A Journey - Indian Railways

This has to be the worst journey of my life. At least till now it stands on top in that list. I had to travel from New Delhi to Kharagpur. To give the background I was visiting all the IITs for interviews to get selected for an MBA course. I had already covered IITB and IITK. IITD was third in list and then IITKgp and lastly Chennai. Delhi and Kharagpur interviews were scheduled with just 2 days in between. Till now i could never understand how can there be such irrationality in scheduling interviews among IITs. May be they expected every one to travel by air or may be they wanted to test the endurance levels of potential candidate. Anyway, that's a different matter. So i had to appear for an interview in Delhi and 2 days later in the morning at 10:00 AM i had to be in Kharagpur which is a distance of 1400 KMs. We were not that affluent in those days to travel by air and so train was the obvious choice. I had expected for the Delhi interview to get over by afternoon after which i had planned to rest a little and then move to New Delhi station to catch the Bhuvaneshvar Rajdhani in which i had 3AC seat reserved. The train was to leave at 5:20PM which was supposed to reach Kharagpur of 2nd day at 12:30PM. This would have given me enough time to rest and prepare for the interview to be held on next day. Plan was set. But we live in India and this post is a perfect example of things can go horribly wrong in India even if you plan well in advance.

So i reach IITD on time before 10:00AM. There was no specific time mentioned for the interview. Only thing that was mentioned, if i remember correctly that it should get over by 5:00PM. I was being optimistic about things when i assumed that i cannot be the last person to finish the interview at dot 5. After reaching there i found that nobody had any clue as to when my interview would be. I waited for my turn. There were delays at every level on very step. Panels were taking their own liberty in taking breaks leaving the students to wait. When my turn didn't come even by 3:00 PM, i started to get restless. I told the coordinators about my problem and that i had a train to catch at 5:00PM. They also took there own sweet time to get things done. Finally, I finished my interview by 6:00PM. First, thing the time mentioned in the letter was not followed because there were still student waiting for their turn. Interviews might have gone up till 7 or 8 easily. Next, there was no acknowledgement of the fact that students are waiting entire day for the event without any information. How chaotic and irritating can that be, specially when somebody is waiting for such crucial event. And thirdly, I am not sure how the profs would have assessed the candidates with such long hours of work.

So i finally get ut of IITD. I knew already that my train was gone. My reserved seat, my money of train ticket and my comfort was gone. Still i went to the station. Got my ticket cancelled by standing in long queue to get back some money at least. Next I inquired about the next train. There was a train at 10:20 PM which would take 10 hours more than Rajdhani  and I had to travel without reservation, leave aside the AC. But IITKgp was something i could not have missed. I purchased the ticket and then I waited for the train. When it was time, I moved to the indicated platform only to find that train was not there. After much inquiry and running around i found the train. The was already full on seats and half full on the floor. Next day was Holi and may that was the reason why i suffered what i suffered. Anyway, I found a place near the gate itself next to the toilet. I had opted for that place strategically because i knew that when the train was full i would not get much chance to move around and nature's call will always be a need in next 24 hours. And would not want to lose the space that i was lucky to find by being on the platform earlier than others. There was stench which was only going to increase in the journey to be. The train filled much more than my expectations. Every inch was taken. Toilet, which i so much desired earlier was also taken up by 4 or 5 people each. The people who had reserved their tickets were also affected by the rush of people. Even though they had reserved seats they could not have dared to ask the people to move away considering seatless were in majority and that too by huge margin. I was just waiting for the train to move which was the only way to stop people to get in. After enough wait train finally moved and i felt a little relieved. There was no way to lie down and so i was awake all the time. Every stop meant more people came in although there was absolutely no space by now inside the compartment. People were finding places everywhere - on the connector, on the separators or be it any other space.

