A trip to the Orange City
A train at 10:00 p.m. in the night. The time was pretty unusual for me. I got into the Dakshin Express at Secunderabad. Anupam boarded the train at Hyderabad. I got into train and they were already 7 of them sitting in the 6-seater ( 2 sides). There was one guy sitting next to Anupam, who made space for me. "The train seems to be really crowded" I told Anupam. He gave a wry smile. My dad had come to give me a water bottle. "Why are they so many sitting? Ask the ones without the ticket to get lost!!!" my Dad said to me. Afterall he is my Dad, the thought that merely occurs to me, resonates within me.
There were two friends travelling with us. One of those guys was showing off his digcam to the other. I wasn't too interested. Neither was Anupam. It was around 10:30 p.m. and we thougt we would sleep. All the berths were occupied except one. But neither of the two friends had slept. One of them had a ticket and the other was telling him " I will sleep here" pointing towards the floor. And half an hour later he did exactly that despite his friend pleading with him that they could adjust on a single berth. He disappeared for a moment and appeared with a newspaper in the next. Then he started cleaning the floor in a manner which would make a veteran sweeper proud. Later he spread the papers on the floor so skillfully as if he was doing that daily. He was carrying a mat kind of thing with him and as he was spreading the mat on the floor I heard him saying " I was prepared that I would be travelling this way. " One can travel anywhere in India like this" he said later. No wonder I thought as he lay on his bed as comfortably as a fish swims in water.
The rest of the train journey was routine. It was about 9:30 am when we had reached Nagpur. So I was in the "Orange city" ( A pity that there is no orange background and I need to use this pink one instead. This Orange-pink funda reminds me of the new Hutch pink logo. I can't stop talking about the new Ad.. where the pink color is matched with the color of the Dog's tongue. Hats off to whoever thought of that.)There was one straight road from the station ( very near to it) to Neeraj's lane. Most of the FLP junta seemed to reside on either side of this stretch. That was what Anupam told me. Turn left, Sand Baba's ghar turn right Radhika's ghar and so on. We reached Neeraj's lane but Anupam couldn't spot the house. So he called Neeraj's house. It appeared to me that someone other than Neeraj had lifted the phone. Anupam found the house number ( I dont remember it now :P some 29/B I guess). 5 minutes later, I saw Neeraj waving his hand from a distant house. "Oh..fine. We have reached the place" I said to myself. But there was something about Neeraj that wasn't ok. He seemed to be a bit shorter and less gora( fair) compared to what he was two days ago at Hyderabad. "Hmm.. How can this be?" I thought. We went inside and my doubt was cleared. It wasn't Neeraj who waved his hand it was his brother Pankaj.
At Neeraj's place the breakfast was awaiting our arrival. I pounced on it without even bothering to ask what it was. I guess it was "Poha". Poha and chai made a good breakfast. If breakfast was good, then the lunch was better. There is something about the Rotis made by Moms of my North-Indian friends (as in Neeraj et al). These rotis are soft and importantly their appearance stimulates one's appetite. The rotis at Kanbay Hyderabad cafeteria have the 'deceased' look on their face most of the times. My mom is a great cook but I think there was lack of native touch in the rotis that she makes. Rotis are not our staple food and I feel that's the reason why there is a dip in quality. But I loved the rotis made by Neeraj's mom so much that I had very little quantity of rice ( of course the term "little" might be relative).
