This post is going to describe my train journey back home from college and a few related incidents.Ok, so where to start from?I guess I'll carry on from where I left in my previous post.
The best time during a semester in college is the last day, when you're done with your exams and have to do hundreds of things in a very short span of time to pack up and leave for the station, to board the train back home. So,let me skip the routine packing part and fast forward a little bit.. Its 10.30 pm, we're at the station, accompanied by hundreds of students from my college.Some people just came over to see us off and the usual joking and pranking around was going on. It felt a bit awkward for me to be standing there away from my dearest of friends(one of the sad parts of taking the a.c. coach), trying to keep myself busy with the girls by initiating useless talks which werent as amusing as they made it out to be.Its funny how easily you can make a girl laugh.. you crack the silliest of jokes and they'll be laughing their stomachs out.. anyways, I could write a whole post on "Stupidity of girls" so let me keep you away from that one.
Someone in the crowd of passengers made me happy and I prayed for her to be in the same compartment as mine..read on and I'll elaborate on this..
So, hundreds of false smiles and about an hour and a half later, my already delayed train arrived and as usual, people rushed here and there not caring the slightest bit as to what their seat nos were.True,the train's scheduled to stop there for about two minutes but a bit of common sense could have avoided the pandemonium that the lunatics caused for the next half an hour.. here's a description of what followed:
As we all know,each compartment has two doors so my idea was to check for the door nearer to my seat and take it, to make things easier for myself and others.I did that but, to my irritation,I found people with seat nos 1-8 boarding the train from the other door and vice versa, and leading the pack was none other than a girl from my class and I wasnt really surprised to see her lead an idiotic act, as she derives ultimate pleasure from such acts. It came to a point when I had to give up the effort to reach my seat,which was visible,just two compartments away but when you have people trying to traverse both sides through a two feet wide passage with their luggage(again girls contributing to the farce by carrying or rather tryin to carry twice the luggage they could manage), waiting patiently for the passage to clear up seems the wisest thing to do. Finally I reached my seat and there we had another problem but it was expected as it was the outcome of another abberation's (read girl's) "intelligent" mind.
Indain railways have fixed quota of tickets from a starting station(udupi in this case) to a destination(nizamuddin, new delhi). During vacations, theres a mad rush for tickets and that girl was foolish enough to be sleeping when she should have been rushing to the travel agents to get the tickets done and when she did this, it was already too late and all the tickets from udupi to delhi had been booked so she took her ticket from an earlier station.Now the railways rules state it clearly that if you have your reservation from a station and you actually board the train from a later station, you have to get the boarding changed.She happily ignored this fact and when she reached her seat, she was informed that her seat had been allotted to someone else,as she didnt report in time.
We were three friends(myself, Sarvesh and Ishaan) in the adjacent compartment so we decided to share our seats with her till the time she got her seat back.For the next 24 hours, she watched movie after movie(god save Sarvesh's laptop) and finally at about 2 pm the following day(26 hrs after boarding the train) she got her seat.
Looking out for similar aged girls is one of the first things that any guy does once he gets into train and me and Ishaan were no different.And, to our joy,we instantly found one in the next compartment.We rushed to take the seat so that we could see her all the time and this was the one I had mentioned earlier too, while building up to this post.She was the girl I had occasionally seen in my branch's library during exam days but please dont think that she was the purpose of me going to library for the last fortnight, as my friends would like to belive.Anyways,I was determined to talk to her and all,and was in no hurry as it was just the start of a 36 hr long journey so I was confident of getting many chances.It was already late night and our fellow passengers were requesting us to switch off the lights so that they could get some sleep so we obliged.The next day, after having brunch and all, I felt sleepy again at around 1pm,while my friends were busy watching movies. Woke up around 3.30 to find that "she" was missing from her seat,as was her friend.I thought she might have gone to some friends' seat,as is a common practice but when she didnt return till evening,it made me suspicious and when I checked the chart,it said that she had her tickets till Kalyan only,which had come about 5 hrs ago!!!Anways,there was nothing much to feel sad about and I read "Oliver's Story" for some time before falling asleep,at around 2pm.
This is when the more interesting phase of journey started.
I was awakened by Ishaan five hours later, to see off Sarvesh as his station was to come any moment now.He was arranging his luggage when he found his shoes missing!! We tried searching everywhere but to no avail.He borrowed sandals from his friend and prepared to leave.His wait seemed to last eternity as the train was stranded at the outskirts of Jhansi from 7am to 9am.Finally we bid him goodbye and hoped that we'll get through to Delhi without further hiccups.Then we came to know about a derilment that had taken place and we had to wait another 3 and a half hours before our train could move.It finally moved at 12.30 pm, already 6 hours late and just then, another of my batchmates complained that his set of shoes and sandals were missing.It was then that a newly married gentleman told us that he saw a policeman checking out shoes under our seats at around 3.30 am the previous night and he didnt object, as he thought it was some routine luggage-checking going on.We were getting bored so we thought of stretching the matter further(fully aware that the shoes wont be recovered) and complained to the TTE(Train Ticket Examiner).We had some pleasant arguments about the credibility of police,etc etc. The train was reached Gwalior and another gentleman from the Indian Army joined us.
He had been in the army for 20 odd years and he was returning to his posting(Baramula,Jammu and Kashmir)midway during his holidays.We were surprised and when we asked the reason he said with a smile," My bullet proof jeep has been bombed a couple of hours ago and a few fresh incidents of militancy have been reported so I decided to go back".Another shocking enough incident and it took my mind towards those in the army who have to deal with these things day in and day out.
Coming back,we finally reached Delhi and it was time to bid goodbye.Not surprisingly, that girl whom we had offered seats didnt even bother turning to us once during the last 17 hours,i.e. from the time she got her own seat!!
I somewhat struggled to get an auto at a reasonable rate and then found one.Talking to the driver is always better than sitting for half an hour with your nose held high, reminding him of the social difference so I asked him about his native state and as I had guessed from his style of speaking, he turned out to be from my native state,Bihar.He started by asking where I was coming from, what I do there,etc etc.When I told him that I was an engineering student,his eyes lit up and he fired a thousand questions to me!All were centred around his 5 yr old son,whom he wanted to turn into an IAS(Indian Administrative Services) Officer or an Engineer.It felt amazing to know how many ambitions parents have from their sons and to what extent are they ready to go for fulfilling all their needs.
The 11 km route from station to my home seemed like nothing and finally I was at home,after six months, exulting like a kid and partly,thinking about the journey,the kind of people I met,the 2500+ kms I had travelled during the last two days and then, to the gala time that I was going to have during the next month..
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