I was sitting on my bed, with great difficulty actually, fidgeting, waiting for the message which would tell me i could leave my room and head for the bus stop. Two of my friends Varun and Shashank and I were leaving to Chennai at four to attend the cultural fest of IITM - Saarang! and the train was at 4 from Mangalore. and it was already two thirty! with just one and a half hours left for that train, i couldn't take it any more! i sent Varun a message.. "Wru da?" the message read.. and got a prompt reply a minute later.. " leaving in ten min da.. will tell u when to leave".. grrr! trust guys to leave their packing to the very last minute!! here i was all packed since the previous night and these guys had left their packing to the nth moment!! i had been in this state for ten minutes waiting for a message from Varun and he says ten min more! I had even attended math class till two pm (which incidentally, Varun had bunked to get done with his packing!) to keep my excitement in control! Well, i couldn't take it any longer.. i donned my cap, bade farewell to my dear roomie Ro and was off... i reached the bus stop on NH 17 just outside the campus and waited.. and waited.. and waited! after what seemed like eternity, i spotted the duo coming towards the bus stop... finally! it was 2:50 p.m.. well, with the wonderful condition of NH 17, we would be cutting it very fine indeed, i thought! we clambered onto the next express bus that stopped and finally, we were off!!
I was levitating (pun intended.. my buoyant, bubbling spirits and also that the road's condition was well... hope u got the point!). well, after a dusty, bumpy ride we were at the bus stop closest to the station... 3:30 p.m.. phew! i heaved a sigh of relief! we started trekking down the road that would take us to the station when Varun said, "let's eat something! i'm hungry.. skipped lunch!". The "WHAT??!! u crazy??!! we're late!!" that had formed in my mouth changed into "WH..okay!". well, it was Varun who wanted to eat, and seeing him even the most heartless person wouldn't say no when he said he wanted to eat! "Guys!!" i thought and crossed the road to SKY bakers where the duo with me ordered black forest cake(which Shashank still maintains it wasn't!) and some tender coconut drink (which looked like milk with transparent jelly floating in it and tasted pretty weird), while i loitered around admiring a log shaped chocolate cake! we then set off to the station and boarded the chennai express scheduled to leave in ten minutes! i almost choked with excitement for it had been a long time since i had travelled by train!
cooo.... chuk buk, chuk buk, chuk buk!
chuk buk, chuk buk, chuk buk!!
the train was finally off and i could've screamed with joy! u must be thinking i am nuts to get hyper over one train journey, but no! Believe me, travelling by train is really a HUGE treat, especially for someone like me who travels by bed-bug infested "deluxe" buses to and from bangalore every time i go home for the hols just because there's no train from bangalore to mangalore! we had the whole coupe to ourselves! yippee! well, after some arbit talking about this and that, Shashank dug into his bag for his camera (gulp!), and started photographing the beautiful scenes outside.. we had just crossed the border into Kerala and well, whoever has coined the phrase "God's own country" hasn't done it without a reason! the beauty outside was breathtaking! the lush green fields, the still blue waters with just one boat right in the middle with the fishing net cast, the endless groves of coconut trees... beautiful! Shashank then turned his attention inside (gulp!) and i stared, scared stiff at the lethal instrument in his hand.. his camera! well, i'm very photophobic (or photograph-phobic.. whatever u wish to call it) cos i think i'm the most unphotogenic person ever, and when those two realized that, well, i was flailing my hands all around me and turning my face away from the camera but still got caught! well,i guess i'll just skip the finer details!
As the train puffed on, Varun fished out a pack of cards and beamed. i smiled back and said, "Well, you'll have to teach me how to play first... i haven't played before.."
Varun stopped shuffling the cards and stared at me.... "Hmmm... ok" was all he could manage to say, while Shashank gasped "Why ya? you've never played cards before eh?" i shook my head. "Why? u think it's gambling eh?" he said and laughed... I just kept mum and listened attentively while they introduced me to the exciting world of cards.. just 52+2 cards and a hundred million games using them! wow!! Before long, i had mastered a couple of games and actually went on to win the second game of bluff (well, it ain't difficult for a quick learner and a natural liar like me!! he he!!).
Well, nothing much about the rest of the journey that day...it just went by pretty uneventfully while we munched biscuits and discussed a wide range of topics including who's going out with whom, room mates back in the hostel, some e-business thingy someone in our year was successfully running and raking in lakhs and verbally abusing aishwarya rai for her jodi with ab's baby!Varun didn't spare arindham chaudhary too, for god knows what reason and cursed himself for having bought a business magazine of his before boarding the train! finally some people entered our coupe, a family actually, and the dear papa was reeking of alcohol! yuck!! the three of us just looked at each other and agreed that the upper berths were the best places for us now. We clambered onto them, bade each other a "good night and sweet dreams!" i just went over the day in my head and smiled to myself.. it had been a great day and better days were still to come... my smile grew wider... :) then, lying on the upper berth of a train, i shut my eyes ready to board the train that would take me to the land of dreams! :)
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