The Last Day

The day dawned bright and early. The sun was up, the birds were twittering, and the mighty prince unsheathed his sword and... Oops! Wrong place. Let’s begin again.

We were all packed and ready by about 10.30 and were borne to the railway station by our trusty steeds. We stood around our bags, looking like amateur dealers in second-hand luggage. We had an uninspiring breakfast from the railway canteen. I skipped that and had a Frooti (now available in a pet bottle). Puris dripping oil aren't exactly my favourite.

The train journey back home was as eventful as the one to Hyderabad. People kathifying [talking], sleeping, singing, staring out the window at the dismal landscape... Nothing new there. But the card playing epidemic broke out, and every other person seemed to have bits of paper in their ears. I played only Uno, I wasn't interested in the Queens and Hearts.

Since gambling is illegal, and no amount of swearing on dead grandmothers’ graves would convince hard-hearted railway inspectors that we weren’t staking our rings and chains, I was made to keep lookout. A fat guy with a moustache, carrying a briefcase, dressed in khaki, I was told, was the villain. I saw a khaki shirt near the door and warned my friends. They quickly hid their cards, and the uniformed official passed us carrying a broomstick and a bucket, completely oblivious to our innocent expressions. I attempted a quiet exit, but wasn’t very successful. Let us draw a curtain of charity over the unpleasant events that followed immediately after.

Lunch was sponsored by one of the teachers who had accompanied us on the trip. Hyderabad biryanis. Yum!

The train snaked its way through brown hills and desolate mountains, and it grew steadily hotter. The stifling heat didn’t affect the hardcore gamers, and they continued to play with undiminished enthusiasm. The Uno players rested.

An excellent dinner prepared with the greatest of love and care by the extremely competent cooks aboard the train’s pantry saw a few people lying around groaning. I turned veggie, so you can imagine how bad it was.

Before we knew it, it was time for bed. The card players needed to be convinced that it really was dark and there really existed a world outside spades and aces, such as food, drink and sleep.

We slept well, and bad, bad people who call themselves my friends woke me up some time before 7. What’s the point in getting up when there isn’t anything to eat?

The train entered good old Kerala (yay!) in the afternoon, although we were too tired to notice. Our number began going down when the train stopped at stations, replaced by people who hadn’t been on the tour getting on.

AJ’s dad brought lunch for all of us when the train stopped at her station. Her mom had made chapatti and chicken curry! I shall be eternally grateful to him for the first fresh home-cooked meal I had on the trip.

We were really tired by the time we reached home-sweet-home again. I was really glad to see mom standing there, I never realised how much I'd missed her until then. I said my goodbyes to my friends, who gave me strict instructions (orders, really) to show up for the Orthopaedics posting the next day, and telling my mom to make sure I did. That was the last straw. I decided then and there that I wasn’t attending the posting (I have this nasty rebellious streak that is unmasked when people try to order me about). I cut postings the next day, and attended the afternoon practicals session. As it turned out, none of those people turned up even for the practicals. So much for practising what they preach.

On the train to Hyderabad

Day 1. Happy now?

The stupid train had to leave before sun-up (or so it seemed to me, never having been awake before 7 in weeks, no, make that months). I sleepwalked to the station, and nearly had a close encounter of the third kind with a post, which woke me up sufficiently to argue with my dad about my sleep status.

Everyone had brought stuff to eat, and we commenced attack soon after take-off. I mean, soon after the train hooted merrily (aided by us) and left the station, right on time (some fluke, no doubt). The attack was fierce and lasted all of 5 minutes, and amidst occasional flashes and whirrs, no one managed to get in more than a few mouthfuls.

Stopping at stations meant that the parents of hostellers would show up with more food, and the next few minutes would be spent in total silence, occasionally interrupted by ‘ketchuppille?’ [no ketchup?] and ‘thanikkentha ketchuppillenkil irangille?’ [why, does your food stick going down if there's no ketchup?].

You couldn’t walk around the train without tripping over some classmate who was either
a) sleeping, or
b) kathifying [literally, knifing], or
c) playing cards, or
d) enjoying the view, or
e) listening to music, or
f) eating, or
g) performing some miscellaneous activity (meaning I can’t think of anything more).

The more gullible among us fell prey to palm readers and peddlers. The palm reader revealed that she hadd had a difficult life and would soon be taking a trip over water, while the rest of us entertained ourselves with etch-a-sketches and snakes and ladders.

The train entered Tamil Nadu by evening, and the view from the windows grew more depressing. The houses (huts, really) were placed so close together that would drive any claustrophobic into a panic attack.

At night, our noses were assaulted by the overwhelming odour of Eucalyptus. Looking around for the source (an escaped koala bear), we could only see a guy selling roses. Completely baffled, we assumed someone had a cold, when the rose guy came closer, and the smell grew stronger. He’d dipped the roses in Eucalyptus oil! Someone made the brilliant observation that he didn’t know roses could smell this bad.

The next insult to our olfactory epithelium was the smell of fermented carbohydrates. My friend sniffed the guys nearest to us, (unjustly) assuming them to have broken rules. It was actually a lady selling sapota (chikku). She got thrown out by a violent Naxalite aort of guy a few minutes later.

Some harebrained idiot (who I shall debrain as soon as I find out his identity) said there was some rule that the lights had to be switched off by 10. We ran around like headless chickens trying to get berths next to friends. Having accomplished this major task, the lights were switched off and we began. ‘I’m not the least bit sleepy, are you?’ ‘Of course not.’ We continued until someone from the lower berth threatened to throw a shoe at me. Spoilsport.

It got really cold at night, and when I woke up the next day, the bed sheet I’d been using as a pillow was wound around my feet. I have no memory of doing that. Everyone else was up before 7 (how on earth do they do that?) and they wouldn’t let me sleep any more. I languished in bed berth until I gained sufficient orientation in space and time to remember where I had put my toothbrush, and then hopped down.

We’d crossed over to Andhra Pradesh in the middle of the night, and the stops at the various stations were marked with announcements in a language that seemed to end every word in ‘lu’.

We saw lots of cotton fields. Those people should be worried about the boll weevil.

Chilli was also very common. If only our Geography classes at school had been conducted as an all India tour...

Just before we entered Hyderabad, we got a magnificent glimpse of the Hussain-Sagar lake, the largest man-made lake in… Somewhere. We tumbled out of the train at Hyderabad Central, and were whisked away to our hotel in a wannabe tourist bus. And you know what happened next.