A very normal day, no hard work, dizzy morning, lazy noon and sleepy evening. The only good discovery made was a Kolkata Mess, who could cook good north indian food. (its proving to be an underscored discovery now.. :) ).
Night 8:30pm, after had my dinner, i took a bus to the Railway station. And the most hopeless thing was to wait for a train which was early in the morning five. The most logical explanation to this thing was, being alone you fear of not waking up and getting an auto at 3 o clock might cost you being plundered :) .
So the last bus took me somehow to the railway station at 10:45pm. Whole night and me with my now integral body part, my blue bag, were very sure of staying the whole night @ railway station.
Till 11:10 i was just searching for some seat. Finally when i got one but who wants to be at rest in the fast moving world. I got up and my seat lost. 11:45pm . Till now i had searched through all the possible kiosks on the station and the various information they could show. The LCD screens also had only advertisements and train info to show. I somehow jerked my fone FM connector hard enough that it also broke down. So, the only good idea was to explore around.
I found one kiosk where in you needed to enter the number which was supposed to be smsd to you, to get a platform ticket. Good thing: It was a touch screen, Bad thing : It didnt work. God gives indications..he gave one. I already sent in for the sms. This was a 3 bucks loss.
At 11:50 the police started dangling there lathis where ever they wanted and the government gave you two choices to make either get out of the entrance hall or go into the platform. But the fate gave you only one option as no kiosks were operative to render a platform ticket and obviously no human appearance was behind the platform ticket window at 12 am.
I have a strong feeling these police men are giving good training how to make people fear them by just dangling the lathis. It would be a strength of 200 people and just one lathi. Guess what ... who won :)
So, we all were out of station. 3 gates of the entrance hall were jammed by the row of chairs.. and no one could enter.. Reason... i could guess was they wanted to clean it up. Okay, point taken we people of India, on Independence Day could have that much patience...
While i struggled to make my way out.. i found a man laying on the stair. he got up and disappeared in the darkness. While earlier, i paved my way into the station, i saw him, but now he was different because he left back at least half a liter of blood tainting the floor there.. Somehow avoiding it i came out.
Hope is a big thing.. and the bigger thing is u always hope and it just does'nt clicks. Night just went more romantic with little rain. By 12:30 am it just started pouring. A shelter outside the building which accommodates for vehicles to drop passengers, and could hardly make place for was now taking care of a crowd of nearly 200, who had their local trains early in the morning.
And yes 2-3 dogs too, after all it was their permanent place to give them shelter from rain.
But these people were good and atleast better than me. They had their arrangements. Almost everyone dragged out their sheets and laid down. I went to the periphery and that was were i had to remain.
The adjoining food court closed down. Inside also the entrance hall lights got dimmer, and with that the hope that the entrance bars would be removed drooped down.
I opened my wallet to find 3 5 rupees coin, 2 10 rupees note and a useless 100 rupee note and an HDFC plastic idiot, which would just not help tonite.
Somehow i realized that there was one operational kisok which worked on coins inside the left most entrance of the hall. So, here was the hunt for 3 one rupee coin. But who has the change when you really need it.
Chai.. Chai.. Coffee.. .. this is hope.
A five rupees coffee. In return the 4th five rupee coin. No use.
Ok its now 1:30 and only 4 hrs to go for train.. This is Optimism.
GRE and staircase.. The link ?? me :)
This staircase was near to the ambition, the working Platform ticket kiosk. And far off from the blood stained stair. Here i match all the girls in my campus or now in office of getting a really weird feeling when we see blood....but its ok.Nothing wrong.
So, GRE prepration.. was cooler, that could be the best thing to do then. its raining.. and the watch has just stopped..it doesnt want to move.. every time i used to see, i could just see an increment of 1 min. Hard night. No motion. half of the people around asleep. There were 6 people around on three steps to heaven doors, including me. 3 of those 5 were asleep. one of them was trying to other was as awake as i was. So around an hr of gre thing and i wanted another tea. this was another vendor the tea glass was small and so was the price. hurry.. sure to get a change. Rs 3. gave the 5 rupee coin. still no luck u had 2 rupee coin back to you..
Still its ok . 3 teas will make it to 3 coins atleast and logically that shud work..
Sometime back another fellow joined us. He was probably a rickshaw puller, who was wet and felt cold. He removed his cap and there he kept a polythene to cover his head from the rain. He tried to sit at one place but trembled a lot. Then he took the polythene from the head and tried to put his feet in that, to counter a bit of chill. i dont know if he really could do that. Then the place next to him got empty. and he laid down and sleep took him over. Now his snoring and the rain.. those were the only two songs.
Back to work,it was already 2:45am. Some more GRE and atleat 2 cups of tea for i needed 3 coins to enter the heaven. 3 coins. meaning of small things is much more than being 'small'.
Ok so now at 3:15 we have 3 coins. But what, a man tried to cross the fence and 2 policeman approched him. Before he could say something he got a slap from havaldar. May be his hand was itchy. The man reacted and blasted the havaldar by saying he was in railways.. and 'tell me ur name' and all things happened. The blasting of havaldar sounded good to many auto pullers and others who thought this was their revenge for something which was common to all of them. The two policemen realized this and took the man to a corner.. which was away from sight of most.
It was 4 and now few more people joined in with luggage . Means time for some train. Cool.. finally a neighbour of mine. said they will open the gates in 5 min. Things just got set and yes the doors were unfriezed.
Now i started trying with the 3 two rupee coins in the machine.. but it was the only honest thing there. it just didnt accept a two rupee coin.. Hopeless..
but by 4:30 counters opened up and the most valuble possession a platform ticket.. and i was on 1st platform . The world became a beautiful place now. i had to celebrate . i did it with a veg puff.. its ok even if i knew it was made in the night. .but its ok sometimes.
Now rain, clouds morning and waiting.. and waiting and waiting. .
The good news is.. waiting pays.. and it paid for me too. at the end it was all good when it was around at 7:10am. ...
i felt my life was better somehow.. u dont learn to value things before u really feel their value. .
GOoDark Night..
