DIARY TEXT 1-3-04
HYDERABAD TO MYSORE AND OOTY-A JOURNEY 22YEARS BACK AFTER RETIREMENT
(1) On Monday the 1st of March at about 10 am my wife, my younger daughter and I started our journey from the distant district town. We travelled to the the central bus station and got into a super-express bus to Hyderabad easily. The season was not yet hot. The bus started at about 11am travelling through the calm rural outskirts. Cool air streamed through the bus. There were endless green fields . Greenery and calm every where.There were blue hills in the distance. But in an hour it grew a little hot . On the way I got down at a roadside big village and had tea in a thatched hut.It was a pleasant little experience.
By 3-20 pm we reached the big Hyderabad central bus station .It had dozens of plat forms with scores of buses entering and leaving. Every platform had big name boards. The endless rows of cement benches were full with people. The tea stalls, fruit stalls, newspaper stalls were behind the cement benches . There were also one or two big canteens in big halls with tables and chairs . For a bookworm and government official working for long hours without taking leave of absence now and then, this long journeying and big bustle of human voices and bus horns was interesting to observe !
The bus station was busy like a big railway station .Our train to Bengaluru from Kachiguda station would start at 6-30 pm. We started from bus station to Kachiguda railway station by auto at 4-30pm. We already booked our tickets to Bengaluru for up and return journeys by a/c first class
We reached Kachiguda station at around 5pm and waited in the first class waiting room . At 5-45 pm we moved to the platform number two with our little luggage (two small suitcases and two hand bags) engaging a porter and crossing the overbridge.
On the platform unexpectedly I met an old postal friend .He was an officer of postal department working at Delhi and waiting for his train. It was a pleasant surprise to meet him . Long back we lived in nearby houses in the same town . Later he was transferred to Hyderabad and then to Delhi. Now we talked for a few minutes about the old days . As our train arrived on the platform we bid him good bye and started searching for our compartment . It was a very long train and so we had to walk a little to reach our compartment AS1. It was already dark.We took our seats and I watched the rush of people with interest. It was a rare train journey for me after an year. Soon our compartment too was filling .
(2)
A small pretty girl perhaps 15 or 16 years old dressed fashionably came in with her mother . The lady ,whom we soon found was a college lecturer ,after seeing that we too were travelling to Bengaluru told us that the girl too was travelling there. she smiled and hurriedly got down as the train gave a long siren. The girl put on a serious unsmiling disposition. My wife and I enquired about her. My daughter and the girl were soon in close conversation .
As the train sped on I and my wife asked her many questions and she answered smilingly. Her father she told us was a businessman in Bengaluru . She did her B.Com in Bengaluru and came to Hyderabad for an interview for MBA enrolment in the college where her mother worked as a science lecturer! She and my daughter grew very friendly and were quite immersed in serious conversation. She was attracted to the Business Today magazine which I had in my hands . When I gave it to her she was quite absorbed in it.
It was still only 7-30pm. We ordered meals to be brought at 830 pm. Meanwhile we took coffee and continued our chatting with the college girl. It so happebed that berths near us were full of English speaking folks(Indian folks!) and created a jolly atmosphere and there were loud conversations of a very intellectual nature discussing politics and technology.
It was getting late in the early night hours. Most of the people started taking food . Food packets were brought by the train staff in plastic trays covered with silver foil. Soon it was loud yawns and lying down for sleep in berths as in our houses.
We too had our meal.My daughter and the college girl climbed into the top berths . Lights were switched off and only the dull blue lights were on.Slowly all slipped into sleep.I asked my daughter if she had hesitation to occupy top berth which was rather wildly vibrating with the compartment’s rhythmic movement. She said she felt no difficulty and no fear. All were tired. The airconditioning made the compartment comfortably cool.Every one spread the beds and fell asleep.
(3)
For me it was a little of disturbed sleep . In the half sleepy condition I saw stations slowly slipping by. I saw shadows and bright light alternate as the train sped with rhythmic musical noise. The electric poles and nearby trees and houses were running back while distant villages were running forward. By midnight sleep overtook me also. I got up at 4-30 am, much before others . I brushed my teeth and washed my face and sat in the down berth folding the bed clothes. As the train was whizzing at great speed the brightly lighted platforms of some smaller stations sped by backwards.
There was a very talkative person who sat near us in that journey. He also got up at 4-30 and talked aloud to himself and to anybody nearby laughing loudly without reason. I was his first victim and he talked to me for a full half hour. Slowly others ,mostly elderly folks and some women, too awoke and sat on lower berths chatting with one another. The talkative man would tell us some thing without our asking about the coming junction. It was getting to 7am. Soon the train entered Bengaluru cantonment station. The college girl carrying her small air bag and smiling sweetly at us and shaking hands with my daughter slipped by and melted into the crowd .
We too got down and walked out .When we phoned our daughter she spoke loudly in a joyful tone welcoming us and said she would come to station. But we told her not to. We engaged an auto to Marthahalli for Rs 120/-or so. We passed by the IAF area. Bengaluru city in that area was very clean and modern looking with wide streets and western style buildings. We passed by many new multi-storey buildings and large well laid gardens. When we reached our daughter’s house at about 9am she was eagerly waiting for us , came running and fell into her mother’s arms with emotion and joy- filled countenance .Our two daughters full of smiles and laughter shook hands violently until their hands ached. Since the area was near to an IAF base there was a continuous heavy noise of airplanes in the area every fifteen minutes. Airplanes flew very low whether taking off or landing. We took tea and gossiped a lot. Our elder daughter was extremely happy and asked a dozen questions nonstop . I felt very happy to see her in such mood.
WRITTEN NOW ON 25-7-2016-A LITTLE INTERLUDE
Here I may say a few important things remembering the old world of 50,60 years back.I retired as a “Selection Grade Postmaster” after a long service of 35 years. I visited Mysuru three times in course of departmental traing.By getting trained in the postal training institute a feeling of belonging to a great service-minded all-India department develops in all the officials coming from different states of india.
When I first visited Mysore ,Ooty and other places near Mysore about 55 years ago I was mesmerized by the beauty and calm nature and the clean crisp air. I visited many places in and near Mysuru. Now I wanted to show at least some of those nice places to my family members.I wanted to show them especially Mysore city(population near to one million) which is considered to be one of the cleanest cities of India with cool climate, clean wide roads, beautiful temples and many large gardens. All over the state there are coconut plantation with coconut trees virtually in millions .
A week before our journey we finalized our tour program as it had to conform to the travel plan approved by the department. We discussed over phone all this with my elder daughter . She okayed everything and this made us very happy. Before that,it was only after a lot of coaxing over phone that she agreed to come with us
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