A TRAIN JOURNEY FROM SURAT AND FOCUS AT WORK IN OFFICE

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"Mumbai Jati Gujarat Express" was all that I heard sitting in the first class waiting room, and glancing at my watch I rushed to the train in the same platform and jumped into it and sat down in seat no 7. As the train immediately started moving I also heard in the announcement "Ahmadabad Jati Gujarat Express".

I banged my head for my stupidity of getting engrossed in the novel of James Hadley Chase (my all time favorite) and entering a train not knowing whether it goes to Mumbai or in the opposite side to Ahmadabad as both the trains reach Surat almost around 11 am. I was new to the job as officer in the bank and also new to Surat and the training in Mumbai made my first class travel a dream day. But all the happiness vanished as I did not know which direction the train is going.
None challenged my seat in the jam-packed train gave me the comfort that it is my correct seat yet I was apprehensive. 

There were four passengers facing each other. Two of them   middle aged, a young Parsi lady and I made the quartet. I pacified my nervousness by bringing my general knowledge on Parsis for support as they are in large number in Mumbai and this girl too may be going there. I did not want my first first class journey to end in fiasco by riding a train meant for opposite direction. "Are you going to Mumbai" is a high risk question as the reaction would hit hard on my absurdity if the train were to be wrong.

The TTE was coming at a distance and hence I was also under time pressure. I looked around. The two gentlemen were busy talking without looking at me and the girl repeating my mistake of reading a book. I decided to look at the face of the three till one of them sees me. It was the girl who smiled as she glanced out of the book and I grabbed the chance to ask "Madam you are going to....."
Ï am going to Bombay" she said instantly and went back to the book not even realizing I am heaving a huge sigh of relief. My trip to Bombay and the fortnight long training became memorable days that I recall even today after four decades but I also learnt some lessons on travel Dos and Don't s. 

The power of the mind to concentrate is based on the topic. Management experts dwell deeply on "focus" when they discuss failed performance. But it is focus that is to be avoided in public places especially railway, bus, tram and air stations as it takes one's mind out of everything else that is happening around that has a bearing also on people who have focus elsewhere. Focus in short is absorption of the mind on a sole matter.

I read news item decades ago that two girls who met after a decade were fatally hit by the suburban train as they were too busy reminiscing their past when they met in the station by chance and the same today happens when one is on cell phone. But the logic is same, that there is unwanted focus. "You thrust a novel in her hand and you can loot her house" is a comment about a housewife. Watching TV whether it is a cricket match or a serial episode has the same negative effect of focus.

Hence it is the business of management experts to teach on how to focus for maximizing productivity and efficiency but there are also lessons as to where anything but focus is the secret of success that helps in survival from both losing life and avoiding embarrassment. 



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