Mental Wreck on a Physical Trek

                One, two, three, four, five..... That was a penta header, my first spotting of one, rather five locos together. The two ALCos at the helm of our train along with a couple at the tail braked as Amaravathi came to a halt. Sonalium, it was, the place from where the trek up the Braganza was set to begin.

                The dream location for every railfan was a trek of one thirds a dozen kilometres away. The ocean of milk, no, not the Milky Way galaxy, the Dudhsagar was our destination. The route is not one where trains whiz past every minute like the suburbs of Chennai or Mumbai. It is a serene route through the Braganza ghats in Goa. All this description is to assert that it is absolutely safe to walk on the railway tracks here unless a snake or a scorpion decides to join the leech in giving you a welcome into their territory.

                The trek began on an enthusiastic note. However I was soon left behind by the others, partly because I wanted to enjoy the scenery surrounding me, more so as I was the fattest in the trio. Wandering in a forest a thousand kilometres from home that I was, the thoughts in my mind were wandering thousands of kilometres around the world. With my college life all set to begin a week later, reminiscence of school life took over. There was an envelope of gloom with the clouds covering the sky and my heart was no different. It was not because I was going to miss my school days. It was because my friends had left me behind, not in the trek, but in life. While my classmates had qualified for IITs and NITs, I was going to join just another university in Chennai. The first quarter of my life was over and I was in wilderness. The jungle surrounding me confirmed my scenario. The only difference between my short trek and the long run was that in the former, I knew my destination while in the latter, I was clueless. The similarity was that I was just going forward in the path ahead, not knowing what lay in store, en route.

                I soon caught up with my friends, not because I ran quickly, but because they waited for me. We had covered a half and two kilometres. The view point for the Dudhsagar had been reached. It was the first week of July and water was gushing in Dudhsagar, covering the entire breadth of the cascade. The sight was a dream that had finally come true. Or did it? My reverie was broken by a swear by my friend. My eyes popped in wonder. It was not the Dudhsagar. Fear not, as we had not reached the Jog Falls or the Niagara. It was the Dudhsagar but a trickle was all that remained. It was not the furious gush that tourists enjoyed during July. The Dudhsagar was a mere Dudh Nala (canal).

                A few arguments and slangs later, my first sign of victory that day emerged as I could convince my friends to stay at the view point in wait of a train. My luck was not as bad as I had cursed it to be as within a couple of minutes the honk of a loco was heard. The icing on the cake was that an imported yellow WDG4 was one of the two locos that hauled the freighter. Seven full minutes after it came to our view at the falls, the entire rake had finished crossing us, a good two kilometres away by track.

                As soon as the train had crossed, continued the trek that we did. This time, thank to the dark deadly tunnels that we had to cross, my friends had decided to slow down. However these tunnels were not going to slow me in any way. I was already walking at the speed my friends were walking after slowing down. As we neared the falls, we were blessed with showers. Although the rain did add to the beauty of the cascade, the fact that, for the first time since I was born, Dudhsagar was not at its raging best during the first week of July. I suppose all the swearing at my luck was indeed valid.

Monotonous Monday Morning !!

My eyes opened up only because my ears opened up to a screech. It was the damned alarm in my phone. A look at the clock told me many Shatabdis across India would have just departed. The time was 0602 hours. An internal surge gave the urge to purge and made me trudge to the washroom with grudge. The first call in the morning was as usual, from mother nature. The next was from mummy asking if my tummy wanted some milk. A sleepy yes and my eyes were looking for my phone. Centuries are reached within minutes in whatsapp when you are members of railfan groups. A sleepy scroll and  "GM" sent to all groups ended my morning tryst with whatsapp. School days are history and college days are mystery but my hand still gropes for a book in Chemistry.


