We had to board the train in evening from Faridabad. It was a renowned train running since British era, the Frontier Mail rechristened as Golden Temple Mail just a few years ago. We were mesmerized by the punctuality of Indian Railways for the first time in our life as it reached the Faridabad railway station sharp at 05:51 pm.
We had to travel to the last stop of this train and almost the last station in India on this route. It is Amritsar, the city of Golden Temple. We had our berths booked in AC 3-tier from Nizamuddin to Amritsar but we decided to travel in general coach from Faridabad to Nizamuddin just to see how it feels to travel in both General and AC coach in the same train on a same journey. We entered the coach fully crammed with what we call 'Common people' of India but comparatively more spacious than the general coach of Bihar bound trains. For comparison sake, we had enough space to reach out for our body parts if needed for personal exercises like itching and scratching. It was just a 30 minutes journey to Nizamuddin so no one of us was inclined to rest his bums. It left the station at a very sweet pace with spell binding thumping and thundering.
Charan (I'm-like-this-only kind of guy) pulled out the highly classified sheets of paper from his pocket with an I-did-it-again smile on his face. It's the route map and time table of the train which he had made a habit to carry along on every tour. Seeing the time table we started to curse Indian Railways for making such a slack schedule.
We were expecting to reach Nizamuddin in next five minutes but it's written somewhere in our luck line (read unluck line) in bold letters - 'Born to be late'. Train got stuck at the outer of Nizamudin station, initially it looked like a normal halt which is a custom now days due to increasing congestion on platforms but it was not. It was taking more than usual. Our expedition in General coach was getting worse every passing minute due to humid weather compounded by our impatient zeal desperate to settle down in cozy comfort of AC coach. We were keeping ourselves alive by making mockery of Indian railways and the most comfortable place in the coach i.e. The Toilet. Every now and then we were dreaming of the comfort of AC coach just five minutes away from us with frequent suggestions from Charan and Sanjay to change the coach while the train is at halt. At last we decided not to try our luck and also the physical fitness.
Finally it whistled but didn't move until it whistled again. As it moved, our thoughts moved. Suddenly the topic shifted to something other than bashing of Indian-Railways, it was shockingly increased number of hours our Charan had started spending on phone calls. Finally train reached Nizamuddin platform and we relieved ourselves from the More-person-per-person coach. Looking for our destined AC coach and the berth was the first and foremost task ahead of us but to our dismay it was not in sight after walking for first 5 minutes. I felt the effect of deteriorated body muscles due to my un-physical daily routine and once again I vowed to start Yoga and workout early in the morning. The same was the case with others as well.
Entering the AC coach after getting out of the general coach is like seeing Katrina Kaif after Om Puri from beauty point of view. Just to mention, this AC coach was much better than the AC 3-tier coach of Jummu Rajdhani we traveled just a few months back. It was a newly rolled out coach with new seats and other accessories like bottle holder and woven pockets etc. To our surprise all the electric sockets were working perfectly fine and Charan was the first one to put his phone on charge to make sure he never goes offline - God knows for who on other side of the line. We got our berths and as always not even a single beauty on nearby seats. We had been betrayed again by Indian railways or primarily by our unluck-line.
Resting our souls and butts in peace, we - excluding me - decided to have something to munch. Charan showed the agility - contrary to his nature - and moved out of the coach to hunt for RED, YELLOW and GREEN color packets of Lay's so specifically mentioned by Sanjay and cold-drinks not so specifically mentioned by Sanjay. Charan fullfilled the request as obedient Jinn of old time within few minutes and immediately got bombarded by another request from my side, this time it was for news papers and the Jinn was off to the work immediately with bewildered look on mine and Sanjay's faces. The newly incorporated Jinn returned with three different news papers in hand and was feeling sorry for not bringing another one due to lack of money. By the way, Sanjay was managing finance on this trip so he was the one dolling out money for all our needs. I submerged myself in the bundle of newspapers whereas Sanjay and Charan started performing rites and rituals with Lay's chips and cold drink. They were continuously tossing the chips packet towards me to provoke the hungry devil inside me but I didn't move until they opened the Red Lay's, the one I love but still avoided them to keep some empty space for dinner.
