Sunday, March 11, 2007

A series of unfortunate events

With all the stress of the PG entrance exams behind us, a bunch of us decided to get together at a friend’s house for a well deserved break. On the second day evening two of my friends S and K were supposed to catch a train to Delhi.

S: “come on guys we’ve to get goin by 4.45, the train’s at 5.25.n I’ve to go to the ATM too”
F: “arre yaar we’ll get there don’t worry!”
K: “yeah the station’s nearby, just 3-4 km”
So basically all of us ended up lyin around till 5pm
S: “come on guys we’re getin late!”
F: “Arre yaar pahunch jaayenge!”
So F, K, S and me piled in to F’s car n set off for the railway station. F drove a t a brisk pace n had covered about half the distance when we ran in to a procession!
F: “No problem, we’ll go by the other way!”
S: “Let’s go directly to the station, needn’t go to the ATM”
F: “arre yaar don’t worry I know these roads like the back of my hand, I’ll get you to both with time to spare!”
Unfortunately alternate pathway 1 was jammed at the railway crossing! The gates had just opened n all the cars trying to cross had jammed it! Had to wait there for about ten minutes, while the jam cleared!
F: “arre yaar don’t worry I’ll still get u there in time”
Then the road jammed again! And F took alt road 2 which also was jammed halfway thru. Unfortunately for us alt road 3 ran thru the busiest wholesale market with dozens of truck being unloaded on the road!
To cut a long adrenaline filled story short, we ran on to the platform to see the yellow painted X on the back of the train recede in to the distance!

S: well OK! You know what; there is only a single track for the next hundred kilometers! So there’s a chance the train may have to wait somewhere for a train from the opposite direction!”
So we decided to try to catch the train from the third station about 50 km away as the next station was too close for us to catch up!

So we set out on an ill fated journey
F: “the tank is almost dry we need to get petrol”
The first pump was too busy, the second pump was dug up, but we managed to get petrol from the third pump.
A bridge on the highway was under construction, we needed to take a deviation via side roads.
What followed was a high speed chase on narrow roads with several near misses!
By then we managed to call up a guy on the train n he informed us that the train was way past our destination! So we turned back. After about 1 km we realized that by the time we reached back the reservation counter would have closed, so we wouldn’t be able to cancel the tickets or buy new ones. So we turned back n went to station 2 only to find out they had never heard of things like computerized reservation! So following their advice had to go station 3 anyway. Got there half an hour before closing time and the booking clerk tells us an important rule they forgot to mention at the other station! – Once a train leaves, you can only cancel the ticket at the journey start point! And you don’t need a reservation counter for that! Any counter would do! So we dragged ourselves back to the car and drove 50 km back, cancelled the tickets, got a bottle of Romanov n drowned our sorrows!
N you bet we reached the station early for the next days train! And F hasn’t used the term arre yaar after that!