Chapter 1- 4:30 pm-11:30 pm: Ernad Express
22nd October 2012
“Guys we should definitely visit
Rameshwaram”, Arnab said, “I mean come on, we are going upto that much, why not
a bit more?”
“Yeah I realized that. But tell me one
thing, how are we going to find the time to visit Rameshwaram in this already
tight schedule?” Suraj reasoned.
“Yeah but you know John Mohan sir is
right, we might never get another chance at visiting it!” Arnab pleaded.
“What do you guys think?” Suraj asked
looking at me and Rahul.
“Well”, Rahul started, “is it
possible? I mean shouldn’t we just enjoy with whatever is possible to visit.
See I want to go to Rameshwaram as much as you want to Arnab but, is it at all
feasible?”
“Yeah lets enjoy with whatever is
possible to visit” Koushik joined.
“No it’s not feasible. We are only
having a 3 day tour which is already tightly scheduled. If you add another
place to this, then either you have to add one more day, or you have to hire a
caravan! And I don’t think we would be doing any of those!” I said with a note
of finality.
As you might have
guessed by now, us five, Arnab, Koushik, Rahul, Suraj and myself, went for a
short holiday, (rather a small tour) to the extreme southern tip of the
country. It has been always on the back of my mind, and at times one would find
me and Rahul planning the tour on our own. Question back then was, when would
that be possible? There was also a minor hindrance of convincing the others about this trip. Because with the exams approaching it might have been a bit tough to get a consent from others. In any case there was a slight desperation from me this time. I wanted this holiday. And I wanted to have it no matter what. Luckily I found Rahul to be almost equally keen and interested. Eventually the opportunity presented itself before us during the Durga Puja-Id holidays in the October when the university thankfully announced a week
long suspension of classes owing to all the festivities.
So on the day of
Maha-ashtami we packed our bags (as lightly as we could) and started our
journey with a keen, energetic and optimistic mindset.
As scheduled we
decided on going to Kannyakumari first, and then to Trivandrum on the way back.
1 day in Kannyakumari and approximately 2 days in Trivandrum. We boarded the
Ernad express in the evening of 22nd and that’s where this
conversation surfaced. This was going to be a seven hours journey from
Ernakulam to Nagercoil (a small city on the outskirts of Kannyakumari). The
journey was quite a boring one and nothing really interesting happened during
the first 5 hours till we reached Trivandrum.
In Trivandrum almost
90% of the passengers got down, while in our compartment, (D4 it was if I remember correctly)
apart from us 5 rest all 100% vacated their seats! J That was bizarre! It felt strange!
“Hey everyone
left!” I exclaimed.
“Yeah we can see
that!” said Suraj with a grin.
“A train
compartment only for ourselves!J”
said a smiling Koushik
"Do whatever you feel like doing, no ones gonna stop you!" Suraj's grin got bigger.
"Hmmm. I always wanted to jump on the train seats in my childhood days! May be I could try that today!" I said thoughtfully, but sheepishly.
Others gave me an imaginative but sarcastic look!
We ended up lying down on the seats, with Arnab falling almost half asleep! (It was by the way, only a sitting train and not a sleeper!)
“But is no one
going to Nagercoil in this train apart from us?” Rahul asked.
His question
though remained unanswered, till 11.20 pm at night; when we discovered that
apart from us there were hardly 20 or 30 people in the entire train that got
down at the last station!!
...................................................stay tuned for the next chapter..................................................
Note- This is an original copyrighted, real life, Non-Fiction story. Just enjoy the chaotic adventure of these 5 living idiots, do not reflect too much. And do not re-produce this account in any other form without prior notification of the blog owner.
(This is officially my first story.. To be available as E-book by May)
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