story on There was a old man and was a writer
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He looked with disgust at the phone kept on his berth and cursed under his breath as he sat groggily. He was old and had probably become bitter with age and angry at life in general. He was dressed in simple clothes and was travelling in train alone. I sat on the floor of the train noticing him and hoping he wouldn’t shout at me when I tell him that I found the berth vacant and kept the phone on charging.
I was writing an article on my laptop in the train on the way to Guwahati. Having begged for some leaves from the office, I was travelling to Majuli Island which is one of the world’s biggest river island. I gathered courage and told him that I was the culprit to keep my phone on charging without permission. To my surprise, he didn’t shout at me. He asked me to charge it and get moving. We went back to our work but he kept looking at me working on the laptop from the corner of his eye.
“Why are you sitting on the floor? Are you an engineer? IIT?”. He was obviously curious and tried to stir a conversation. “Yes, I am an engineer but not from IIT. I am working very hard on making a career in travel writing and will leave the job soon to travel”, I replied.
“Why are you wasting your time? It is your age to earn money and make a living. Don’t you have any respect for life for making you an engineer?”, he blurted out at me with a mixed emotion of surprise and stifled anger. He paused briefly and looked out of the window towards the horizon. Then he looked back at me and said –“At your age I was married and my father had passed away. I had to earn money and support my family. If I had left my family to travel, they would have died of hunger”.