As usual, last Wednesday I walked from my office in downtown San Francisco to the BART (metro) station. The station manager announced that all trains were running 15 minutes late, due to an equipment failure. I braced myself for an overcrowded and miserable ride home. However, when my train arrived, it was miraculously empty. I wondered if some fluke of timing was the cause.
The next night, I had a conference call with a member of my company's tech team in India. He casually mentioned that about a third of the workers were out of the office, due to Krishna's birthday celebration. I realized that this was the reason my train was empty. We both laughed about the connection between Silicon Valley and India. Since then, I've read about the celebration: http://hinduism.about.com/od/festivalsholidays/a/janmashthami.htm.
Two haiku (in progress) that I've composed since last week:
eastbound train
carries the evening home
Janmashtami
Janmashtami
the emptiness
of the metro train
Hey David,
I really connect with the first one! L2 is brilliant, frankly (in reference to L1)!
eastbound train
carries the evening home
Janmashtami
This one is really nice!
Enjoyed the prose too. We used to live in El Cerrito. :)
Best,
Vida
Don and Vida - Thanks for the feedback; I appreciate it!
David
The comic play on emptiness -- by evening the celebrants will have fasted for many hours and will fast until daybreak I assume -- suggest that by combining the two-- maybe an evening train? -- there would be even more resonance!