We had to travel to the last stop of this train and almost the last station in India on this route. It is Amritsar, the city of Golden Temple. We had our berths booked in AC 3-tier from Nizamuddin to Amritsar but we decided to travel in general coach from Faridabad to Nizamuddin just to see how it feels to travel in both General and AC coach in the same train on a same journey. We entered the coach fully crammed with what we call 'Common people' of India but comparatively more spacious than the general coach of Bihar bound trains. For comparison sake, we had enough space to reach out for our body parts if needed for personal exercises like itching and scratching. It was just a 30 minutes journey to Nizamuddin so no one of us was inclined to rest his bums. It left the station at a very sweet pace with spell binding thumping and thundering.
Charan (I'm-like-this-only kind of guy) pulled out the highly classified sheets of paper from his pocket with an I-did-it-again smile on his face. It's the route map and time table of the train which he had made a habit to carry along on every tour. Seeing the time table we started to curse Indian Railways for making such a slack schedule.
We were expecting to reach Nizamuddin in next five minutes but it's written somewhere in our luck line (read unluck line) in bold letters - 'Born to be late'. Train got stuck at the outer of Nizamudin station, initially it looked like a normal halt which is a custom now days due to increasing congestion on platforms but it was not. It was taking more than usual. Our expedition in General coach was getting worse every passing minute due to humid weather compounded by our impatient zeal desperate to settle down in cozy comfort of AC coach. We were keeping ourselves alive by making mockery of Indian railways and the most comfortable place in the coach i.e. The Toilet. Every now and then we were dreaming of the comfort of AC coach just five minutes away from us with frequent suggestions from Charan and Sanjay to change the coach while the train is at halt. At last we decided not to try our luck and also the physical fitness.
Finally it whistled but didn't move until it whistled again. As it moved, our thoughts moved. Suddenly the topic shifted to something other than bashing of Indian-Railways, it was shockingly increased number of hours our Charan had started spending on phone calls. Finally train reached Nizamuddin platform and we relieved ourselves from the More-person-per-person coach. Looking for our destined AC coach and the berth was the first and foremost task ahead of us but to our dismay it was not in sight after walking for first 5 minutes. I felt the effect of deteriorated body muscles due to my un-physical daily routine and once again I vowed to start Yoga and workout early in the morning. The same was the case with others as well.
Entering the AC coach after getting out of the general coach is like seeing Katrina Kaif after Om Puri from beauty point of view. Just to mention, this AC coach was much better than the AC 3-tier coach of Jummu Rajdhani we traveled just a few months back. It was a newly rolled out coach with new seats and other accessories like bottle holder and woven pockets etc. To our surprise all the electric sockets were working perfectly fine and Charan was the first one to put his phone on charge to make sure he never goes offline - God knows for who on other side of the line. We got our berths and as always not even a single beauty on nearby seats. We had been betrayed again by Indian railways or primarily by our unluck-line.
Resting our souls and butts in peace, we - excluding me - decided to have something to munch. Charan showed the agility - contrary to his nature - and moved out of the coach to hunt for RED, YELLOW and GREEN color packets of Lay's so specifically mentioned by Sanjay and cold-drinks not so specifically mentioned by Sanjay. Charan fullfilled the request as obedient Jinn of old time within few minutes and immediately got bombarded by another request from my side, this time it was for news papers and the Jinn was off to the work immediately with bewildered look on mine and Sanjay's faces. The newly incorporated Jinn returned with three different news papers in hand and was feeling sorry for not bringing another one due to lack of money. By the way, Sanjay was managing finance on this trip so he was the one dolling out money for all our needs. I submerged myself in the bundle of newspapers whereas Sanjay and Charan started performing rites and rituals with Lay's chips and cold drink. They were continuously tossing the chips packet towards me to provoke the hungry devil inside me but I didn't move until they opened the Red Lay's, the one I love but still avoided them to keep some empty space for dinner.
