A journey continued..

He thought it would be an ordinary journey. Standing behind the pillar he watched the train snort arrogantly into the station. With each snort he was reminded of his grandfather's words "You will fail in the city and return penniless"; with every heavenward whistle, he heard his cousin, "Don't worry. Come here and I will get you a job at the construction site." Now he had a 34-hour journey to prove one of them wrong, and he expected the excitement at the end of the journey. He looked at his ticket once again: compartment S9 berth 23.

He boarded the train and set down his trunk carefully.That was all he had.Few old clothes.He counted the money his granny had given him.1000 rupees.His family’s two month income.He gulped, went to the wash basin and splashed some water on his face.He thought "Me and work at a site??No way!!Iam going to be like Chiranjeevi..a big film star, everyone will want my autograph..." He reminded himself to learn to sign.He stared into the mirror.It was his grandfather he saw ,wagging his stick "Have u ever seen ur face in the mirror?!!" The screech of the train broke his train of thoughts.It had started.A new beginning.And he realized that his ticket was missing in his pocket.

Passing on the story to Venky , Sriram and Sangeetha
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(Everything below the dashed line above should be copied and pasted with every accepted tag)This is a Story Tree and is best nurtured as follows:
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2. All previous snippets of 90-100 words need to be copied before the new set of 90-100 words are appended.
3. Each entire snippet should be linked to the respective author (and not just the first sentence or so)
4. Characters, scenes, etc. can be introduced by an author
5. Bizarre twists, sci-fi, fantasy sequences are best avoided.
6. After appending 90-100, the Story Tree can be passed on to at most 3 bloggers.
7. If more than 1 branch leads to a blogger, s/he is free to choose any one of them but cannot mix the snippets of the individual branches.
8. The Story Tree is best left to grow than concluded10. Please attach the image of the Story Tree.

followed...

It was very late in the night when Ajju was walking down his deserted street.He was getting back from work.He was one of the many call center executives living in a cluttered street in Madiwala.

Hunger was nearly killing him and he walked towards the Hotel something-saagar near his house.He scanned the menu for a few minutes and debated between Curd Rice and Rava Idli.Finally ordered for both and sighed to himself.”15 bucks for this mustard sized idli!!!What is the world coming to..!!”He collected the food packets and left the restaurant.

Thats when he saw her sitting near the corner tea shop.She was always there.However cold it was.However lonely it was... She lived on the streets..she was homeless. She stood there staring at every passerby begging for food.People generally took pity on her and thus she survived.Ajju thought she was being a nuisance.

However she was not really any trouble and looked quite helpless.But today she was staring at Ajju intently with an evil look on her face.He didn’t quite understand.But then..who cares.
She got up slowly and started following him.Ajju was confused…Now why would she do that…But he was thrilled that someone was finally interested in him..too bad the babe sitting next to him in office wasn’t following him around like this....

And suddenly he stopped”Hey wait!!What if she attacks me??Bangalore is really not the safest place on planet Earth…hmmmm..hey man!!!get a life…what can she do” He walked casually with his hands in his pockets and started whistling.
He tried his best not to seem nervous.He tried to maintain his pace but unconsciously his steps quickened.He scolded himself “Why can’t I just have the courage to turn back and glare.After all Iam the stronger one here..”

He could feel her nearing him by the second.He started half-running,half-walking-fast.”Home!!Home!!Home!!” What if the dumb landlord had locked the main gate.He hated him like never before.Much more than when he had hiked the rent atrociously for that matchbox of a house he lived in..that too with 6 other guys.He was amazed that he could think and decide to hate at a time like this.Imagine how his friends would laugh at him if he told them this…They would call him a coward…Was he being one?

Suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his legs...God was he stabbed???
Now that was it!!!He was going to turn around and hit her..” Have some guts he told himself…
His legs were in no mood to listen to his mind…He dropped everything in his hands and started running …towards home which was at the end of the street.He hoped that it wasn’t his life’s end as well.He ran and ran and finally to the gate of his house and found it open.He thanked god (and not the landlord) a million times and took deep breaths .Once safely in ,he turned to look and there she was.She had torn the food packets and spilled it open right in the middle of the road and was gobbling up his expensive dinner hungrily.

She mustve felt being stared at.She looked up and barked and yelped.
Ajju thought “Now what?Is the stupid thing trying to thank me??I better go and take an Anti-rabies injection tomo”