What's a train journey to you David - reprise

For those who have read one of my earlier posts,
http://hardtimekillingfloor.blogspot.com/2005/07/whats-train-journey-to-youdavid.html
this one would hardly come as a surprise.The rest,in order to understand my general sentiments about steel monsters on iron tracks,should go through it once.

Anyway,I mentioned in the above post how I inevitably get bored to death even on my usual 3 hour sojourn from Kanpur to Allahabad.Now since the last two times,the course of events has been slightly different. You see, my usual pick for the usual journey happens to be the Rewa Express,which I board at an insanely and ungodly early morning hour.Thats cos it is seldom late and used to run relatively vacant too.That used to part can be blamed for my most recent experiences.
The first time I took this train to go home,I was accompanied by Nishant,Mandu,Barsaiyan,Dube and Shahi.We were going to participate in the MNNIT quiz fest(yea,right!the venue was Allahabad and all of us buggers just wanted to travel on insti expense while availing the additional advantage of home-cooked food).My Dad told me about this train,and we decided to give it a try.None of us cud wake up at 5 am to catch the insti bus which'd take us to the station,so we had to stay up the entire night.Caught the bus,reached the station,bought the tickets,and waited apprehensively on the platform wondering whether the general bogey would have enough space to even dangle precariously by the gate.But surprise,surprise!Firstly the train arrived exactly on time and secondly,would you believe it,the general bogey was absotively-posilutely empty!We simply couldn't believe our luck,especially me!I had discovered the most painless way to reach home,home again!

Few things haven't changed since then.I still board only the Rewa express to go home.I still stay up the entire night in order to catch the morning bus.I still buy the ticket,I'm still aprehensive about the crowd.But one thing has changed for sure.Its no more emptyville in the general bogey.
Hell there isn't even enough space to step inside.
Actually,maybe I should be more systematic about my experience.This is what happens to me after I reach the legendary Kanpur station:
1.Time:around 6 am.I get off the bus and head towards the ticket counter.Its not really crowded.Of course,not really crowded is a relative term.Its not crowded if you compare it to the same place at a later time of the day,but its still enough to make an Aussie,who has not seen so many people in all the cities of his country combined,faint with shock!

2.Also,the last two times I have been carrying a lot of luggage(lesser visits home and more n more clothes n stuff loaded on the way back).So standing in line for the ticket isn't a particularly elevating experience,what with having to check your luggage every 2 seconds and dragging it along with you as you move ahead,slowly but surely,in the line.

3.Time: 6:15 am.So i get the ticket and head for the platform,more often than not,platform no.6.The train is running right time as usual,and that proves to be the only good news all morning.well,almost!you don't call it running late if its just late by a mere 30 minutes,do u?Anyway,th platform isn't too crowded either,and every single time I congratulate myself for making it awake through another nightout and being able to catch the train.But as you'll see,my jubiliation is short-lived.

4.Time: 6:21 am.So I make an effort and lift my heavy luggage one final time to get to the far-end of the platform where the general bogey is supposed to park.Now is the first time I see people mysteriously making an appearance out of nowhere and crowding around the far-end for the same purpose as me.I put my luggage before some snack shop and observe the crowd while carefully contemplating whether its gonna be another of those sessions to get inside the train between sips of tea.Somehow,I'm always able to assure myself that the crowd hasn't yet assumed threatening proportions and it'll not be that bad.I'm not too wrong either,the crowd at this point does not threaten to cramp me for standing space,which is all I ask really.

5.Time: 6:27 am.Now the time for the train to arrive draws closer.Surprisingly,the announcer always omits to announce the time for my train while she happily announces away all early morning to late noon trains!A conspiracy,naaah probbaly not.Anyway,finally when the train is already late by half-an-hour,she finally announces it'll be there in a short while(read 15 minutes).
And all this while,the crowd continues to pour in from all directions and head towards my end forcing me to pick up my luggage one time more than I bargained for,and head still farther.

6.Time: 6:54 am.I finally see the engine moving towards me at a long distance.I tighten my grip on my bag and suitcase,and so does the rest of the junta(I mean on their respective bags and suitcases).When at last the train reaches within boarding distance,I see the true force of the population explosion.I have no frikkin idea where all these people hide before the actual arrival of the train,but they sure take me by surprise every single time.

