“Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.” – Ray Bradbury
Hi. I just realized one thing while surfing through my blog list. This blog turned 1 year old this October, the 14th. Though for various reasons I could not be consistent on posting articles, hereafter I shall try to be.
I think Saturday Mornings are the best times to write. Holiday gives a good spare time too. Also a good way to utilize time than sleeping till late in the afternoon! What’s more? I find this as one of the best ways to stay connected with you pals. Your feedback and comments are of high value to me.
While reading the newspaper yesterday, I found one more interesting Day-celebration, World Obesity Day, October 24th! It left me wondering about how people solemnize, if that’s the correct word, anything in their life. And that article forced some introspection upon my brain encased in my slightly overweight physique.
And while eating spicy & delicious egg curry in the lunch, I decided to diet from tomorrow, as usual! In such events, I don’t know what happens to my resolute decisiveness. It does not take much time for the resolution to get diluted, friends are to blame for that!
I am now, here in Hyderabad for only few more weeks. My friends know that. As the sun said good bye for the day, my friends wanted me to make chicken for dinner! My friends call me as the best cook among the circle. And I'd dare say, the Chicken curry I do, especially, is famous globally!
Thanks to myself, the plan was decided to be executed from TOMORROW! Albeit relived, 8 hours after the resolution, I picked up a leg-piece from the curry.
Life is like that. After all, Tomorrow Never Dies!
“How early do you reach the railway station to catch a train?” could be a curious question. I have some more! “How long have you waited for a train?”. Not good enough. Here’s one more. “Have you ever tried to sleep on a bench at a railway station’s platform to kill time?”
My last journey from Nanded to Hyderabad made us wait for 5 hours! Would you believe it? The delay for the special train from Akola to Tirupati was announced to bea of 2 and half hours and turned out to be double of that.
After learning about the delay, some clever heads caught another available train. Some nappers (including me & my friend Vishal) tried to find a peaceful (!), fan-over-the-head(!!) and clean (!!!) place to rest the spinal cord and some even succeeded at it (I could not, for, one, I don’t like full lights and second, mosquitoes singing full-on while I sleep). The wait for a train perhaps teaches you more than the journey itself. This wait taught me how to kill time by counting number of bogies of a goods train. Some Railway officials also showed how water is supplied to a train and how a bogie is connected to an engine, with a practical demonstration. Hands-on was avoided only for the reason of lack of energy!
Later half of the story saw some “lost and found” happiness & conversation of few people who apparently were colleagues of each other. Some sweet exchange of words with the railway manager was done. Some clever brains who didn’t catch the earlier train now found another train to Hyderabad and went by that train, by general class. I and Vishal did not dare take it; 6 hours journey, sitting on a wooden bench, starting at 3:40 AM. Don’t imagine in the wildest of dreams.
Climax of the journey began with the arrival of special Train in Nanded station at 4:00 AM (5:15 AM was, supposedly, its arrival time in Hyderabad). And happily, station after station, waiting for signals, blowing hardest whistle it could, finally, the special train reached Hyderabad at 9:45 in the morning.
On the spot I took a decision. Hereafter I’ll be faithful to the generic 563 and 564 (numbers of the trains which we Nanded-Hyderabad regulars take). Earlier also, I was in the soup while boarding one such special train (Krishna Express – Mudkhed- Secunderabad – 12:40 AM). Perhaps it was the curses by 563-564 which gave me strange experiences whenever I took another, special train.
And we experience the same, seemingly comic, yet very serious delays in train schedules, only to expose the casual behavior of the System.
