Train journeys are indeed a New Life!

It's a collection of everything if your journey is long...

You get to know different people -

• people dealing with different entrepreneurs selling food items, other cheap items, books, beggars; 
• people with irritating nature, helping people, 
• people hiding and smoking, people throwing garbage here and there, 
• people talking loudly on phone, playing cards, groups of students singing and chit-chatting, 
• old persons giving you free advice, quiet people, people sleeping always, 
• people cursing that of all the train why only your train is stopped to pass all others by, people worried about missing the connecting train and getting delayed, 
• people carrying lots of luggage, people boarding train with wait listed or no ticket and fighting for place to seat, people sleeping on the floors, 
• children playing and crying, 
• people getting down at every stations, people seating at the gate, 
• people cracking jokes, trying to make associations with others,
• people over cautious of looks and comfort,
• people forgetting or unaware of their kids following them down to the station, people missing trains, people running to catch train,
• etc. etc..

You get to see the changes like cities, towns, villages; forests; trains noise when crossing huge rivers; passing under the tunnels; foul smell of the drainage; beautiful sky, flying birds; weather change - hot summer, cold winter, and rains; flooded lands, agriculture land with green crops, barren lands; hills, rocks, red soil, black soil; cars competing with train on the sideways road track; traffic clogged due to passing train, people and bikes in hurry and crossing the railway track with high risk; etc. etc.

Back then...

60 hours of journey on single train - It was some 7-8 years back... The train from Warangal was going smoothly until it had reached Vizag and then it kept stopping for many hours before taking some alternate route as the track was blocked to accident of carriage train.

Caught, Missed and again Caught the train - It was some 4 years back. Alongwith with me were my bhavi ji and her kids and luggage not to forget. We were late but still managed to catch Satyagrah which just left from Raxaul and stopped a 100meters after the station. All of us had boarded the luggage or ladies coach (don't remember) in the small time that we had and the first coach we reached walking through the tracks.   It has a stoppage of 5 minutes at Sugauli and we planned to move to out 3AC coach there. When the train stopped at Sugauli, we got down with kids and luggages and started moving to 3AC. We approached to 3AC crossing general and sleeper coach within 2-3 minutes. Then to my surprise, the train gave a horn and started. I didn't know that if the train is late, it need not wait scheduled stoppage time. I managed to keep luggage and one of the 2 kids on the coach thinking that bhavi ji would manage to board the train with the other kid. I was wrong!!

The train had already taken momentum and I had like few 100s of milliseconds to take decision. Bhavi ji gave me confidence that she can stay back at the station with the kid and take care of herself. This was the time I was thinking why didn't we board sleeper instead and was cursing the people at station who only kept shouting and none came forward to help. The TTE of the AC coach had witnessed all the events. Even the passengers inside the didn't pull the chain. With all these things running in my mind, I ran and leaped onto the sleeper coach and move straight to find the chain and pulled it. The chain had come into my hand... alas it was not working!! Another shock.

I moved thru the sleeper coach and reached the AC coach just to find that the shutter was down and there was no walking floor between the Sleeper and AC. With courage and fearing what would be condition of my nephew, I stepped onto the iron lock link between both the coaches and started banging onto the AC shutter. But, no one opened the shutter. All the Murphy's law were being applied one after another. After useless effort, I came to the gate of sleeper and hanging thru the door, I was able to communicate with the pantry fellow in that coach and he said my nephew was crying but he would take care of him. I spoke at the highest of my pitch to keep my nephew from crying but he would not listen - proabably coz he was afraid or he cudn't make out coz of the trains noise. I requested the TTE to ask for stopping the train but he suggested he would stop at the next station as it was easy for me to catch next return train. Half an hour had passed and we were separated at three different places. Finally next station came and I jumped from the slowed down train which was still moving and got onto the AC coach and consoled my nephew lifting him in my lap. I was relaxed!!

I shouted at the TTE why he had not helped and he gave me some excuse which I didn't hear obviously. He then told me that Sapt Kranti starts after sometime from Raxaul but reaches Gorakhpur before Satyagrah and assured me that he would not give away the seats until Gorakhpur. The next thing came in my mind was how to reach Sugauli and how were my bhavi and my still younger nephew ? Just then, I got a call from some unknown number and it was bhaviji. Some gentleman had lent his mobile to make a call to me and I assured her that Raunak was with me and that I was going to reach Sugauli ASAP. To my luck there was another local train about to leave for Sugauli and hence I dropped plan of taxi and boarded that local train. In another half an hour I was at Sugaulli and all of us were united. In sometime, even Saptkranti arrived at Sugauli which we boarded. I had informed at home all the incident before and later as well and they were too relaxed.

In some 4-5 hours, we were at Gorakhpur and we had reached before Satyagrah. We waited to Satyagrah which reached in no time and we boarded our 3AC coach finally and called up at home again. It was then I realized the Murphy law was still proving correct, only that the course of action of Murphy Law was for good after half the story.

It was a breath taking experience which I would never forget. I could remember almost all the incident of that day as fresh as it happened yesterday.

18 hours journey train was delayed by 10 hours to reach destination in 28 hours - Yes, anything can happen with Indian train and specially when it is bound for Bihar. This journey was from Delhi to Jasidih via Patna and return from Jasidih to Delhi in the last week of December last year i.e. 2013. In this incident, no only I missed my onward journey train but even the return journey train which was of 22 hours was also delayed by 8 hours. Thanks to my speculation or suspect of Bihar bound train, I hadn't booked my flight in advance from Delhi to Bangalore. But because of all these delays, I had missed the marriage of my dear friend Prabin.

This time...

I have been on train for the past 6 days literally... starting 22nd and ending on 27th with break of 30 hours break in between attending marriage of my dear cousin Manoj It was awesome being there!!!

Passed time reading "The New Life" by Orhan Pamuk, winner of Nobel Prize in Literature 2006....

the characters in the novel keep travelling for months, expect that their mode was bus. I had bought this novel some 8 months back but could not read more than 20 pages at a stretch and had finished only 50 pages. In this journey, I completed the whole 300 pages with a day to spare.

The last day of the return journey i.e.27th Feb; my bro was to get down at Warangal at 1.35AM just to find out that train was running 3 hours late. In my awakening sleepy eyes since 1AM, I realized the train had come to complete halt at some small station around Sirpur Kaghaznagar for quite sometime. The train had stopped for more than 3 hours due to some technical fault in some another AC coach and all the passengers had been moved to sleeper coach. My bro finally got down at Warangal around 7AM and I reached Bangalore around 11.50PM to reach my room only at 1.20AM on 28th of Feb.

Well, seat upgrade is not welcome always... surprised?

Last December, I was travelling back from Delhi to Bangalore by Air India and my economy ticket was upgraded to Business class. It was a different experience with spacious seat, rest for leg and head too. Special snacks with options!!

It so happened that I was returning from Patna alongwith my brother Arvind and we had booked sleeper class - 2 separate tickets as our destinations were different. Our seats were in the same S1 coach though. As soon as we boarded the train, my seat had been allocated to someone else and there was # symbol against that seat number. Still we boarded S1 and waited until TTE came who told me that my seat was upgraded to 3AC (the only passenger in whole train). I asked him if the fellow at seat number 12 can be sent to 3AC (my upgraded seat) which he said can't be done as the tickets may be checked multiple times throughout the journey by the different TTE and ID card is must. That was the time, I knew seat upgrade is not welcome always. I had no option left. I spent time with my bro during the day and used to goto B1 which was 11 coached away in the night. First night, I had to wait at S9 coach as the pantry had shut the door at around 10.30PM itself.

Lots of new things I came to know and a new experience!