BY PRAGYAN SHARMA POLAVARAPU
THE DIARY DATED 1-3-04
(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.
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
Comments
Post a Comment