Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts

I had already finished my packing the earlier day with some minor leftovers for the last minute. Dad’s got office. Prepared breakfast and had it too. My train (to Bangalore) is at 11:45 AM and his (to Delhi) at 5:30 PM. Army Chief “Deepak Kapoor” was visiting AFMC. Dad left. I rushed back and forth in the rooms recollecting if I’ve missed something to put in my bags. Dad came back early (got me a bottle of hand sanitiser) and we prepared meals for the travel.

As it happens with most of the parents, they load their child with almost everything in their capacity without realising that their kid needs to carry all this. Ditto situation and the same question. How do I carry this stuff now? But my dad is never short of ideas – ideas driven by common sense. Why not? Being in Army, he has been doing all this packing, packaging and pulling for around 35 years now. Result -> I had the heaviest of luggages and I was the most confortable carrying it.

Left the house.
We are sitting on the back seat of the auto to railway station but not talking much. But we are looking at each other in between through the rear-view mirror. We’d be departing in opposite directions today.

Reach station. Enter train.
I was thinking that I am the first one to enter the compartment until I noticed a 50-something uncle sitting on the upper berth holding his undergarments in front of the AC. Gosh! What’s he doing? Is he putting a filter for the air to come out? Nah! he is trying to dry these. After a struggle of some 10-15 mins (how long could he hold these in hands?), he tied his lingerie stuff to the pegs around him. Better than before, but still! Others have entered in but might not have noticed (busy in setting their luggage) the display of his stuff. I got up and suggested him that it’ll take more time for these to dry under AC, better take it outside and spread your “Andar ki Baat” things under the fan outside the compartment. Perhaps he liked the idea, unpegged them and moved out. Good!

Start the train and the phone calls. Grrr… everyone is talking about swine flu. “Put on a mask”, “Take Tamiflu”, “Cover your nose”, “Don’t touch your face” etc. etc.
The longest phone calls since… I don’t know when. But never had I talked for so long that my hand set heats up. This time I could feel the warmth of the phone as well as of the ‘S’ and ‘P’ on the other side. Yeah, a conference call. Signal was coming and going, but the call went on, battery dying but the call went on. For around 2 hrs.

Dinner time. Sleep time.

After 2-3 rounds of increasing the temperature of the AC, the people were still feeling cold. The oldies asked for the AC to be switched off. Damn! Why are they travelling in AC coach if they can’t live with it? I couldn’t sleep the whole night and managed to catch some sleep only in the morning hours.

Reached Bangalore half asleep. Got surrounded by the auto-wallahs and coolies as I got down but I was in no mood to let them carry. As I am walking out of platform 1, 3-4 auto-wallahs are following me. A routine talk with these guys:

Auto Driver: Where sir?
Me: Electronic City.
Auto Driver: [Almost holding my luggage] हाँ, जायेगा ना. चलो बैठो.
Me: कितना?
Auto Driver: ज्यादा नहीं लगेगा सर.
Me: [मेरे पास ज्यादा हैं ही नहीं देने के लिए…] फिर भी कितना?
Auto Driver: 300 दे दो सर.
Me: [Ha Ha! I have only 250 in my purse!] बहुत ज्यादा है.
Auto Driver: ज्यादा कहाँ सर! बहुत दूर है. अच्छा चलो 270.
Me: [पर अंकल इतने पैसे ही नहीं हैं, बाकि क्या कपडे उतार लोगे?] 200.
Auto Driver: क्या सर. इतना दूर है और वहां से खाली रिटर्न आना है. कोई सवारी नहीं मिलेगी. 250 दे दो. [Got hold of one of my bags]
Me: [एक तो ये सामान वैसे ही काफी भारी है, ऊपर से तू भी लटक जा!] 200 से ज्यादा नहीं हैं मेरे पास. प्रीपेड ऑटो स्टैंड किधर है?
Auto Driver: सर, मीटर से चलो. Meter one-and-half.
Me: मैं बस में चला जाऊंगा. सिर्फ 20 रुपये लगेंगे और बस को रिटर्न खाली नहीं आना पड़ेगा.
Auto Driver: बस नहीं मिलेगी यहाँ से.
Me: [बेटा मैं पहली बार नहीं आया हूँ यहाँ!] [I start walking. He is left behind.] ओह! नहीं मिलेगी? कोई नहीं अंकल जी, Thank You. मैं पैदल ही चला जाऊंगा. :)

Dragged my luggage from railway station to bus station (Majestic) via an under road subway. Got the AC volvo (could not get AC in the train, atleast here). 45 Rs and I am there. Wohoo! I am thinking – Good that the auto driver didn’t agree to my offer of 200 Rs. :)

"अबे तुझे तीन हफ्ते हो गए ये कहते कहते कि इस हफ्ते जाऊँगा, इस हफ्ते जाऊँगा अब जायेगा भी कि यहीं डेरा डाल के बैठा रहेगा "

As if the consistently crashing stock markets are not enough to irritate you and send a chill down your spine.