7.I scramble for space and try my best to push myself inside the general bogey even as perfectly healthy persons stuff the bogey meant for disabled people and the ones actually physically challenged give up on their quest even befor they start.I stop for a moment to think,"Man!how pathetic is that!".And thats my fatal mistake.I lose my chance in a fraction of a second and suddenly the bogey looke like it would burst.but it doesn't.Much like the country to which it belongs,it seems to have an infinite capacity and generosity.I call it quits and head for the sleeper class bogey,ready to pay the T.T.E whatever he demands.

8.Time: 7:01 am.I manage to get inside without much ado.Of course,there is no place to sit here either.The really intelligent people had headed for the sleeper in the first place and had occupied the seats with more confidence than the people who had reserved berths.I am content with the standing space I manage to get near the washbasin.There are a handful of people crowded around the same place.Its not that bad,I think.When the train starts moving,I'll adjust my luggage slightly and sit on my bag or suitcase.Its only a matter of 3 hours,after all.

9.Time: 7:09 am.And then the train does start moving.Its time for the grand finale.Just as mysteriously as the happenings at the platform,from nowhere,a sea of people enters the bogey.Where the fuck were they sitting earlier,I think??Then I realize,oh fuck!they weren't sitting!So now the standing space becomes more cramped than the general bogey(ok thats a slight exaggeration,but the effect is necessary).Phew!I look at my watch.3 hours like this?

10.No wait,there's more.It's morning time,folks!Time for nature's calls and other ablutions.And where am I standing?Oh in the path leading to the toilet obviously.I'll not elaborate any further....

But then,the train strangely enough never gets delayed between Kanpur to Allahabad and invariably makes it in a good half-an-hour less than the scheduled time.

All's well that ends well,that's what they say,don't they?
Well that's exactly why I hate them!

The cleanest city in the country

Thats what the grapevine(read my bro) told me about Surat.I was pretty eager to see that for myself,and thats partly the reason why I endured that painful train journey described below.Already I was conjuring images in my mind of an Indian city like Singapore.Pretty obviously though,I was disappointed cos I realised later that it takes more than being a clean city to come even remotely close to S'pore.
Surat is a very clean city for sure.But it might not immediately strike you as being one,cos its also an old city.There aren't too many fancy malls and glittering lights.Most of the city consists of old and not-particularly-attractive buildings.However,as you'll notice later,trash mountains,blocked sewer lines and stray animals are conspicuous by their absence.The best thing that I found about the place is the 4 parallel and almost alike bridges over Tapti.Standing over one of these at around 11 in the night,I enjoyed the most pleasant breeze,and still can't believe that it is a regular feature,as my bro told me.The breeze was unusually strong to flow everyday,but he assured me it did.
The place does have its share of multiplex theatres and Pizza parlors too,and I made full and shameless use of those(I love my bro).However,I still got to explore a lot less of the city than I would have liked too,cos my bro works and lives in Hazira,an industrial hub around 25 kms from Surat.When I say industrial hub,I really mean one.The place has industrial setups of Reliance,Essar steels(where my bro works),NTPC, L & T and Kribhco.It is an awe-inspiring sight for a first-time visitor.And the fact that the place still manages to be exceptionally green and is flanked by backwaters on one side definitely helps in increasing its beauty.I reached there at around 7 in the morning and the weather was overcast with a pleasant breeze all over the place.Pretty breathtaking stuff.
I've always liked company townships,and Essar steels was no exception.Personally,I feel its a great place to live in.Add to that the fact that my bro avails the best of facilities:air-conditioned room,T.V.,a fridge that he had stacked full of chocolates,cakes,chips and colas(I love my bro) and a DVD player.Not to mention the movie and Pizza in the evening.After just a day there,it got so that I never wanted to leave the place,definitely not for a sleepy eastern UP town like Allahabad.It was like living my dream.After breakfast I'd accompany my bro to his office,spend an hour or two there-the first day he took me for a conducted tour of the entire steel plant,another awe-inspiring experience-then come back to the room and spend the rest of the afternoon lying on the bed savoring the goodies at my disposal while listening to Pink Floyd.I doubt there are more gratifying experiences in life,other than of course....ahem!
However,the stay was painfully short,cos we had to be back in time for my mom's birthday.and the fact that another 24 hour train journey stared me in the face didn't help matters much.Thankfully,though,this time I had the company of my bro and The Dilbert Principle,quite simply the single most humorous piece of work I've ever come across.Scott Adams is da man!and of course,so is my bro...

What's a train journey to you,David?

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....