The Journey -- II -- Luck-no-way

Dazed by the events of the previous night, I stuttered out of the airport arrivals. In no mood to negotiate fares with an auto driver, I planned to hire a pre-paid taxi from the airport for the railway station. I took a slip from the man at the pre-paid counter and took the front seat in the taxi alongside the driver. The air was chilling, but I was already too numb to feel any of it.

As the driver sped past the empty streets at this time of the morning, when the sun hadn’t come out of its recesses and the human mass hadn’t come to life, I looked out of the window hoping to make as much sense of Lucknow as I could in the receding darkness. A railway station came into view, almost surreptitiously, and I was getting ready for the driver to take a turn into the station parking. But the driver continued straight down, without bothering to throw as much as a glance towards the station. I tried apprising him that the station had come, but he continued driving nonchalantly. Was I being kidnapped; were my next thoughts? Had I jumped into a wrong taxi at the airport? Where was I being taken now? Was I to be robbed? Should I jump out of the car? The driver turned sideways and looked out of his window and in one jerk, ejected a mouthful of blood-coloured pan masala in one smooth projectile, and proceeded to tell me that the station which we had seen served metre gauge lines, and we were going towards the broad gauge railway station. I realized that sure enough, there had been a relative lack of activity at that station. Paranoia had gripped me after yesterday’s misfortune. Soon enough, we arrived at the main station and I felt stupid.

I proceeded to take out my wallet for paying the driver an amount of Rs. 200. I took out a 500-rupee note, expecting him to dish out the corresponding change. But the poor guy hadn’t any. I asked him to come with me to the railway waiting hall, where on enquiring for change from several people, all I came up with was a new-found principle that it’s impossible to get any change from Indian railway travelers, perennially frustrated, either because their trains are late, or because they haven’t been able to get reservation in any train, or because they are plain terrified of taking their wallets out at a crowded station and getting robbed, or because they happen to be people who have just had bad experiences, like me, and are in no mood to help other people. I went to an STD booth and was refused change there. I then saw an SBI ATM, and thought I had struck upon the solution. I entered in an amount of Rs. 500 on the ATM screen, expecting five crisp 100-rupee notes in return. But all I got was a 500-rupee note. Bad luck, I thought, and tried again, this time with an amount of Rs. 1000, but only ended up with two 500-rupee notes. With no intention of emptying my bank account, I moved to the enquiry where a moustached person in security clothes was having a hearty laugh with his colleagues. I asked respectfully and with the longing eyes of a person desperately in need, “Uncle, 500 ka change milega aapke pass?” To which he replied, “mil jaayega, 450 hai mere paas.” An avaricious smile laced with corrupt intentions betrayed him, and I walked off in utter disgust. The driver proposed that it would be possible to get change outside the railway station. I approved of it immediately and sure enough, the change problem was solved outside.

My train was scheduled at 9.00 a.m. and it was still 2 hours to the moment. I took a seat at Platform No. 1, took off my headcover and plugged in my Walkman, which I had newly bought and planned to show it off to my friends on reaching Varanasi. A familiar-looking guy was sitting adjacent to me, talking smoothly into his expensive-looking phone. When he had finished his conversation, I bothered to enquire if we had seen each other somewhere. That wasn’t the case, as we then understood it to be. He was from some local college in Lucknow; I told him where I was studying, and he threw the slightest of those looks of awe reserved only for the IITians. “You are coming from Sharjah, right?” Now, how did this guy know that? But before paranoia could strike me again, I realized my bag had a conspicuous airport sticker on it. He then rose from the seat and started chattering again into his mouthpiece.

I was now listening intently to the sundry Lucknow FM stations, looking at the multitude of people making haste on the platform. I caught sight of one such face, and after we had both gazed at each other for a couple of seconds, realization dawned on each of us of who the other one was. My best friend of Abu Dhabi, whom I hadn’t met or talked to in the last 3 years, was standing in front of me, looking as amazed as I was. He had come to receive his sister’s to-be in-laws for her soon-to-be held marriage and was in a hurry. So, we quickly talked about where the other had been all these years, exchanged our mobile numbers and bid adieu. All the agony of the last day seemed to vanish and I felt that it was worth it all, if only to meet a long-lost friend.

The mouthpiece guy came back and asked me how I knew the guy I had been talking to. I told him, and he then explained that he and my friend stayed in the same building in Lucknow and knew each other well enough - what a coincidence. We then proceeded to talk about our careers. I told him about my being in civil engineering, and came to know that he was studying architecture. When I told him casually that I had landed a job in Deloitte, the guy took it upon himself to preach me on how one ought to work in his core field; about the abundant opportunities in my place, the UAE, for a civil engineer; how he would always be an architect and never anything else. Now this was the last thing I wanted to hear, a sermon from someone whom I didn’t know. So, I bid good-bye to him in a subtle manner, plugged back in my Walkman and moved towards Platform no. 7.

The platform digital clock showed 8.25 a.m. The sun had started warming the air a little bit now. Soon enough, there was an announcement. My train had been delayed by half an hour. Well, that’s a norm for trains, I thought. An extra half an hour would pass away quickly enough. And it did. At 9.15 a.m., there was an announcement that the train had been delayed by another half an hour. But when this happened a third time, I knew that I had been cursed. Such an awful end to the year, the bad stuff just doesn’t seem to stop. Finally, the train arrived at 10.45 a.m. As the train was lumbering down to a halt, I asked one of the passengers on board if he was standing in coach S7. I received an ominously malevolent look in return, as if I had asked him a question that was way below his dignity to answer. I boarded the train and the journey passed off relatively uneventfully. The only thing to quibble about was a man brushing off his peanut-chaff-laden berth with his newspaper so violently and with such disrespect to my presence there, that it was me this time who had to give him a sermon on public respect and hygiene.

All’s well that ends well, and sure enough, I reached the confines of my hostel safely and soundly. It’s rare that you encounter such an experience where the worst seems to keep coming back. At the behest of my dear friends Abhishek Aggarwal and Rahul Gupta, I have been forced to narrate this experience. But I think, despite it being an awful experience, I will love to treasure this travail.