A realization that it is a monday dawns well after dawn when mom hands out the list of jobs to be attended. Giving me a some jobs to attend means an extra job is on the cards. Since I would require the scooter to complete the tasks, I would have to drop mom at her school as well. The rush begins at 0845 hours. Dad is all set to kick the bike and I was already a kilometre ahead with mom. The return wasn't as peaceful. People generally say a cat crossing the in your route won't augur well. It turned out to be a dog this time. Irritation levels reach their zenith when you are forced to brake from 60 kmph to nil just to avoid hitting a wandering stray, thereby risking your life and those of the people trailing you. The traffic was in the reverse direction and thus the consequences were minimal as the need to accelerate all over again was the only frustration. Oops, i spoke too soon. My dad was crossing in the opposite direction and had heard me swearing at that bitch, or was it a dog. Well its gender doesn't matter here, my dad's frown does. Some scoldings were to be received in the evening.

It was just in the nick of time did I realize that I had to go the bank. A quick turn and I reached in time to get the first token of the day. My luck is never generally good with banking and it was no exception that day. A small work which was to end in a couple of minutes took a couple of dozens of minutes to end thanks to the computer getting hanged.

The next job was to pay the mobile bills at the telephone exchange and reaching there by 0928 hours, I knew my day wasn't going to be good. Bills could be paid only from 1030 hours. I decided to finish the final job of the morning which I knew, would take enough time for me to pay the bills enroute home. It was to pay the insurance for the scooter at Ramkay Services which was about a kilometre away. The officer there was good enough to cancel both my jobs for the morning. He wanted me to produce certain documents proving that I was the owner of the vehicle. The vehicle was in my mom's name and all the so-called proofs and documents were with my mom. It was 0950 when I knew nothing was to go right that day.

I decided to take a detour back home via the school I studied in more than 800 days ago. It wasn't much of nostalgia but just a hope of getting a glimpse. The kids were monotonously repeating what the teachers said and I began to pity the people living in the neighbourhood. It was around 1010 hours when I absentmindedly knocked on the doors of an empty house, forgetting that I had the key.

The monotonous monday morning seemed more monotonous than a monotone.

-Ssk

25 Hours and 50 Trains : The trip of my life

26th April 2013 

Time : 2100 hours 

Three of the seven people were ready at Chennai Central. Four more to come and an hour and a half for our train to depart. Aadithya soon came and I and Sri were off with him to capture the Yeswantpur Kamakhya AC Express that was late by a huge margin. The surprise package involved was that a Bhusaval WAM4 #21211 was its power from Chennai to Durgapur. It isn't everyday that you get to see a WAM4 based at Bhusaval at Chennai and our excitement levels were high. Southern Railways' section controllers were not interested in sending a late running train ahead of 12621 Tamilnadu Express and thus it was made to wait. TN departed at 2200 hours with WAP4 #22662, based at Erode, at its helm. The announcement for the impending Rajdhani was on and just as the last coach of TN exited the platform, 12434 Rajdhani Express entered with WAP7 #30318 based at Lallaguda as its power. Now our focus was once again on the AC Express. My brain hoped for a parallel departure with Coimbatore bound Cheran Express but again it was Cheran which got the proceed at 2210 hours. The AC Express finally departed at 2220 hours and the Coimbatore weekly at 2230 hours. We got the starter at 2240 hours before which, I and Aadithya ran from the fag end of the platform till the entrance of Central to get dinner for the missing trio of Sivakumar G, Parsuwanath J and Rajesh V sir. Their EMU had been delayed badly and they barely managed to enter our train at 2235 hours with 5 minutes left for the departure. Well, if you had not guessed by the departure time, we were travelling by Erode bound Yercaud Express to Jolarpettai and it was another WAP4 #22259 based at Erode that was our power. 

27th April 2014

0048 hours. 