Lal (now that is what we call Anupam) and I had to go the station to cancel Neeraj's and Abhishek's tickets. Neeraj dropped us at Ajni where we had to get the tickets cancelled. Now Ajni is another railway station (although Neeraj dropped us at some building)that is closer to Neeraj's place. When we had gone to the counter there was long queue that had about 20-25 people. Lal was so intimidated that he immediately decided to go the Main Nagpur Raliway station instead. There wasn't a single auto-rickshaw to be seen anywhere. We waited for 5 minutes and then found a good old cycle rickshaw. Lal asked that guy to take him to the nearest auto-stand and the guy obliged. It has been ages since I sat on a cycle-rickshaw and I had that "on top of the rickshaw" feeling. The rickshaw here was different from the ones back home in Hyderabad. The ones in Hyderabad don't give you the "on top of a rickshaw" feeling... I mean they have a low seat instead of the high one. Lal n I on top of a Nagpur rickshaw. This was a moment to be captured. But then I somehow managed not to do it :(
We then caught an auto and reached the main raliway station. "You will able to make it to Nagpur on your own the next time around. Won't you? " quipped Lal. I nodded in the affirmative. Now Lal had called Avaneesh who had warned him that there would be heavy rush at the railway station. When we went to the counter there hardly about 2-3 persons. And there were 10 such counters. "Good heavens!!! " we thought. I couldn't help adimiring Lal for his decision to come to the station. Lal approached the guy in the counter and he said that we need to get a token stamped on our application. We quicky found the place where the tokens were stamped and got one token for ourselves. The number was 1833. In a minute, Lal was in front of the counter and gave the application to the guy. The guy then told him that it should match with the token for that counter. We looked up and found a token for each counter. It read 1534. "My goodness. Does it indicate the time by any chace? In that case it is 3:30 pm now. 1833 ( our token number) will mean that we will have to wait till 6:30 pm. We are dead" I thought. There was one aunty who followed us and she was as confused as we were. Almost everyone coming to the counter seemed to be lost. There were a whole lot of people sitting on the benches spread there. We understood that all these people were in the queue. They had token numbers assigned. "The bloody pseudo queue" I thought. There were so many people sitting. They would go to the counter only when their turn came. Ajni queue was what it was but this one fooled us. But then we decided to wait. Both of us didn't have the energy to run back to Ajni or try anything new. We were now mentally prepared to wait for another 1 hour. There was one good thing though. We could sit and relax instead of standing in a long queue.
I dozzed off for about fifteen miuntes. It was not as bad as we had thought. The numbers were moving pretty fast. Lal and I couldn't stop comparing the situation to a run-chase in a cricket match. "100 more to go and half an hour left" we thought when the token reached 1733. It was 4:20 pm when our turn came and yo we were done in a jiffy. As we had accomplished the task, our eyes had the glint often seen in the eyes of Yuvraj and Kaif when they successfully chase a target. We got an auto and reached Neeraj's place by 4:45 pm. Neeraj had not returned . We were tired. And now I am tired after penning three-fourths of our first day's journey. The rest to be continued as and when (if also) the enthu strikes and time obliges.
There were two friends travelling with us. One of those guys was showing off his digcam to the other. I wasn't too interested. Neither was Anupam. It was around 10:30 p.m. and we thougt we would sleep. All the berths were occupied except one. But neither of the two friends had slept. One of them had a ticket and the other was telling him " I will sleep here" pointing towards the floor. And half an hour later he did exactly that despite his friend pleading with him that they could adjust on a single berth. He disappeared for a moment and appeared with a newspaper in the next. Then he started cleaning the floor in a manner which would make a veteran sweeper proud. Later he spread the papers on the floor so skillfully as if he was doing that daily. He was carrying a mat kind of thing with him and as he was spreading the mat on the floor I heard him saying " I was prepared that I would be travelling this way. " One can travel anywhere in India like this" he said later. No wonder I thought as he lay on his bed as comfortably as a fish swims in water.
The rest of the train journey was routine. It was about 9:30 am when we had reached Nagpur. So I was in the "Orange city" ( A pity that there is no orange background and I need to use this pink one instead. This Orange-pink funda reminds me of the new Hutch pink logo. I can't stop talking about the new Ad.. where the pink color is matched with the color of the Dog's tongue. Hats off to whoever thought of that.)There was one straight road from the station ( very near to it) to Neeraj's lane. Most of the FLP junta seemed to reside on either side of this stretch. That was what Anupam told me. Turn left, Sand Baba's ghar turn right Radhika's ghar and so on. We reached Neeraj's lane but Anupam couldn't spot the house. So he called Neeraj's house. It appeared to me that someone other than Neeraj had lifted the phone. Anupam found the house number ( I dont remember it now :P some 29/B I guess). 5 minutes later, I saw Neeraj waving his hand from a distant house. "Oh..fine. We have reached the place" I said to myself. But there was something about Neeraj that wasn't ok. He seemed to be a bit shorter and less gora( fair) compared to what he was two days ago at Hyderabad. "Hmm.. How can this be?" I thought. We went inside and my doubt was cleared. It wasn't Neeraj who waved his hand it was his brother Pankaj.
