I came back

The Cahh is Pahhhked in the pahhking Aaaea
It’s not a close up add using aaahhh at every word.
It’s the reason why close up is getting coastly.
The car is parked in the parking area.

And the correct way to pronounce this sentence is the one mentioned in the starting, which is really difficult until and unless you use close up every morning and practice a lot.

A distant starting, as usual. Today I came back, after my refreshing Holi holidays. Although the official holiday was only for a day, most of the ‘SAROJAGAR’ final yearites took at least a week off. Since, I consider myself a more serious than others, so bunked only for two days. But as soon as I steeped into my department, I was more than apparent from my mid semester evaluations that, my considerations are awfully wrong. But who cares!!!

I haven’t had a particular liking for going back home since my first year because of at least a thousand reasons, which I have discussed earlier. And this time the sense of guilt was far too much to bear for me.

I was falling short of vocabulary for myself, when the train started moving and there were already drops of tears in my mom’s eyes and my dad was also slightly emotional. The words that I thought during my journey half asleep included stone hearted, unemotional, disconnected, ignorant, diamond hearted in the context of diamond being the hardest material (don’t think “ladke ka dil to heera hai”). It was not the first time this happened. There was a sense of fear when I came to IIT for the first time, which remains the only emotional both ways see off that I remember; otherwise it has always been one way traffic with only the senders getting emotionally involved. A sense of guilt has started to make inroads into my heart like a corrosive acid which could be sulphuric or hydrochloric acid (doesn’t matter). But still I remain the same and I can’t change.

So this was a rational analysis of my see off.

Now comes the real tough part the journey. I realized just a few days ago that I had lost taste for fiction esp the US fiction, the Sydney Sheldon or Ludlum kind. And I was alone for the whole journey of 14 long hours. The train was not very packed by the holi standard, still there were four people on the seat of 3, but the floors were empty, only the ends of bogie were occupied,it still it was spacious, since one could easily move and use the facilities. The journey had nothing much happening till 3:30 am in the morning. I was to reach Bombay in the morning and I have travelled at least 10 times by the same train, still I didn’t remember the order of stations or the time at which the train would reach Borivali.

There was a sound of ^&*^*)(*)(*)(*)!$#@#$@#$ in my dreams. I tried pronouncing the sound and then writing it but I was unsuccessful so I used these special characters. I suddenly woke up and saw the watch. It was 3:30 am. I was on lower birth. The lady sleeping on the other lower birth was continuously pressing a polythene bag like a child of four and generating this irritating sound. I looked out of the window and the station was “DAHANU Road”. I realized that Mumbai wasn’t far away. But how far was the question that flashed through my sleepy mind. I realized that every one else was sleeping and the pantry car “Chai walas” hadn’t started coming. So it must be far enough for me to get some more sleep. I was any ways not bothered about gathering my baggage, since I only had one bag which was being used as a pillow and one bed sheet which I could take and run in the two mins stop at boriwali. The problem was my pair of sandals. They were lying underneath the birth opposite to mine. I could see them in the dim light, but there was a guy sleeping on the floor, so I couldn’t directly take them out. But TIME WAS STILL 3:30, so no need to panic. I covered my face in the bed sheet, tried to sleep or at least posed as if I was sleeping.

I like to sleep in real calm surroundings which are totally dark. So it’s really difficult for me to sleep during the journeys. I hardly sleep during bus journeys, but trains are a little bit more comfortable. So as I tried to sleep at this 3:30 mark, I started hearing gargling sounds, which didn’t appear human by any criteria to me(could be my half asleep mind, and effect of my partial night out). I was at birth number 65, the corner of the bogie and hence this couldn’t be helped. And I again looked out of window. It was “Palgarh”.

I have special memories for this station. It happened ones that due to some track problems my train was halted at pal garh and I had to go to IIT by road from here. Special BEST buses were there to help the stranded travelers, but there were atleast 10,000 of us (since it was morning time and quite a few trains come to Mumbai from north at this time). So I went in a vikram till ‘Virar’ and then took a local. This local journey also had historic significance, because this was my first and uptill now last encounter with the most dreaded local in the town “The VIRAR LOCAL” (Tana tananaaan …tune for entry of villain in old Hindi movies). This was the first time when people complained about me having two bags, in fact why take any baggage according to them.

But since I was confused about the order of stations, I decided to keep it in my mind this time, which may prove to be my last journey in this IIT career to Mumbai.

So, Dahanu Road > Palgarh

And then Dahanu Road > Palgarh > Virar

And then Dahanu Road > Palgarh > Virar > Mira Road > ….Borivali

This is the sequence I formulated in my mind, and is still there. Right or Wrong …I am still confused.

ak