Friday night was once in a lifetime experience which crossed every limit of wackiness I had experienced during travelling. It even surpassed the experience I had during my college days when I was thrown at sirhind from a train after boarding from Rajpura( which is about 30 kms from the former) for not having a sleeper ticket. The past week was kind of a confused week where my decision to go to amritsar was inverting everytime I thought about it. But finally when I was up for it on tuesday, I couldn't find a single availablity for any class in any train. But now, i always wanted to go. I decided to ride on my luck by having a go at a couple of trains leaving delhi to asr that night. Well the "Jugaad" with TT had worked before and I really hoped it wont let go this time around as well. I reached the station on time but couldnt find a single berth in any class of Golden temple mail which had an arrival time of 3:30 AM in ludhiana. It was 7:50 PM then.
Well "NO PROBLEMO" I said to myself, There are still a couple of options left on the desk. Lets try out the other one, Muri express. Well I was left stranded when i heard that Muri was running late by six hours. One more option I thought which I knew was a sureshot. So I enquired about the chattisgarh express. Another bsombshell dropped on my head. Chattisgarh had a route bypassing Delhi since last month. Oh boy, this was already heading about to be dramatic night. I tried every train I could get my hands onto heading north, But to no avail. As I was thinking about a Volvo deluxe bus option for which I would have to wait another 3 hours, I saw a Rajdhani express to Jammu standing on a platform from a distance. I enquired about its timing and stoppages. It could have been an option to reach jalandhar. From jalandhar I could go to asr even in a bus. To my surprise It only had a stoppage at Ludhiana at 1 AM. So I started planning for a way to get to home. A foolish yet could-be-effective strategy was sprouting in my mind. I decided to talk to TT and tried to have a connection till Ldh . I could always catch the golden temple again at 3:30 AM as their would plenty of vacant seats in Ldh. The TT was quite stubborn and demanded that I would have to be made a ticket which would have cost me a fortune. I with the old cheap college convincing that " sir, college ke hain, padte hain, train miss ho gayi , sir itna nahin". He finally decided to give me a seat for a fare compensation. It was a very comfortable journey and had a grand dinner in it as well. I slept for a couple of hours and reached Ldh at 1AM.
As I left the train, Darbhanga express was standing in front of me. It was supposedly running late by some sixteen hours or so. I asked if it was heading in my preferrable direction or not. Now a darbhnga isnt a kind of train you would generally get onto unless there is an emergency. The train is one of the rickiest you will ever see with the wood panels above windows coming off. At some parts even the roof is missing. It was a train we made fun of as " the time and over raided train coming from bihar" during our college days. At that hour of night the train was scantily filled up with human souls. I looked up my options once again. Either I could wait for a couple of hours at Ldh or move with the flurry of events and get on board. I decided the latter option. I had not seen a more dismal train compartment than this my entire life. Some luggage shelves overhead were also missing. I took a place in a vacant window seat and the train started moving. I was completely taken aback by sheer speed at which the train was running. It was lightening quick. I could feel the chills of the plains of punjab which was such a discussed topic in the last couple of days. Oh boy, It was cold.
As I thought that all comedy of errors had ended during the night, A shabby looking young man came up to me after hearing some people whispering about "finally we will be reaching amritsar and all" and asked me that " sir, yeh train darbhanga hi ja rahi hai na. Main to ambala se yehi poochkar chada tha ke yeh darbhanga express hi hain na". I had no idea if I should be amazed at the heights of ignorancy or the lack of communication proficiency. I told him that the train was right, just that the direction in wihch uou were travelling was wrong.
I finally reached Amritsar at 3:15 AM. When I think about it, I started at 8:45 PM at reached at 3:15 AM. This is almost the same time Shatabdi express takes to reach Amritsar from Delhi. Fine, I agree that the manner wasn't the most sophisticated one. But still turned out to be an out of a box experience once again.
And , Relaince power listing on monday. Really looking forward to it like you all. Lets hope that it gives nice opening gains to capitalize upon !!!!!!
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