Rail Gaadi

Kooo chuk chuk chuk....

Train journeys were so much fun as kids - it meant traveling to a new place, be it for a vacation or because of another transfer. After a certain point, my train journeys meant mostly the Pune-Cal route on our old faithful Azad Hind Express.

It brings back so many wonderful memories - of Mom coming to drop me to Pune the first time, of so many bags scared that I'd left that blue top behind and what if I wanted to wear it suddenly, let aside the fact that I hadn't worn it in the past 2 years, but 'what if' I suddenly wanted to.If I could, I would have probably packed up my entire room, complete with my huge cupboard and Hrithik Roshan posters and my knick-knacks, including that sunset scene painted waaaaaaaaaaay back in class III.

It brings back memories of Mom packing my favourite train ka khana - pasta for dinner and chicken and roti for next day. A 36 hour journey, which more often than not became 40 meant that we'd sleep like there was no tomorrow, prompting other passengers to wake us up to ask if we were feeling okay or needed some medicine. It meant that while leaving Pune, I'd pack noodles and chicken lollipops for the night and for the rest of the journey, we would survive on boiled eggs and coffee and chips and pepsi and other such junk. It meant the yells of joy afetr crossing jamshedpur cuz we were just anthr 3 hours away from home, the jhalmuriwalas boardign from jamshedpur and we talking about how cheap Cal is as compared to Pune, it meant the guys (and some of the gals too) smoking their last fags for sometime and disposing off the bottles, seeing the howrah bridge and crowding onto the door to yell and wave to the parents and family. It meant meeting so many interesting people with whom I might not have otherwise had the chance to speak to - like the trade union leader, the construction worker, the hawker, the old lady who'd walked the dandi march alongwith gandhiji, the young dude all nervous for his interview, the students like us who'd be all broke and ready to run errands for the older passengers so long as they fed us something. It meant hours of adda with friends, hours of antakshari and dumb charades, chatting up that cute guy from Wadia's in the next coupe, it meant endless hours of card games, it meant waiting for Manmad to ahve chinese for dinner and rourkela to have boiled eggs, it meant having poori and alu ki sabzi (radha-pallabi) at khragpur, it meant having that awful coffee at Nagpur (I still say they used the mud outside the station and nto coffee powder) and the last vada pav for sometime at Jalgaon. It meant making sure you had that bag full of khaana and mithai for the hostel failing which one would not be allowed entry. It meants hours of sitting by the window and watching the countyside go by. It meant the time we were nearly 12 hours late cuz we were stranded outside Jamshedpur since a tree had fallen on the tracks. It meant calling home and telling Mom, don't come to the station since we don't know what time we are going to reach Cal (the whole journey is actually an entirely different story and I shall do justice to it in another post sometime). It meant 10 people and 3 tickets, it emant spending the entire journey sitting near the toilets since we didn't have enough seats. In first year it meant breaking the ice with seniors and actually talking to them, not being oveawed byt he fact that they were in their 4th year. It meant the time I came home in third year w/o informing anyone simply cuz I wanted to be with my first Valentine - my Dad. It meant Mom freaking out when she realized that i'd travelled along. Till 2nd year, it meant going home for prep leave. It also meant that in final year going to the station bidding our final adiue to friends (who were my family in Pune) and to my second home - Pune. It meant taking 5 years of my life back to square one.

It meant going from one home to the other.