But still, stubborn and crazy as always, I was coming to the office, gasping fer a place to stand in a jam-packed public bus by which I normally commute.
Contradictory though it may appear, I was going to the office because I was feeling lonely, though I would be all alone in the office fer sure...!
[ Even when not alone, we sometimes feel lonely...and even when alone, we sometimes do not feel lonely...don't we..?? ]
And in the mêlée, I saw a poor old man struggling to stand amongst us boys & men in the bus. I silently took note of this, & at the next stop, although I jostled and managed to get an empty seat, I motioned to the old man to come sit there.
His wrinkled eyes smiled a smile of gratitude, & he slowly made way & sat down grimacing with an expression of both relief & pain in the seat near me. He patted me & offered to take my bag, which I was juggling along with my jacket that I carry in case it would rain, but is too hot & humid to wear otherwise. But I politely refused saying "Parvaagilla Sir!' [Kannada fer "It's ok, Sir!"]
Soon, the conductor of the bus elbowed his way into the dense jungle of people & came to me asking to show my ticket/pass...
I somehow managed to produce a Rs.10/- note frem my pocket & said "Town-Hall"...
I got the ticket, & soon enough, the passenger next to the old man got up to alight the bus.
The old man promptly 'reserved' the window seat fer me & welcomed me with a smile :)
I too smiled & sat down, & proceeded to look at the ticket, as is my usual wont...(to check if there are any Prime numbers...!!)...
And what I saw...made me almost shriek with delight...! :)
I quickly marked the ticket-number & wrote something...(the old man who was now looking on was quite amused..! )...& as for me, I just couldn't wait till I shared this with my friends...!!
I could not help but smile to my-self that SUCH a co-incidence could happen, & HOW happy i felt that I was able to recognize the pattern of numbers which lay smiling at me...!!
I could not breathe easy...I could not eat a proper lunch also that day...till I had captured a snap of it.
A day after my birthday(yes, I skipped office on Monday...due to ill-health...was feeling too lone-ly and bored...crazy me..!)...i.e., on Tuesday, I could not help but where I pestered ALL my hapless colleagues to please take a look at the ticket.
Finally, after our afternoon meeting that day, I could no longer contain my excitement.
I pleaded with my dear friend Venkat Karthik, an avid Apple fan/user, to please get me a snapshot of this ticket, before it gets lost. He kindly obliged & mailed me the image a couple of days later.
Check out my ticket...(Thanks to Venkat's brand-new Apple i-Phone 4 ! )
Below, is the pattern which made me scribble what i did on the ticket...the ticket number, as it had turned out...has/had ALL the leading digits in the exact same sequence as 10!
(10-factorial, not 10 followed by an exclamation-sign(!) of which i bet I'm one of the heaviest users..!! ;) ), which is defined as the product of all natural numbers from 1 till 10
i.e., 10! = 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x ...9 x 10
10! = 3 628 800
Now, let me tell you what made this ticket SO special fer me..!
- The price fer it = Rs.10/- .That's the exact fare frem Srinivasanagar till Town-Hall, Bangalore.
- The Value being 10! (missing the last zero of-course..). The probability of that is 1 in 10^6, or in plain English, 'one in Million' literally & mathematically as well..!! :) Just imagine, in that tightly packed bus, with so many people buying tickets, even if another person had got a ticket before me or had not got one, then I would have missed out ON this purr-tick-ular number ! It makes me feel thrilled to simply contemplate it backwards...! Phew ! :)
- More over, I had NO need to go to the office on a fine Sunday...! Consider the date I got this gift of a ticket! As I mentioned, I got it 2 days before my birth-day, (October-12)...which makes the date-- the 10'th...!! Yes, and that too in the 10'th month(October)...totally, 10/10/10...! :)
All in All, it was a perfect TEN-ner indeed...!! :)
But I admit I am not at all happy about the formatting of this article--it deserves much better.
I promise to do something (special) fer it soon..! :)
Fer now, hope this made you remember something..ANYthing...that made you feel Special & Loved...!?!?
No..??
HOW & WHY else, do you think you're reading this article..!?! :)
It's because YOU are special indeed fer me...!!..
Thanks pa...fer...always (g)Listening to me... ;):)
Are(n't) YoU.???
Lots of Love & Best wishes,
The moron in rags
Planet Earth
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For the usual dose of 'Comic' -relief...click on the image below ! :)
(Hope you get the nice joke in this..! :) Courtesy of dear Mr.Jim Davis :))
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