Train left the Nizamuddin station atleast after 30 minutes of scheduled departure time, we were astonished by the genius of Indian Railways which can make a train late even with such a slack schedule. I'm sure train was running on a decent speed but somehow we were not feeling like sitting in a running train, it can be due to state-of-art suspension system and sound proof coach. By the time I finished the first newspaper - The Indian Express - the pantry man came for taking orders for dinner. Charan and Sanjay were done with chips and cookies. The choices narrated by the pantry man were pretty simple having only two options for vegetarians: Paratha-subzi and Biryani. I reckoned it can't be only paratha with subzi and thought there must be something else to make it a complete meal and the guy didn't take pain to narrate every obvious thing. We placed the order for two Paratha-subzi and one Biryani and the guy was back within next 20 minutes. I took control of Paratha-Subzi plate and felt like back-stabbed by the Indian Railways once again. As mentioned by the pantry man, it was just Paratha and Subzi in a empty looking plate of enormous size - oh sorry, they also provided a glass of water after it. Anyhow, I managed to finish off my stuff, Charan and Sanjay were still struggling to compete me may be due to thier evening snacks session. They swapped thier plates in order to change the taste and in hope of finishing it up but they couldn't. Anyhow, we declared the inning and sneaked the plates under our respective seats.
The next thing followed is the tussle to conquer upper berths and contrary to law of nature both the sides won as we had both the upper berths. Sanjay was satisfied with the middle berth hence avoided to make the battle three sided. We settled ourselves on our respective berths and Charan was trying different positions to find out the most comfortable one. As soon as he found the one, he punched the mysterious number on his mobile and flew to another world. I didn't notice Sanjay but he must have got busy with his SMSing exercise which he performs daily till midnight. I fell asleep and the next thing I remember was a phone call from Sandeep somewhere around 3:30 am. He was inquiring about our status and I replied in sleepy state with my husky voice something that I don't remember. I surveyed the surrounding and went off again. For introduction part, Mr. Sandeep was the fourth member to join us in Amritsar and had reached there before the scheduled time and had only one task to his disposal that is to call me whenever he likes. He called me again after one hour and this time I blasted over the phone to either call Charan or Sanjay but not me. He replied that Charan's phone is busy for long so he tried mine, I suggested - with comparatively softer voice - to call Sanjay and he accepted it gracefully. Thank God he didn't back fire the way he is famous for. Then suddenly I recalled what he said "Charan's phone is busy for long". is it? I thought. I searched for Charan with one and a half eye but couldn't find him. I opened the another half thinking that I might have been missing that round shaped creature because of the closed half but to no avail. The bug was bitting me from inside to find out the reason for his phone being busy for so long. I woke up and found the mysterious Charan on side-upper berth still on call with someone more mysterious than him. I looked at him but he didn't, must be discussing something of matching priority of Nuclear deal or selective air strike on Pakistan.
Early in the morning we were enjoying the landscape outside. It was bit hazy outside but clear enough to read the wall posters promoting 'Hakim Usmani' and 'Baba Bangali' vociferously to millions of passer-by. Few underdog posters of 'Pappu handpump and borewell' mentioned that we entered the periphery of Amritsar. We started to pack whatever we had in order to punctuate the journey with final full stop. We reached Amritsar station nearly 30 minutes late and found Mr. Sandeep right in front of our coach sitting on a bench accompanied by a four legs creature called 'DOG' sitting near by. We left the coach and moved towards him and got over with abusive niceties within a minute or less. Charan expressed the desire to have tea to generate enough pressure in his bowel for early morning things we all do. We had the best tea available on any of the Indian railway stations and above all it was not the machine made dip tea. It was more or less comparable to what we get in our homes. We moved out of station under the guidance of Mr. Sandeep as he was more experienced - nearly two hours - than us as far as geographical knowledge of Amritsar railway station was concerned.
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