we four on Bijli, Baadal, Champa and Chameli
PannaLal with his friends !
( Horse ride at Kufri ) April 2007
I drove down to Yeshvantpur Railway station, yesterday morning. To receive my son who was coming in Indore Express. Surprisingly the traffic was so smooth, till near IISc, covered that 15+ Kms in 35 minutes. But then towards the end next few Kms I had to crawl for another 35 minutes.
Reached the railway station. Looked at the train running status online. On time, would reach Yelahanka, the penultimate stop, in 10 minutes. I just sent a message to my son and he was surprised, never heard of long distance trains coming on time ! Exactly after 10 minutes, my son messaged back, "yes we reached Yellahanka" ! I replied "Good. railways have improved a lot. Not only the trains run on time, but the online status is also accurate". I was so happy, for another 20 minutes only I have to wait.
First twenty minutes went by. The online status continued to show "Reached Yelhanka". My son messaged "Still at Yelahanka station, not departed from there". Kachiguda express came and gone. Next twenty minutes, status remained unchanged, the English used by my son changed a bit, not that polished. Kanchivaram passenger came and went. Then every next twenty minutes, it was only me moving around the platform, Indore train did not move an inch from Yelahanka. Vasco express came and went, Salem express came and went, Duronto express stationed on the other platform just went. I was eating my own words all the while, railways have not improved that much!!! I tweeted and retweeted several times another handy tool in such testing times. By the time Indore express arrived, it was 1 hour 45 minutes late.
"We need to go to Delhi/Agra and see Taj Mahal" my wife told me as we were on our morning walk that day. These types of requests are not new. Since I did not want to take leave for a long duration, plus lots of advance planning involved for such long distance trips, I would normally deflect that wish and reduce it to a 3 day drive down to Ooty or Kodai. Known places, better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. A boating and speaking a few words in Tamil, end of story. But this time it did not work, she was talking turkey.
I managed to get cheap flights on Air Deccan, "simplifly". Hope you remember that name, which was acquired by Kingfisher. I am sure you have not forgotten that "flying good times" yet ! We went to Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Simla. Lots of fun.
Kufri trip from Simla is the one I remember most. We saw a temple on the hilltop. Somebody said it is the temple around which Rajesh Khanna and Mumtaz danced around in that song "Om jai jai shiv shankar" from Aap ki kasam movie. I did not know the authenticity of that information, but decided to believe it. After all so much money spent so at least I could say I had seen a historical place !! This time around this Rajesh Khanna was ready for a dance, but my Mumtaz was a bit hesitant, so I dropped that plan.
Then we met PannaLal with his four friends Bijli, Baadal, Champa and Chameli - four elegant horses. We took a ride on them around an on the hill. It all started fun for me,first experience of sitting on a horse. Once my Baadal started climbing the hill through that narrow roads, I started getting jittery. At one place that road was hardly 3 feet wide, a group of horses came opposite to us. Baadal went a little bit to his left, I just looked at his side. I had to close my eyes to console myself - though Baadal's left back leg was on the air pointing towards the gorge, but his other three legs were on the ground - compared to both of my legs which were in the air! I wished this journey ended soon, but I knew "Dilli bahut door hey!" Some how we reached the valley after watching that China border from a long distance- I am sure that border would have become closer by now !!!
Then last leg of our journey. Return flight to Bangalore from Delhi. Departure delayed by 4 hours. Once we checked in I realised there is no seat allotment, first come first serve to get the convenient seat on board! I saw a big queue from the far gate on the water cooler end, we also joined almost at the back of the queue. Was not sure whether the plane might get houseful by the time we reached, and had to wait for a day or two to catch the next flight! Then the unpredictable happened. The gate on the near, pantry end opened and they announced we need to enter through this gate only. With in a split second our fortunes reversed, the queue just reversed, I was almost at the beginning of the queue !!! With no further issues we touched down Bangalore.
Whether there is traffic block on the way or not, I have to drive and reach Yeshvantpur railway station na ?
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