I usually don’t sleep while commuting in the bus. But yesterday was a one-of-its’s-kind day.

I boarded 6 PM bus from Infosys. At 6:45, we were hardly 1 km moved from the original position (Am talking about displacement (the vector), not distance). I usually sit on the first seat because you get space to spread your legs in front of you :P I looked back and found everyone “dead sleep”. So I too tried to sleep. Luckily, I succeeded somehow.

Why “Luckily”?
Because, that bus was so wrecked, the seats were not in good shape (no head rest) and the engine was roaring like anything. Traffic all round. I tilted myself against the glass window and slept. What I last remember before sleeping – we were at the entering foot of the "Wakad Bridge" (flyover). Slept for about half an hour when sudden brakes by the bus driver left me awake. When I woke up – we were still on the same flyover.

Now when I was awake, I put on the FM to my ears. Wow! All the radio stations (including our very own Vividh Bharti) were airing Himesh Reshamiya Songs. Did I have a choice, what frequency to tune?

At around 7:45, struggling through the rush, we caught an almost clear road. But… there are days when, whatever you do, however you do, you can’t escape the "so-called-luck" following you. We stopped at every Red Light on the way with a halt time of more than 60 seconds at each of them, all the way to AFMC.

The problem is – How to extricate from this? I am not able to find a personal solution for this problem. Should I change my route? Should I change my timings? Should I get a PMPML bus pass, and stop traveling by Infy buses. I will have a flexibility of route and timings in that case.

I just can’t imagine my plight when the most awaited “Commonwealth Youth Games” is round the corner. The traffic is going to go worse.

The only nice thing that I did yesterday was: Got my eyes registered for donation. Got to do more exercises now :P

Today I took a different bus to office than I usually catch (via a shorter route that I never knew). Actually, this is something that has occupied my mind since this morning. Let me start with a small analysis.

Everything has its pros and cons. I am talking about the distance of the commute between house and office. Those who stay near to office (around 8-12 kms) definitely save their time spending less time in the company bus as compared to those who live farther. But they have another set of problems to face:

1. Not all buses stop for them. Reason: The buses are packed by the time they reach their place.
2. If any of the buses stop to pick them, they don't get a seat to park themselves.

I don't know the policies of other companies, but in Infosys, Wipro ... buses (especially here in Pune), this is a common scene. Usually female employees opt to stay nearer to the office. So, they are the ones who face the above mentioned problems. They keep waving hands at the buses and the buses flagging their "NO VACANT SEATS" board, pass by. Eventually, they do spend ample time waiting on the road to get into a bus.

Anyways, this is not something I am going to discuss here.

See, we can't help in case of problem one. We can only ask the transport department of our organizations to increase the number of buses - which I tried, but they have an explanation: they have tried (and even succeeded) to cover each and every route of the city, they have counted the number of employees (having bus passes) at each location and manage the timings and routes accordingly, which, on their part sounds quite logical. Actually they have around 12 extra buses running in the city at any given point of time than the exact number of buses required to carry the employees from different parts of the city. I don't have any complaints after that. So, problem one is inevitable.

But in case we face problem two. I am sitting in the bus running to office. Girl employees rush into the bus at one of the stops. Some of them manage to grab a seat but one or two of the lot don't get a seat. I feel I should get up and give the seat to her and I did exactly that. I got up and gave my seat to her. She is happy and I am also happy - anyways its just 15-20 minutes distance. I can manage standing :) Now, at a stop further, some more girls get into the bus. I feel helpless at this point of time. I had only one seat and that's gone. I can't ask others to get up and donate their seats. I know one thing, I have observed this: There are people who want to help but don't have the courage to help. They don't feel like saying,"Excuse me, can you please sit here?" Sometimes they do act, but act late. So, there are good people but they don't let their benignity come out. Something similar happened in the bus today. A girl was standing near to a guy who was sitting with his earphones on (must be listening to radio on his phone). I was looking, standing. After around 10 minutes, he finally did it. He put off his ear plugs and kindly asked her to settle while getting up from his seat. The situation was a bit funny as well as outlandish because he didn't do it instantly. It took him 10 minutes to show that gesture. But I was even happier when I saw another guy sitting besides our hero also got up along with him vacating seat for another lady. I don't know if it was mutual or a follow up.

