Freakologic

I braved a visit to the toilet. It was dry and even smelt clean! It struck me that I already had an interesting riddle on hand to solve! No doubt the authors of Freakonomics would have collected a mass of data to analyse this anomaly. As substitute, I reasoned I had the experience of travelling in the same route ever so many times over the last two decades.

I noticed that all bags in the rack above were the cabin-baggage category. Could it be that most passengers were now globetrotters? The exposure perhaps reflected on how they used the bathroom. I trashed my theory after a ball of crushed chocolate paper flew down from the row ahead.

There was an eerie silence in the train; most passengers were asleep. The few who were awake were speaking in monotonous tones into their cell phones. That was odd. I remembered that in the old days, passengers got talking to each other even before the train cleared the platform! We got started effortlessly, exchanged first person tales, bought and shared snacks and guarded the bags when someone needed to visit the bathroom.

In a flash the ‘freakologic’ behind the clean toilets presented itself with clarity.

In these insecure times, wary of unknown co-passengers, everyone made a studied effort to keep off intrusive conversations and offers of biscuits. To counter the threat of the ‘other’ drawing us into a chat, we avoid all eye contact, we slip into shut-down mode. The downside is that one also needs to put the visit to the toilet on hold! For who is to keep an eye on your bag while you are gone?