One fine day in Chennai mail

Rarely have I written two blogs on one day, I am really bored today. So let us go back one week.



One day on Chennai mail..



You must have read about the incident on allepey express. Well it happened again, but this time on Chennai mail. I have been traveling the same route for more than two years now and it is only allepey express which is the dreaded train, while 2624 chennai mail has always been ok, if not great. But the thing which happened last Friday makes the allepey blog sound simple.

The train as usual is late by half hour – nothing wrong as whenever it comes half and hour late, it reaches Chennai in time unlike when it comes on time. The station is unusually not crowded, except for the expected number of passengers. No ‘returning home after tired days work’ people. You normally expect a group of people of this category in any station in India around 6-7 pm everyday. But that day, there was no sign of them. I was happy that I didn’t have to fight my way around to get to my compartment and started reading a book. The train arrived. It was then I realized I made a mistake in deciding this was going to be happy simple safe journey.

The compartment was packed to full, it looked a ‘5-E’ bus in peak time. It took me a full ten minutes to get to the door and get a foot in the compartment, the train started and I was still on the footboard, hanging for my life. I could have got in earlier but I let some middle aged uncles and aunties to board before me. So here I was, on the footboard, going to Chennai 2624 – Chennai superfast mail. Superfast mail :D such a joke. It took me another ten minutes to get inside and go to my seat which amazingly was right next to the door S10- 3, that was my berth that day. After fighting with atleast ten people I went to my seat only to find it occupied. So as in allepey express that fine day, I requested the person to vacate my seat, and as always he gave me 6 inches to park myself. I told him 6 inches wouldn’t fulfill the Rs 500 indian railways took from me, so please vacate my seat, I think he then understood that may be I had got a reservation and he got up from my seat, I sat down, his friend nearby i.e now sitting next to me adjusted ( read pushed me out gently ) and gave the seat back to our original friend who sat down with a grin. I wanted to punch the entire gang, but I was outnumbered. I couldn’t possibly fight the minimum 100-150 people traveling in similar way that day, not to mention hundreds of ayyappa devotees. I never liked these ayyappa devotees for the mess they create while they travel. They might be great bhaktas, having loads of faith, but seldom do they stop creating nuisance for other people traveling in the train. The begger on the floor near my berth slept peacefully. Something happened and suddenly there were even more people, since I was near the path, people took me for a leaning post and started leaning on me, I thought I would send some message to my friends, but the shameless creature on my right couldn’t stop peeping at what I was typing, so I took the opportunity to bad mouth all of them in the message :D he turned away and I deleted the message hehehe.

Some more people came from nowhere, it was becoming suffocating, one idiot was leaning on me and was really comfortable. It was really horrible, I never expected this on the Chennai mail because of its timing, it is always late for office goers who want to reach home early. The TTE came, he asked for my ticket, he even had the nerve to ask my id proof, but he didn’t check any of these hooligans. It was just one of those days, it wasn’t until thrissur came that few of the open ticket masters finally got down. The guy leaning on me was still there, till now I couldn’t do anything because there was no space for him to move at all, but now it was inexcusable, so I asked the idiot to move his ass. He didn’t budge. I tried English, hindi, tamil. I am definitely sure he understood cos he moved away for a few minutes but came back again and again, it went on for half an hour. It was then that the person sitting in front of me lost his temper. Till then I took him for another open ticket master, but he wasn’t. For an entire minute he shouted something to the leaning guy in Malayalam – I dint understand a thing, then he switched to tamil, maybe for my understanding :D, so finally he moved off only to come back 20 minutes later. It would be palakkad when the rightful owners of the berth near me would occupy their seats. By then the slight temperature I had that day worsened to a fever. My worse day in a train ended as I went to sleep in the upper berth.

Out of boredom

It is Monday morning and I am wondering what I did over the weekend, did I hang out and enjoy life? Did I take rest sitting all day and doing nothing? I did the unthinkable this Saturday, I got up at 5:40am, and I haven’t done that on a weekday for a long time now. Anyway the rhythmic buzzing of mosquitoes was too much for me to handle and I got up. With India playing test cricket in Australia , the question of “now what??” was answered quickly and I settled down to watch India ’s comic performance. It was a day Hayden went about his planned assassination of Indian attack. It ended with a brilliant dismissal of what seemed like good bowling, but in reality it was more like sheer dumb luck. It was then I realized that there weren’t any mosquitoes in the hall!!! Strange, just a few feet away I was mobbed by them out of my sleep, and here I am all comfortable with no bugging insects. I was planning on going back to sleep, so didn’t bother brushing my teeth yet. Soon, it was lunch in Australia , and with two options in sight – sleep or breakfast – I chose breakfast. It’s impossible to sleep when you are hungry.

The caretaker did a double take when he saw me early in the morning; I could feel his eyes boring through me as I walked towards my bike. The caretaker was discreet in showing his surprise, the people at Brindavan were much more open. As many as four people asked me what was wrong when I went there for breakfast! They were interested to know why I was in the hotel at 7:40 am on a Saturday morning, when for over two years now, we always landed there only for lunch with our just out of bed looks.

My god, what people have to go through for getting up early? Even my mother was surprised to hear this. I had to endure three calls that day explaining that there was nothing wrong and it was the mosquitoes which woke up. hmm.. I am getting a better mosquito repellent, this goodnight/odomos isn’t working in the wee hours of the day.