We were on a train journey back from Goa. The three of us. We had shared some good times, shared a few details of our lives with each other.

We got down from the train with not a worry in the world, on to one of the smaller stations the train had stopped at. There was a small crowd gathered on one side of the platform. But of course we went and poked our heads in amongst the onlookers. It was a gambling game, a game simple enough to understand upon but one glance: three cards, one being an ace, were first displayed and then shuffled around face down. All you had to do was guess which one of the three was the ace, post-shuffle.

I know what you're thinking... Well, of course it was rigged, but the false and utterly conceited notion that we could outwit those uneducated con-men ensured that we fell right into their trap. I remember how strongly I urged my friend to place a 500 rupee bet and that too twice! Of course I couldn't in the end see through what they were doing, and of course we lost our money. I did pay my friend my fair share of the losses, but I'll always remember how stupid I felt. How helpless. How humiliating, the experience of being fooled, in bright daylight, even when we knew what we were getting into.

I had to swallow and bury this little incident. I told no one unless I absolutely had to. We all have such memories, don't we? Ones that still bring back such strong emotions in us that we get min-choked into silence. Ones that sting just as strong. Ones we want to forget and we can't.

Still, we do what we can to make sure we don't make the same mistake. Don't give ourselves the chance to feel like that again. And in the process create barriers. Iron fortresses of defense. Which our minds can run into, with everything we need. All except some light. Incidents like the one I just described and others have not made me less gullible. All they have succeeded in doing is make me feel so.

And I noticed that there are people who are so skeptical and paranoid about everything and everyone that they often miss something that they needed to hear. Grimacing, they tend to analyze what they hear to no end, because they think they know best. They wish to take everything with a pinch of salt, but more often end up with just a whole lot of salt!

I still don't consider myself old enough to have stopped learning. I'll absorb all I can get, understand where the words are coming from and what they might mean projected onto my little world. I know I'll be fooled enough times in my life whether I am careful or not. At least this way I'll learn a little more.