Our train had reached Walajah Road and to our surprise the mainline was given a proceed. This meant we were to be overtaken by 12657 Bangalore Mail. Soon enough, the usual blare of WAP7 was heard and the Mail rushed past at MPS. Our bogie had a flat wheel and my berth was right on the wheel which meant my sleep was as good as dead, for the night. We were looped again. This time it was for an overtake by Chennai Yeswantpur Weekly Express. Four of us alighted to capture the overtake from the platform. The TTE wanted someone else to join us on the platform. It was a ticketless traveller who had boarded the train. He was drunk and his choice of words towards the TTE made us gasp. I bet I heard every abusive word in Tamil I know. To our agony, he decided to vent his anger on the train and decided to throw something on it. He was so clever that by the time he realized that he could throw stones on our train, we were inside the coach. I was a little late in understanding the situation and thus, the last to board the train. The TTE was all set to bang the door as soon as I entered but to my luck, the knob on the door entered by pant pocket and got stuck. The people around thought that the drunkard was pulling me and they pulled me inside. Thankfully, I could explain to them that it was the knob which caught my pant and saved an embarrassment. Barely had I got in when it struck to the drunkard about the stones and he started throwing them on the train. The so-called Railway Protection Force who had prevented us from standing near the door even when the door was closed, were nowhere to be seen now. Even the signalman came to us on the other side and asked where they RPFs were. The stone pelting spree continued until the Yeswantpur bound express thrashed the station. The drunkard had been throwing stones from the mainline and I guess he backed off as soon as he spotted this train. Thanks to him, all our hopes of a good video was spoilt and we could not even enjoy the overtake as the other passengers started waking up and asking us what had happened. Some people were of the opinion that we were the trouble makers.

We reached Jolarpettai on time. Tickets were booked for the journey to Gudiyattam by Yelagiri Express. Narayanan Kailas from Bangalore joined us, reaching Jolarpettai by Kaveri Express and Rajesh sir bid farewell. The two CBC biggies, Thiruvananthapuram Chennai Mail and Mangalore Chennai Superfast who skip Jolarpettai were the next big fishes to catch. Surprisingly, it was the Mangalore Express which skipped Jolarpettai first. Hardly two minutes later, the Thiruvananthapuram Mail entered Jolarpettai but came to a screeching halt as the former had not gone a far distance. It was quite disappointing for everybody. We departed soon after the Mail and reached our final destination, Gudiyattam.

Time 0750 Hours

I, Aadithya and Sri decided to explore the curve which we thought was a kilometre from the railway station towards Jolarpettai. The seniors were not interested but grudgingly allowed us to do so. We didn’t carry any water bottles with us which proved to be a grave mistake. Walking on a foot wide path adjacent to the railway track and switching sides every 200 metres, we finally reached that curve after nearly 45 minutes. Going by the distance boards, we had walked 2 kilometres. It would have been faster if we had stuck to one side of the track instead of crisscrossing it half a dozen times. When we finally reached a location about 50 metres from the track with the curve in sight, the view was magnificent. We could view the Gudiyattam home signal which ensured that we do not miss any train bound for Katpadi and beyond. The honk of the trains bound for Jolarpettai and beyond at the station 2 kilometres yonder ensured the same. The main trains like the Coimbatore bound Shatabdi, the Chennai bound Shatabdi, the Chennai bound AC Express and the Bangalore bound Double Decker were captured in great style. Double Decker was hauled by WAP7 #30357 of Royapuram shed. Parsuwanath had joined us meanwhile but his entry wasn’t welcoming to us as he didn’t have water with him. Well he did have a bottle with barely half a mouthful of water left which we shared. Soon after the Double Decker, we started trekking back to the station. This time we walked along the path till the home signal. The path ended there and we crossed the tracks to the path on the other side. The home signal showed proceed and I knew Lalbagh was just round the corner. The path was very close to the tracks and a high speed train could throw me off the mound if not crush me under its wheels. I just skidded down the balancing by slightly sitting. Thankfully my pant wasn’t torn. This path was strewn with thorns and thorny plants and my leg was quite hurt. There were another seven hundred metres to go. It might not seem a long distance but when your tongue is parched and legs are dead, it is, by any means, horrible. A honk was heard and Lalbagh raced towards Chennai. The slow trudge back to the station continued. Aadithya and Sri, thanks to being thin, were slightly ahead. Parsuwanath had started quite late and was trailing me. There was no strength left in anyone to call the other. In about 10 minutes, all of us reached the shop near the station that unfortunately had only 2 litres of water. We nearly gulped down the liquid and despite exceeding my share with Aadithya, my thirst was not appeased. I could have easily drunk another litre, given the level of dehydration due to sweat.

