Yea I know it's obscure,the title I mean.But this is what comes of being confined to the insides of a train for the better part of the last 10 days and then having watched "Vanilla Sky" recently for the umpteenth time.Anyway,for me it is quite a pain-in-the-ass thing,a train journey I mean.I find it hard to fall asleep,even in an a/c comptt,and I hardly talk to anyone at all.I get bored on my usual 3 hour sojourn from college to home aboard one of Indian Railways' monsters,most often the Rewa Express,so when I had to make a 24-hour journey from Kanpur to Surat to visit my bro,I knew I was in for a hard time.
Firstly,the train in question:Awadh Express.If ever I've hated a giant piece of steel,this has got to be the one.Ever since my days in Agra when I had to board it to reach Kota,it has been tormenting me.It is almost never on time,especially when it starts from our beloved Railway minister's home state,which leads me to wonder why don't they actually change its time to a couple of hours later.For now this is added to the many unsolved mysteries of my short life.So this time too,I was pretty sure I'd have to figure out a way to spend a couple of hours on the platform.And it was only an hour and a half late to begin with,but then,they kept adding 30 minutes after every 30 minutes,until it finally arrived 4 hours late,at 3 in the night.That it was a rainy night on a dirty Kanpur Platform and I was accompanied by one particularly irritating junior of mine did not help matters,obviously.Finally when I got aboard,however,I quickly forgot my troubles,for I was terribly sleepy and soon got lost in the dreamy world of dreams.
As it turned out,the morning that awaited me wasn't going to change my views about train journeys one bit.As I slowly gathered,still sleepy eyed and gulping down tea and coffee like those were going out of fashion,I was surrounded on all sides by IIT JEE aspirants on their way to the coaching hub,Kota accompanied by their parents.I was presumed to be one of the lot,too,until one of them actually asked me,"Where do you study?".This was probably one of the very few times I rued reveling my professional identity to anyone.No sooner did I say IIT Kanpur,they were all upon me,literally.The usual,"Bhaiya,kitne ghante padhna chahiye?" is still okay,but to be the target of such redundant queries as "Bhaiya,assignments regularly karne chahiye kya?" is particularly painful.WTF,man!!even an ass would know you ought to do assignments regularly.However,if they had gone on to ask whether I used to do that or not,they would have caught me in an embarrassing position.Poor souls,actually....they had to find me of all IITians to advise them about preparation techniques!!
Anyway,after the crowd alighted at Kota,I discovered to my great pleasure,that I had the entire compartment to myself.Also,my dear cuz Shalabh had brought me enif food to last upto Surat and back,so I organized myself one sumptuous banquet.Having enjoyed my lunch,dinner and snacks combined,I proceeded to read the many comics(5 Dhruvs,1 Batman,1 Spiderman) I had purchased on Kanpur station.I discovered yet again that I prefer travelling absolutely alone.I hate trying to start conversations with strangers.Obviously I'm not a people's person.
But the comics didn't last half as long as I'd expected them to.So I had to pick up another novel.Now I admit P.G.Wodehouse is hilarious.His brand of humour is exactly what I dig.But you can't read too much of him at one go,if you know what I mean.So soon I got bored of it too.The journey had turned out to be never-ending,exactly as I had feared.How do you spend 24 hours in a train if you can't sleep well.If somebody figures this one out,please please tell me!!
Up next,my eventful but painfully short stay in Surat....
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