This train will go till Vijayawada!!! repeated the exasperated TTE wiping off the sweat-beads from his extra shiny forehead. I sprang up from my berth only to hit my head on the berth above mine.
“Ouch! Did you just say it won’t go any further? How will we reach Hyderabad?” my reaction baffled him as he couldn’t match my expression with the questions.
“Why don’t you all pay attention when the announcements are being made? It was announced LOUDLY and CLEARLY yesterday at Howrah itself that all Hyderabad/ Secunderabad bound trains would go till Vijayawada and no more. A bunch of careless hippies is all the Indian Railways caters to these days.” This remark of his sent a shock wave throughout the compartment which probably reverberated throughout the train. Quite a few passengers almost charged at him, making it look like a scene from some ‘struggle for independence’ movie with my husband Soum in the lead. I could almost hear their silent slogan “Simon Go Back!”
Sensing the gravity of the situation, the Indian Simon quickly abandoned that side and came over to ours blaming the Railway announcers for not being clear and the so called netas and activists for launching the ‘Telangana Rail Roko’ movement, and we blame the politicians for changing sides!
Blocking everything happening around me, I tried to concentrate on the task at hand which was to find out a way of reaching home. After much deliberation, Soum and I decided to do what the others were doing…getting off at Vijayawada and looking for a ride to Hyderabad.
Vijayawada station was a complete mayhem as we weren’t the only passengers stranded there. Other trains crowding the station bore a deserted look and the sleepy city was wide awake! Fortunately, there were autorickshaws plying at that hour of the day…err night. So we rushed to catch hold of an autowallah who agreed to take the two of us to the bus stand for thrice the usual fare. With two suitcases, two bags and a jumbo suitcase we didn’t have much of a choice, did we?
Well! The story doesn’t end here, once we were in the auto, not-so-comfortably settled with our baggage, we were informed that even the buses weren’t plying. It took the autowallah shoving all our stuff and the two of us inside the auto to realize that. Playing the role of a gracious host, he informed us of the shared taxi service which carried passengers from Vijayawada to Hyderabad. Thanking him profusely, we requested him to take us there and then began and ended our paid auto ride between the two gates of the same railway station, a thirty five seconds walk to be precise.
Finding a good seat in the taxi with hundreds of stranded passengers aiming for the same uncannily reminded me of the Indo-Pak partition as the urgency to reach home and the fear of not making it was way too evident on each face. It took us our entire might to accomplish our mission, might is our right…indeed!
Six hours twenty minutes and innumerable seconds later the Secunderabad railway station was within our tired sight. Wouldn’t have been happier if I reached the moon! Though the journey to the moon would have been easier with no one on the seat behind ours throwing up all the way, I guess. That one was the most unwanted of the events as Soum had to empty almost the entire bottle of perfume. We had to change cabs from there to our house and doing that was an ordeal in itself. After much jostling and wading through the sea of over-eager touts we managed to reach our pre-booked cab and from then on, there was no looking back.
Now that I sit and write about it, I can’t help but wonder what would have happened had we reached Vijayawada in different conditions. Because of our agitated state of mind due to the agitation, we couldn’t enjoy the amazing scenery. The sleepy town that welcomed us with open arms actually offers a breathtaking view. With the Eastern Ghats giving us company on one side and the sparkling Krishna river one the other it is quite a feast for the eyes. Alas!
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