Have you ever met a Stranger?

I have a form of xenophobia. Let me spare your trouble of googling that word - it means fear of strangers. I don't interact very well with them and I always have this inhibition popping out of nowhere when I meet them. Whenever I meet new people I naturally become quiet and start studying them. Its like I am a porcupine whose quills start taking shape when it senses predators.

I remember this one incident which happened years back. Me and my mom were returning from Vellore after her medical treatment in CMC. We hadn't reserved the train tickets so we got two unreserved tickets and climbed into the reserved compartment. We usually do this and when the train conductor comes we buy the reserved tickets from him for the sleeper class. This time we were in for bad luck as the train was totally crowded and I had a hunch that there wouldn't be any sleeper class tickets available. We sat in one empty berth facing a couple traveling to Kerala. I sat there facing the window while my mom was dozing off owing to fatigue. The man whom I assumed to be the woman's husband looked at me and smiled and I could feel that sudden inhibition waking up in me. I shifted uneasily, pretended as if I did not see him and continued to stare out of the window. He turned to his wife and they were chit chatting about something in Malayalam excitedly and were eating crackers.

Slowly, the woman turned to my mom and smiled at her and asked her in Malayalam where we were heading to. My mom replied in Tamil and politely asked her where they were from. She told some Ernakulam or something, and offered my mom some crackers and my mom took one. Then the lady offered me the silver wrapper containing the salty crackers and I cautiously took one. I slowly nudged my mom's foot and with the power of eye language, was telling her to throw the cracker out of the window. (Don't blame me..I had my reasons.. people used to drug these things and rob for heaven's sake!) She passed it on to me and I pretended to go to the rest room and flung those evil crackers out of the window and resumed my calm posture on the seat staring at the fleeing fields and trees.

I tried looking for the train conductor amidst the hustle of tea and coffee sellers so that I could ask him if there were any available tickets but he was nowhere to be seen. No one came to claim the seats we were resting upon so I thought everything will be fine. After a few long hours when I was in deep slumber, I found myself waking up to some loud noises coming from my berth below and I could see the familiar couple arguing with the train conductor and my mom having a very worried expression on her face. I jumped down thinking the predicted robbery had happened - I was wrong. The reality was a couple of men who owned these berths came and started arguing for their rightful seats, whereas the couple whom I misjudged, were defending my mom and tried reasoning with them to give her a seat since she was sick. I felt kind of foolish as my instincts had gone wrong. Finally the couple gave up one of their two berths to us so that we shouldn't be kicked out and they adjusted with one.

Their stop for Ernakulam arrived and they bid us goodbye with their ever smiling faces. I could feel those porcupine spines in me relaxing and I waved back at them smiling, genuinely this time.