Janmashtami

[DavidGrayson]

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

[Don Baird]

Hey David,

I really connect with the first one!  L2 is brilliant, frankly (in reference to L1)!

[Vida]

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

[DavidGrayson]

Don and Vida - Thanks for the feedback; I appreciate it!

David

[Tomdevelyn]

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!