ordinary recently I found a guy maybe in college years with a packet of tobacco and some paper. He used the time in train just rolling and getting his cigarettes ready. Not sure about the legality of it but he was straight under the security camera throughout the ride. Now there are few boring men who in spite of having all these above interesting stuff to be engaged in train still decides to write his blog in a running train and you know who I am talking about.