My train journey

I am posting this after a long break from blogging. In fact, I am quite energized by this break. No, I had not been to any vacation or something like that. In fact, Believe it or not, I was busy with office work.

Last weekend I had been to my home town, yes the one and only, madras. Going to madras is always a wonderful feeling. Even though I have never stayed there for any period of time, the emotional attachment to that city is just unbeatable. The main purpose of this visit was to write another MBA entrance exam. God!! Dunno when will I be relieved of this.

This post contains all my little observations of my 2 days trip to madras. Most of them are silly but the person that iam, I love to treasure such moments. So here we go,

One obvious thrill when I reached the nampally station was to so many tamil people in the station. Never knew so many of them stay in Hyderabad. (On doing further research I found out that over 10 lakh tamil ppl reside in AP.)

Train started moving and the first thing I noticed was the european styled stations of lakdi ka pul and necklace road. The fact that not a single soul was thereon any of those platforms is a different story altogether :-))

View of Tank Bund from the train was exhilarating and anybody visiting Hyderabad for the first time will simply feel in awe of the beauty of the city.

After secunderabad, it was all jungle and there was not much to see outside except my brother’s college near ghatkesar.

So my attention turned inwards and when I looked around to see the other passengers in my compartment, I noticed one strange thing. About 60% of people in my compartment where women and most of them were going to Chennai to attend some marriage(Later, I found out that the next few days were quite auspicious days for marriage and in fact the streets of madras were filled with the sound of nadaswarams during the course of my stay there).
This says a lot of about the feel of security in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil nadu. I just cant imagine such a thing happening in the cow belts of India or for that matter the northern part of India. Way to go, South!!

Train was approaching Chennai Central station and this we can know from the stink associated with the approaching places. Then suddenly arrived the good ol’ BASIN BRIDGE station. It’s stink is unbearable but who carez. This station is just about 200 mts from the central station and when the train passes this station we know WE ARE THERE. This station is really nostalgic and I still remember asking my grand father long long back (about 13 years back I think!!) that why did they construct two stations so close together?? Ah those were some days (More on those days later)

I touched down on Central station and ah HEAVEN. My home. Iam welcomed by the Tamil advertisements running on Suryan FM. It was about 5.30 in the morning and I thought I would have to work hard to find a auto driver awake. Hell I was wrong. I should have known. Madras wakes up at 4 am. As soon as I got out of station I was mobbed by dozens of auto drivers each offering me a better bargain than the other one. I picked one of them and drove straight to my Uncle’s home at mambalam.



Once at Chennai, the same old meter less autos, “maanagar perundu” buses, posters of “AMMA” and “KALAIGNIAR” etc certify that you are indeed in madras. The T.Nagar road reminds me of all those tv ads ranging from Pothys, Chennai Silks, Jayachandran textiles to GRT thanga maaligai. And who can forget that Hotel Saravana Bhavan. Ah all this just drives me nostalgic.

After the exam at anna nagar, I came back to the central station to catch a train back to hyd . Since I had 2 hours for my train to depart, I somehow had to kill time in Central station. Talking about the central station, man, you gotta be there to experience that. The big structure that it is adds to the charm of the first time(or for that matter any) visitor. The fact that you can see the engines “front on” is a delightful experience. Add to that the DSL internet center, in-house saravana bhavan, anand bhavan and higginbothams and you know that this is the best railway station in this country.

The only problem with this sort of setup is that you have to walk a long distance to reach your bogie, if god forbid, ur compartment is near the engine. And guess what, my coach was S13. The first coach ,bang behind the engine. So I had to walk through all that way in the scorching sun.

One amazing part of traveling alone in Indian Railways is the type of company you get. Some are quite serious and keep reading a damn book throughout their journey, there are some who retire to the upper birth and spend the whole journey sleeping. Luckily my “neighbours” were not like that.

I met this old man, a Punjabi, who he claims, came to tamil nadu with an empty pocket 20 years ago and then went on to become a big business man in coimbatore. Now he has settled down in jallandhar and travels to madras and Hyderabad often to meet his old friends. I had some interesting conversation with him and I will be posting it in my next post. Next morning I came back to Hyderabad and felt like I was back home again (Surprising isn’t it ).