Most People have a great time travelling or touring (for the stiffly british) and do so with elan (those who've planned their trip well). In my case, it was neither. A kicking, screaming and slightly delirious me got on very reluctantly onto a train that bore a name (pallavan) deceptively similar to the excuses for transport we call buses in chennai; travelling towards central Tamilnadu, to temple town called trichy (tiruchirapalli, for the connoisseur). And the ride was just as bad. Notwithstanding the jolts, bumps and shuffles that are an oh so common part of the experience we indians patriotically call a train ride, abominations of structure and character almost always seem to gravitate towards our general direction everytime we ride on these trains. Or it probably might be that we (I never take the blame solely :-) ) are a bit too sensistive to be travelling in public.
People with professions that would give the term "contemporary", a new dimension are a common sight. Everyone from clouts to pick-pockets are an essential part of the atmosphere, with the occasional cop thrown in for the ambience. Then come the ones who purportedly are ones trying to eke out an honest living; barging in uninvited into reserved coaches, hawking their goods brazenly, much to the consternation of the legal occupants of the coach. The TTE does nothing to "shoo" them away, so to speak. If its out of a sense of pity, its lost on me. And putting up with external irritants is only half the story!
The Second class train compartment is either a cleverly orchestrated circus or a foul sense of order gone chaotic! I desperately hope its the former, everytime I get on and realise its the latter everytime I get off! One expects people, who live in close proximity with most other people for a large part of their lives would develop a sense of coridiality, a sense of one-ness with other people. But I guess crowds inspire the exact opposite emotion. A guy who picks his routinely abused-swollen-to-the-brink-nose throughout the journey and deposits the contents on your shirt and makes like a smile when you catch him; a lady who tries to occupy twice the space she'd normally require and a bawling kid who finds everything an invitation to demonstrate his max volume are unavoidable!
Whew! Thats brought out all the spite... For the now very quizzical blog reader (you've read this far??? Amazing!) Who might be wondering what this is all about.... Fact of the matter is, that I was on the receiving end; not once, not twice, but a whole six times in a matter of a week and a half! Repetetion alone, I'm sure you'd concur, is enough to inspire distaste towards it. But the whole experience was one that was illuminating, to say the least. My once in a lifetime adventure through the "shining" cities of South India turned out into an adventure allright, but in unexpected ways.
Bangalore saw a smiling neo-adult drop down onthe station, one fine saturday evening. Expecting the garden city to be teeming with "wild-life" in the night scence, he expectantly set out to sample the goods on store. Alas, what he found made the curd rice at home seem like a delicacy (Thats on a later blog ;-) ! Having almost seen most of the city on foot, he concluded that bangalore was one hyped out palce and nowhere near as cool as it claimed to be; a fact corroborated by an ex-party animal based in delhi, who also happens to be a Business analyst with Cognizant Technology Solutions, working his a$$ off in Chennai at the moment. The friend he was chaperoning was bitterly disappointed too, making it a let down in ways more than one.
An escape bid to well known waters to salvage what they could, was the only highlight of the trip. Spencers, The ol' Eliotts and A few Go Karts, topped off with the dependable MGM saved the day! Weary from his recent travails, the intrepid traveller thought he was done. But alas, again, his adventures were only beginning... Indian Railways decided to gift the frequent traveller with what they do best - a new strain of a virus bred in captivity, within the annals of the pantry car they ostenatiously claim to be the next best thing in passenger comfort!
Smitten, the intrigued adventurer experienced what hell had in store for those who sinned... Already travelling again, and wracked for four continuous days, the brave adventurer was on the end of his tether. The second train trip was in his own words - "The toilet trip". He was uniquely poised to inspect almost every lavatory that the indian railways laboriously built into the train and believe it or not, he even had a top 10 list, with the one four compartments away topping the list! He arrived in quaint Trichy, disshelved and only a shell of his former self; quite like voldemort was, after lil' harry was done with him! Let alone the temples in "temple town", he hardly saw out of the room he was confined in, with the attached bathroom, of course :-) One fine Sunday, he threw in the towel on Indian Railways' hospitality and probably doing the only sane thing so far, attempted to get to a hospital.
Fate, it seemed, was against our poor adventurer. The doctors in Trichy have a unique policy, which goes something like - "Sunday holiday"! After trudging through the streets for an hour, in search of anyone capable of helping, from physicians to chemists, when the tunnel seemed darkest, an angel in the form of an auto driver came to the rescue, recommending the only 24hour hospital in miles and offering to take the aggrieved soul there, for a handsome fare though. Our adventurer was left exchanging unplesant conversations with needles and bitter tasting concoctions built to kill the virus and a apart of him, in the process, for a couple of days... Antibiotics, they said, is your only hope... They kept their word and finally, the young man, wracked, disshelved and tired, came out alive! The sense of gratitude was overwhelming and he thanked every diety he knew....
By now, I'm sure that even the least endowed soul on this planet would know who that adventurer was - me! I still had another journey to make on the accursed trains - back home! Though it was uneventful compared to the ones earlier, the story was the same (see Top for description). Having gone through hell and alive to tell the tale, our adventurer decided to let heroics be and promised himself that he would concentrate on matters far more important than fame and adventure - The Visa interview... but here he is, blogging away, to keep those memories alive. From one adventure to another, this blogger knows not what peace and sleep is :-)
