Tid Bit from My Diary

  I can’t quite remember where I first came across it — perhaps while aimlessly browsing one quiet evening — but it struck me as something unconventionally romantic. It was a website, now sadly inactive, called Croisé dans le métro — “crossed in the metro.” The idea was simple, yet deeply human. Strangers who met eyes, smiled briefly, exchanged glances, or shared a few silent moments on the Paris Metro could later leave a message online — a note of recognition, curiosity, or affection, perhaps even an invitation to connect — for the person they couldn’t gather the courage to speak to. It took me back to my own youth, to my days in Delhi, commuting as a student and later to work. Back then, the city didn’t have a metro, but the public transport — the chartered buses — carried a world within them: students, clerks, dreamers, and strangers from every corner of India. Some faces became familiar over time — the girl who always sat near the window, the lady who read a novel, the man los...