I'd set off from Maman's house by 0815h. There were two factors that got me at the railway station on time viz. Omanakuttan behind the wheel and being a second Saturday, most of the offices had a holiday and hence the streets weren't cluttered! But reaching the station in time didn't mean a damn because the train, coming from Kanyakumari and headed for Bombay was about 20 mts late and this delay kept on piling enroute, much to my discomfiture.
There was another interesting development. The A1 coach was supposed to be a two tier a/c compartment but the coach that was attached happened to be a 3 tier a/c coach, creating confusion and spontaneous fights among the passengers for lower berths because a few of them had specifically asked for, while doing the reservation - according to hearsay - four months earlier. Anyways, the disarray was, thankfully, short-lived with a railway man writing the berth numbers with a blue china-graph pencil according to the manner in which they're usually found in a 2 tier coach - which meant that all the central berths would be kept in the stowed position during the entire phase of this journey!
My friend and classmate, Suresh Laxman and his wife, Sindhu were spending the weekend with us and they're headed that way, having kicked off from Thiruvananthapuram early morning at 0530h, in their car. So, I dropped off the train at Ernakulam to join them for the onward journey. Something seemed to be delaying our movement almost continuously and accordingly, we'd encountered bad traffic snarls at two places, frittering away almost two hours in the bargain and reached 'The Quarterdeck' by 2000h.
Mom and Lekha seemed to be in good spirits and I was glad that I could accomplish my task without problems!
Tailpiece.
It was a delayed evening with us reminiscing about our old school days with mom being an active participant, as usual. As minutes ticked away into hours I think all of us seemed to want that the interaction went on and on and never end! But....
There was another interesting development. The A1 coach was supposed to be a two tier a/c compartment but the coach that was attached happened to be a 3 tier a/c coach, creating confusion and spontaneous fights among the passengers for lower berths because a few of them had specifically asked for, while doing the reservation - according to hearsay - four months earlier. Anyways, the disarray was, thankfully, short-lived with a railway man writing the berth numbers with a blue china-graph pencil according to the manner in which they're usually found in a 2 tier coach - which meant that all the central berths would be kept in the stowed position during the entire phase of this journey!
My friend and classmate, Suresh Laxman and his wife, Sindhu were spending the weekend with us and they're headed that way, having kicked off from Thiruvananthapuram early morning at 0530h, in their car. So, I dropped off the train at Ernakulam to join them for the onward journey. Something seemed to be delaying our movement almost continuously and accordingly, we'd encountered bad traffic snarls at two places, frittering away almost two hours in the bargain and reached 'The Quarterdeck' by 2000h.
Mom and Lekha seemed to be in good spirits and I was glad that I could accomplish my task without problems!
Tailpiece.
It was a delayed evening with us reminiscing about our old school days with mom being an active participant, as usual. As minutes ticked away into hours I think all of us seemed to want that the interaction went on and on and never end! But....
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