I didn't know any one in the bus when I got inside. But now I very well know these two boys who showed a little courage for a good cause. Good deed actually. And I am sure they enjoyed what they did and next time they will act real fast :)

Such little nice deeds are a great source of happiness. Believe me, it gives a very nice and pleasant feeling. A feeling of satisfaction, pride.

1. Always get up when you see an old person (respect silver hair) or a physically challenged person standing (Be a gentleman, please!)
2. If not the above, the least you can do is offer a help in holding their bags while you are sitting.

Do try it out! A responsible and wise citizen will get down from the bus when you get down. Remember the Lead India song: "तुम चलो तो हिंदुस्तान चले..."

I am back from Chandigarh to Pune this Sunday after a vacation of one week.

With four hops, the journey was awsome. Quite a few reasons for that:

1. Chandigarh to New Delhi - Jan Shatabdi AC Chair Car: Its a new train that has been started for this route and the thing to excitement is that the fare is just Rs. 107 (even less than the bus which is Rs. 135). How good it is to travel in an AC coach with so less fare?


2. New Delhi to Mumbai Central - Rajdhani Express AC 2-tier: The name of the train itself is quite exciting. After waiting for around 2 hrs on New Delhi station and confirming my seat in the coach, when I entered the train, I felt rejuvenated. No crowd, no noise and a titillating mild scent sprayed in the coach. That was very refreshing. This being my first time in Rajdhani that too in AC 2-tier was a great experience. Thanks to Papa who got me the last minute reservation. The train dropped me off at Mumbai Central exactly at the scheduled time (exactly 16 hrs), but I didn't want to get down. The food served was very nice - Juice, beverages, candies, refreshments and the main course (dinner and breakfast) all were sumptuous.


3. Mumbai Central to Dadar - I landed in Mumbai for the first time. The very first thought I had when I stepped down the train, "Oh! what if I get to see some high profile filmstar like Sharukh or Aamir here." That was just a starting. I even thought of having a glance of some beautiful actress, maybe Vidya Balan. Why the hell will they come to railway station on a Sunday morning? Oops! even if its not a Sunday. Ok, may be for some shooting. It took me around 15 minutes to get a local train ticket to Dadar and all the time my thoughts went through a falling graph. I started thinking with Sharukh, Vidya etc. , went through Salman, Katrina (Ok, I am fine even if I meet Navjot Sidhhu) and finally perched on Raj Thackrey. What if some people come and ask me where do I belong to? I say - Rohtak. Where is it? Haryana. Oh! thats North India, send him back. Take his luggage and scare him out of this place. "Take his luggage? Hey! I have got 'Besan ke laddoos', I won't give it to you." Drowned neck deep in all these thoughts, I even forgot to take back the change from the ticket window. Never mind, that was just 2 Rs. :) I got my ticket to Dadar. I was already warned by Papa that stand near the door of the local train and jump out as soon as the platform arrives because the people rush madly into the train. I did as directed and managed to get down safely with my luggage on Dadar station. But, I appreciate the service of Mumbai local trains. They are on time, they halt for only 10 seconds at each stop, they have a separate track for themselves and they are damn too fast.


4. Dadar to Pune - Ok, the only irritating and tiring part of my journey. I had the ticket of "Hyderabad Express" and gosh! I am travelling in "Koyna Express". Thats no legal. And I was so happy that I have the ticket of an AC 3-tier berth. And to my surprise, there is no AC coach in this train, just one AC chair car coach. So, I went inside that. I took one of the empty chairs. TT was ought to come and he came. I told him that I have the ticket for another train which will come after 3 hrs and I didn't want to wait that long in this 42 degree heat. He told that at next stop, all seats will be full and if I can manage standing. I said absolutely no problem. I was lucky enough to have a cool TT. Where I was thinking of getting a fine, and where I travelled in the only AC compartment of the train. The sight seeing is really cool on this route - the train passes through a very beautiful terrain, running through a couple of tunnels. Though this train was 10 minutes late of its scheduled time at Pune (that too due to some maintenance activity going on at some peices of railway line), it can be condoned looking at the present day scenario where most of the trains run much late of their schedules.

Overall, I enjoyed the journey to my fullest. Maybe, because I travelled on rails after a long time. I have been travelling in air only for the past 2.5 years. Though flights can save you time, but journey by train has its own charm and excitement. :)