I might have found some sleep but mostly i was awake all night and all next day. There were just 2 or 3 stops in the first 10 or 12 hours and one of them was Allahabad. I was half asleep when Allahabad was reached. When train stopped at the platform a TC came by asking for tickets. He asked many to get down the train as they were traveling in Sleeper coach with General tickets. Almost all of the offenders paid the penalties and remain seated where they were. But the shocker came from the TC when a family of 4 wanted to get into the compartment and he did not allow them in. The family had reserved tickets which i came to know from the constant shouting of the eldest of the family. TC closed the door on them saying there was absolutely no space - which was by the way true. But i still disliked the plight of that family who must have either no boarded the train or boarded some other compartment with unreserved seating or standing. What i also disliked was the way in which TC was talking to them. Soon the train moved from Allahabad and status quo returned. It was little cold in the night and so i got my bed-sheet out to wrap around myself. Many others were doing the same. Then i saw some people sitting on the toilet seat with broken window. They didn't have anything to wrap themselves and so i pulled out another sheet and offered it them. They took it happily. Some hours must have passed when again got up from my half sleep. I looked around. It was still night. It was time for first nature's call. I requested the conquerors or one of the toilets to vacate it for sometime which was by the norm that night. This was the same group to whom i had given the bed-sheet. They did so and i used the toilet without loosing my sitting space.  Just when i was coming out the noticed that my bed-sheet was not there anywhere. I asked the person to whom i had given it to. He started looking around and acted as if he can't find it. Then i asked again, a little strictly this time. Many people had seen my offer earlier and may be that's why he asked his fellow friend about it and to my utter surprise he pulled it out of his baggage. I can't tell you how i felt. I immediately took it back from them to which i other fellow gave me a mischievous smile. I ignored it. Next big station was Mugalsarai which came much after Allahabad, may be 4 hours or so. This was the last station before we entered into Bihar. This was the station when many people got down. For the first time the train looked comfortable to me - relatively. There was now space to walk and even lie down. And then i saw it. I saw an empty seat. It was a side upper. I took my luggage and immediately captured it. For the first time i could lie down. It was more than 24 hours since i slept the last time. And so i fell asleep immediately. But not for long. Cushioned seats or proper seats come 2nd in priority after reserved cushion seats and higher in priority than the floor. And so people left on the floor were all trying to atleast sit on proper seats. Some still preferred to lie down on floor rather than sit on seats. And so i also had a companion. He had also boarded the train from Delhi and so i could understand his plight. I allowed him to share my seat and we managed to lie down on the same side upper seat for sometime.

After some sleep both of us got up and started talking. He was from a village in Bihar and was going back for Holi. He was working in Delhi in some factory. He was about to get married. All these details and many other things he shared with me and i listened to all that. Frankly, he seemed to be a descent person of about 22 or 23. He asked me about by destination and purpose. I tried to tell him about interview and MBA but later stopped only at "Study". And so we moved ahead. After Mugalsarai almost every station was someones destination and train started emptying. Now i was enjoying the journey. Not many people around and the view outside was awesome. It was late afternoon and sun was setting. The fields, trees, small towns everything was just beautiful. I was traveling in a part of my country that i might not have visited otherwise. Soon we reached Bokaro and Tatanagar and I saw what they are famous for. Big steel plants. The entire town was just the plant. It was nice.

Soon after i reached my destination - Kharagpur. It was 11:30 or 12 midnight when i reached. My Dad's friend was supposed to pick me up from station. He was a prof in IITKgp. He found me soon and we left for IIT. So i had only about 5 hours to rest before my interview. Story of what happened at IITKgp and how the interview was - may be next time. In short it was pathetic and definitely not worth the pain i took. Finally i didn't get through and ended up in IITK.

There was lots of pain and discomfort in this journey. But i got an experience to live and a story to tell. Guess it was worth it. But i won't be able to forget this one and i am glad i could pen down it here today to immortalize this incident.

My School - K V Sabarmati, Ahmedabad

This one is about KV Sabarmati. This was my 3rd school after studying till 4th std. in St. Joseph High School and after spending around a week in Gyaandeep. Actually my Dad had a transferable job and KVs were the the best place for children of such people because they guarenteed admissions in whatever different places that the person goes to. After 4th when we shifted to ONGC colony i had to change my school too to somewhere close by. There were two options - Gyaandeep and KV Sabarmati. Gyaandeep was closest but was in bad shape. My Dad filled applications at both the schools to be on the safer side - as he always does in all his decisions, a backup. Gyaandeep's result came out first and i was admitted there. I must have gone there for may be a week when results for KV Sabarmati came out and after knowing Gyaandeep too well in those 5 or 6 days my Dad made an obvious choice to move me to KV Sabarmati.

So i started my tenure there when i was in 5th Std. and i remained there for next 4 years before my Dad got tranfered to Bombay (then) and Mumbai (now). KV Sabarmati was a simple school. Actually most of the schools in those days used to be very simple. The school was only upto 9th Std. when i joined it which later was expanded upto 12th Std. by the time i left it. The campus was shared by a Gujarati medium school as well. My classroom used to be in that other section of the Gujrati school. And my classroom was the only one which was in that section. Apart from the main building of the English medium school and the Gujarati medium school there were some rooms towards the rear end of the campus. Those were not operational at that time. That rear end section was separated by the main English medium school building by a small play ground which was nothing more than an empty space, not even levelled. In the coming years the rear end section of rooms became operational to accomodate expanding classes.