We reached the others in the station who, in the meanwhile, had taken a nap. However, they had bought Puri and Kuruma for us which we ate greedily. The regular trains zipped past in both directions. It was around 1200 hours when we felt the pangs of boredom. Most of the usual trains in both the directions were gone. There wasn’t any train we expected till the two Durontos, the Yeswantpur – Howrah and its counterpart. A few freights thundered past, a few crawled. The sun took its toll on our body and it only added to our boredom. Efforts to kill the boredom like playing cricket with bottle and pebbles didn’t seem to produce the desired effect. To add to our misery, the Yeswantpur bound Duronto which generally runs well before time was an hour and 55 minutes late. Pangs of hunger were satiated with snacks, of which we had a good stock.

The boredom was finally destroyed by the shock at 1418 hours. The signals signalled the arrival of some train within a couple of minutes. We were expecting the Howrah bound Duronto from Yeswantpur to rampage through the station. Surprisingly, it was a 12 hour 40 minutes late running Kerala Express bound for New Delhi, hauled by a WAP4 from Lallaguda shed, numbered 22592. It took a while for us to reconcile to the fact that it was indeed the Kerala Express. The realisation dawned upon us a few minutes later. The Kerala express bound for Thiruvananthapuram a few days back, had been diverted due to an accident near Nellore and had arrived nearly 20 hours late. The train had departed nearly 14 hours late and had made up about 2 hours. It was a total surprise and that was enough to make us rejoice. Within a couple of minutes, the Duronto bound for Howrah chased Kerala Express to Katpadi. An overtake at Katpadi seemed on the cards. This brought about another discussion. Kerala Express and Duronto take different routes beyond Katpadi but meet again at Renigunta to follow the same route up to Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh. However, between Katpadi and Renigunta, the Duronto takes the route to Arakkonam and then the Melpakkam bypass to reach Renigunta via Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta while Kerala Express reaches Renigunta via Tirupati. The discussion lasted about twenty minutes but no conclusion was made.

The Howrah bound Duronto had passed at 1425 hours. The Yeswantpur bound Duronto finally crossed at 1435 hours. If only it had been ten minutes earlier, we would have witnessed a terrific crossing. Our luck was low and this was all we got. The last train we witnessed was the Santragacchi bound Vivek express from Mangalore. This train caused quite a furore as Aadithya didn’t know about such a train from his favourite town and Narayanan wasn’t sure about its run that day. All doubts were thrown apart when it finally crossed at 1537 hours to be closely followed by our train back to Katpadi, the passenger bound for Arakkonam from Bangalore. It was hauled by a WAM4 of AJJ shed, numbered 21233 and the surprise. The surprise was a dead WAG7 from Ludhiana shed in Punjab, numbered 27670. We bid good bye to Narayanan who was to return to Bangalore by the Intercity which was expected in a few minutes. All the exertion now broke loose as I slept through the twenty five kilometres to Katpadi Junction. I was woken up at Katpadi by the others and two hours of whiling away the time followed. The notable train we spotted was the Jayanti Janata Express to Kanyakumari from Mumbai on the huge Katpadi curve.

