Jhansi, 2 AM

S. turned to me and asked, “How does it feel to be the only woman in a room full of fifty Indian men?” I laughed - I had just noticed that this was indeed the case. “I’m really enjoying it. For the first time, I’m surrounded by Indian men and none of them are looking at me.” They weren’t. Their eyes were glued to the television, just like mine.

A three-hour layover in Jhansi, Madhya Pradesh, from 11:30pm to 2:30am, is not something one looks forward to. When that layover corresponds exactly to the World Cup Final, one gets even more despondent. The irony! The one night we are actually up and out at such an hour, we are up and out in a train station.

But sometimes the universe throws her arms open wide and laughs. We discovered there were televisions in the waiting rooms in Jhansi, but the only one that worked wasn’t tuned to the World Cup and we weren’t about to start telling people what they should be watching. So I settled down to reading in the Ladies Waiting Room. Soon S. (who had been thrown out of the Ladies Waiting Room because he was, in fact, not a lady) was knocking on the glass door, gesturing frantically for me to come.

Men came and went from the crowded Upperclass Waiting Room, watching the match up until the moment their trains pulled out of station. S. and I reveled in our late night serendipity and for three hours the Jhansi train station was a magical place.