It was connected by the main building by a pavement made by just levelling the cement upto a meter wide. The need for pavement was arised because in rains entire campus used to become all muddy leaving no place to walk to reach the buildings without ruining the clothes. This pavement ran from the entrance of the school (right in front of the main building) touching the main building, connecting the rear end section and also running next to the toilet. Now this toilet, LOL. This toilet section was so far from both main building and the rear end section that i am sure there must have been many cases of early leak before reaching the destination. It was almost equilateral triangle with the 3 buildings on the 3 vertices. The toilet insides used to be very dark. These 4 buildings (main building, rear section, toilet and Gujarati school) were encompassed by the school boundary which was not very high. A rectangle with 1 side ending on the road, 1 was shared with the residential society and the remaining two sides were separating the school from jungle. The jungle was not big but in those days i considered it huge. I pictured it as a jungle of thorny trees, very dense, which was big enough to get lost with a small lake somewhere in the middle of it and full of animals like snakes, jackals and may be wolves. This picture was a result of those stories that were told by many students among themselves. I never dared to do anything which would have been considered silly at that time.

Story gets even better with passing years. Later on when the school was really on the expansion spree, they took some more rooms on rent (i believe) at a place which was good 10 minutes walk from the main campus. My guess is that place was supposed to be a market which was currently not established and the classrooms were the shops. So students used to travel between that market section and main building to attend some lessons. Our music class used to take place in another residential quarter of the railway colony which was not far but was surely not part of the school campus (again may be on rent). Oh i forgot, the school was in a railway colony and so all the residential quarters around were government quarters for railway staff. May be that's why school management could so eaily took them on rent. There was a big play ground which was of Railway colony which we used during our games/sports period. This was was again 10-15 minutes away from main campus opposite to the market section. Today i wonder how we never used to bother that much about the incovenience of travelling to and fro between different sections of the school. How we never complained. How we enjoyed everything about that school as much as we would have enjoyed being in some other great school. But this is how KV Sabarmati ran for years and this is how many student learned there for years.

This post might sound funny and pathetic but i loved that school and i still love it. That school had some wonderful teachers who did their duty very sincerely. I met some very good friends there, some of whom i am still in contact with. Many years later when i had just completed my 1st year of BE, i chose Ahmedabad for my vacation trip and i did visit that school again. It was as it used to be in those days. There was very little change. The thellewala was still there right outside the school selling the same stuff that he used to in those days. The education that i got there is still with me and will always be there. That school has a very special place in my life and it will always be there. I spent just 4 years there but the memories of that place are fresh in my mind. Everything about that place is admirable to me. There are many things that i have shared here but there are so many experiences that i have not shared. How can I? Each and every day, each moment of being there cannot be shared in words, but will be cherished by me.

Memories

Lately i have been recalling a lot of those beautiful precious moments of my life that are not great in anyway, neither they have made any huge impact in my life but even after 10, 15 or 20 years, i remember them clearly. Ok, may be not crystal clear but clear enough to replicate them in words, before i lose them forever. Some of these are funny, some are saddening and some just memories. I am not even sure of what all i would be able to recollect but i will start and i will try to collect them. All these posts would be tagged as "Memories".

Deja Vu

I am sure everybody in their lives have experience Deja Vu. A feeling of experiencing something which you feel that you have already experienced earlier in exactly the same way, with same sequence of events. Deja Vu is still a mystery and nobody knows why we feel like that.

Today i was reading through some random blogs on internet and then i came across this wonderful blog by a lady about the learning that his 7 year old son is doing these days and what techniques herself and her husband are using to make their son learn as much as possible and to create an interest in reading books. I am sure i never visited this blog earlier. The page never seemed familiar to me when i started. I read some 4 or 5 pages with 2 or 3 blogs on each page. It was interesteing and so i carried on. And suddenly i reach this page where i read a line and suddenly i got this feeling of Deja Vu. I got a faint memory initially which later converted to a strong feeling of experiencing the event in exact same way. I could recall reading that line in exact same way and the thoughts right after reading it. Not that i could recall when and where i read that line earlier but i was sure that i did read it earlier. Even interesting thing is that right after the event happens we get this feeling of DejaVu and immediately after that another thing happens which is the sequence of after thoughts that follow the event and even they seem to be known as if we got those after thoughts even the previous time.

It happened to me just now and so i thought of writing down everything i can about this incident before the memory loss happens and i don't want to wait till the next Deja Vu. Sometimes the same event seems to have occured many times earlier as if it is a repeating thing. Not sure about how many people have experience it but i have.

To check the validity of the thoughts i went back to the line and tried to feel the same way again but this time i do not feel anything. The moment has passed and that lines seems as normal as any other stuff that i read today.