As time drew close for the arrival of Brindavan which would transport us to Chennai, debates began on whether the Premium Special Express to Patna from Bangalore Cantonment would overtake our train or not and if so, where. We all agreed that the overtake would be at Walajah Road where we had a halt. The express bound for Dhanbad in Jharkhand from Alappey in Kerala arrived. The starter was given well before the loco stopped. The train departed in a couple of minutes. The next in line was our Brindavan. Our train entered Katpadi bang on time with the same loco that hauled the Double Decker to Bangalore in the morning. In case you scrolled back till the point where the link to Double Decker was given, you are appreciated as a hardcore Railfan. Brindavan was badly and madly crowded. I and Aadithya ran through the crowd thronging the platform, closely followed by the others. Just as we were about to board the train, a glance to check if the others had followed us showed me that the starter was yet to be given. A small doubt crept across. When a good for nothing train like the Alappey Dhanbad Express that was undoubtedly going to get overtaken by us before Chennai was given a starter well before the loco even crossed half the platform, why not Brindavan, a full minute after its stop. The doubt was destroyed by the crowd as we depended on Parsuwanath’s height and build to force the illegal occupants of our seats to be chucked out. None of us had a window seat. In my row, the window seat occupant was as much a stranger to me as I was to some street urchin of Cambodia. Parsuwanath sat in the middle with me at the aisle. A flash of light passed and the doubt which had crept in just before boarding the train, hit me in full throttle. What if the Premium overtook us at Katpadi itself? The streak of light made me realise that it was indeed the Premium that was all set to overtake us at a high speed. I jumped across to the window, landing on Parsuwanath and keeping the camera on the window sill. Half a second is all my camera requires, to start a video but that delay was enough to miss the loco of the Premium. The rest of the train was covered in the video though. Since nobody else had anticipated the overtake at Katpadi, I was the only one to get a video. Thankfully, both Parsuwanath and the stranger forgave me for landing on them without a prior notice.

We departed soon but were stopped, after a good run, in the middle of nowhere. After nearly twenty minutes, we skipped the station at whose home signal we had been put up. The Dhanbad bound express was overtaken here. A good ensued and ensured we reach Arakkonam nearly on time. We had a parallel entry into Arakkonam with Sapthagiri Express bound for Chennai from Tirupati. We were given the starter and thanks to procuring the window seat from the stranger with the request of all of us sitting together, I dozed off again. When I woke up we had reached Basin Bridge Junction and it was a matter of two kilometres to reach our destination. We entered Chennai Central at 2125 hours. The Premium which had overtaken us was nowhere to be seen. So the Chennai guys were quick to change the loco and send it. We bade goodbye to each other. My dad had promised to be at Central to pick me up. He called me up to tell that he was waiting beyond the Southern Railway Head Quarters as the confusion at the parking zone at Central was too high. Overcome by fatigue, I trudged along the Poonamalee High Road for about half a kilometre when I finally saw them. I don’t generally sleep during a car journey but this time, I was tired beyond imagination. The only thing I did before hitting the bed at home was a text message to Sivakumar G that I had reached home safely. Within seconds of reaching home, the bed was hit and sleep was all that gave me happiness. 

Ssk

A REVENGE THAT BROUGHT APPLAUSE!!!

Three years into the twenty first century, a certain seven year old child, who was interested in trains, used to pester his dad to tell stories involving trains. His dad used to encourage his interest. The father even taught him the difference between Broad Guage (BG) and Meter Guage (MG) by taking the kid to Egmore railway station which had both MG and BG.

One fine evening, it was dinner time when the kid wanted to hear another story. The father said, "Today I shall not tell you a story but a real incident that my father experienced during the mid 1970s when Kollam had got BG and MG trains. The Kollam Chennai Express used to depart around 2300 at QLN. There was some passenger on BG which used to depart at exactly the same time in the same direction. My father (the child's grandfather) was a TTE on the QLN Express. The BG lps used to start after 3-4 minutes when the last coach of the MG crosses the BG loco. They used to accelerate heavily and overtake the MG train with a double honk showing that theirs is a better train. It used to be a regular feature. On this particular day, the MG LPs decided to take revenge. They waited along with the BG for a few minutes. They departed exactly with the BG passenger. The LPs accelerated rapidly and overtook the BG passenger with the exact double honk. The regulars on the QLN Mail who knew about the insult this train endured everyday were thrilled. Claps and whistles filled the air from every coach on the Kollam Express. The BG LPs acknowledged defeat with a short and a long honk. The point where the two lines split soon came but the noise in the Kollam Mail was far from subsiding. This is the story of the revenge that the MG LPs took. Size of a train does not matter kid, it is the determination that matters. The same applies to your life also. Be determined in all situations. Anyway, how was the story ?"

The kid replied, "I loved the story dad. Someday when I grow up, I want to share this story with the world." The enthusiasm of the kid was appreciated then but none, not even the kid ever expected that he would actually write a blog post on this in 2014.

Cheers
Ssk