At Neeraj's place the breakfast was awaiting our arrival. I pounced on it without even bothering to ask what it was. I guess it was "Poha". Poha and chai made a good breakfast. If breakfast was good, then the lunch was better. There is something about the Rotis made by Moms of my North-Indian friends (as in Neeraj et al). These rotis are soft and importantly their appearance stimulates one's appetite. The rotis at Kanbay Hyderabad cafeteria have the 'deceased' look on their face most of the times. My mom is a great cook but I think there was lack of native touch in the rotis that she makes. Rotis are not our staple food and I feel that's the reason why there is a dip in quality. But I loved the rotis made by Neeraj's mom so much that I had very little quantity of rice ( of course the term "little" might be relative).
Lal (now that is what we call Anupam) and I had to go the station to cancel Neeraj's and Abhishek's tickets. Neeraj dropped us at Ajni where we had to get the tickets cancelled. Now Ajni is another railway station (although Neeraj dropped us at some building)that is closer to Neeraj's place. When we had gone to the counter there was long queue that had about 20-25 people. Lal was so intimidated that he immediately decided to go the Main Nagpur Raliway station instead. There wasn't a single auto-rickshaw to be seen anywhere. We waited for 5 minutes and then found a good old cycle rickshaw. Lal asked that guy to take him to the nearest auto-stand and the guy obliged. It has been ages since I sat on a cycle-rickshaw and I had that "on top of the rickshaw" feeling. The rickshaw here was different from the ones back home in Hyderabad. The ones in Hyderabad don't give you the "on top of a rickshaw" feeling... I mean they have a low seat instead of the high one. Lal n I on top of a Nagpur rickshaw. This was a moment to be captured. But then I somehow managed not to do it :(
We then caught an auto and reached the main raliway station. "You will able to make it to Nagpur on your own the next time around. Won't you? " quipped Lal. I nodded in the affirmative. Now Lal had called Avaneesh who had warned him that there would be heavy rush at the railway station. When we went to the counter there hardly about 2-3 persons. And there were 10 such counters. "Good heavens!!! " we thought. I couldn't help adimiring Lal for his decision to come to the station. Lal approached the guy in the counter and he said that we need to get a token stamped on our application. We quicky found the place where the tokens were stamped and got one token for ourselves. The number was 1833. In a minute, Lal was in front of the counter and gave the application to the guy. The guy then told him that it should match with the token for that counter. We looked up and found a token for each counter. It read 1534. "My goodness. Does it indicate the time by any chace? In that case it is 3:30 pm now. 1833 ( our token number) will mean that we will have to wait till 6:30 pm. We are dead" I thought. There was one aunty who followed us and she was as confused as we were. Almost everyone coming to the counter seemed to be lost. There were a whole lot of people sitting on the benches spread there. We understood that all these people were in the queue. They had token numbers assigned. "The bloody pseudo queue" I thought. There were so many people sitting. They would go to the counter only when their turn came. Ajni queue was what it was but this one fooled us. But then we decided to wait. Both of us didn't have the energy to run back to Ajni or try anything new. We were now mentally prepared to wait for another 1 hour. There was one good thing though. We could sit and relax instead of standing in a long queue.
I dozzed off for about fifteen miuntes. It was not as bad as we had thought. The numbers were moving pretty fast. Lal and I couldn't stop comparing the situation to a run-chase in a cricket match. "100 more to go and half an hour left" we thought when the token reached 1733. It was 4:20 pm when our turn came and yo we were done in a jiffy. As we had accomplished the task, our eyes had the glint often seen in the eyes of Yuvraj and Kaif when they successfully chase a target. We got an auto and reached Neeraj's place by 4:45 pm. Neeraj had not returned . We were tired. And now I am tired after penning three-fourths of our first day's journey. The rest to be continued as and when (if also) the enthu strikes and time obliges.
posted by Kidoredo @ 4:51 AM
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