Chennai Se Jamshedpur thak

Embarking into the train, I really felt alone .Leaving chennai was haunting me like hell. I was expecting three others to join me and it was only then i saw that there were surprices in store for me. I was joined by 4 new friends.Now, we had a small gang with 8 of us. Very friendly faces that were waiting to accept people so easily. Now I realised XL had also put in some pychological profiling into the whole bunch which made them choose such a friendly and affable junta.

As the train began its journey 20 minutes late, I was already into the group and the feeling was great with all of us greeting each other and the atmosphere was fantastic. As we began the journey of XL(as we all call it), we all started grouping and talking about our interview experiances, freshers party and all that made sense. We all were in the same compartment, but the summer family crowd played havoc to our fun. Due to a peak season and what i would call a fate's play with our destiny, we all got seats which was spread across the compartment. This made our get-togethers very difficult, we had to use all our marketing skills to get the people in our place relocate so that we have place for all 8 of us to sit and chat. The first night of travel saw a mere introduction of the members and all of us went back to sleep immediately.

Mine was a side lower berth. It was very uncomfortable and I was trying all possible positions of sleep which would minimise my back pain. At last after I have settled down in what was the most comfortable position for me, the baby in the near by seat started crying. The Mother made some wierd sound in order to keep the baby quiet and it made the baby cry with a higher volume. I began sleeping after the baby had calmed down after drowning itself into a bottle of milk. I woke up in the middle of the night by some Heavy snoring all around. All those co-passengers of mine was some Big-Time Snorers. Trying very hard to sleep, I slowly went back into slumber.

I got up in the morning as the train stopped at Vijaywada. I got some coffee and a newspaper to read as all my new friends were asleep. Back at my place, I started reading the "deccan cronicle" which i had purchased some moments back. It was a typical translation of our own Dhina Malar. After some time Saaji (sebastian chandy), one of the guys got up and we went around and awakened all others. After some time we asked one family members to move to a different place and we gather around 9:30 AM and started continuing from where we left. Then we were joined by a Guy called ALI(Mr. Fundae), who was not there with us the last night. The conversation has extended on and on till 1 PM. The Idly's that chandraMohan(CM) has brought from home had all of us on our senses. When some of us began feeling hungry(idly's power got drained out), we ordered the Lunch and to say the least it was Pathetic.

We wanted to talk more after lunch, but the family which had left the place was back and they wanted to have an afternoon nap. we too decided to take a break and we split off and had some chat in groups and then went for sleep. After a nap which had exptended to 2 hours, I got up at Vishakapatnam. It was damn Hot at 4 in the evening. After getting some polo and chewing gum to eat, I came back and again woke up all the guys. We gathered again and went on and on and on. Our chat contuinued till we reached a place called Rayagada at 7 PM. We got some great food to eat there. Despite ordering the food at the pantry, we all began swallowing a lot of Idlys, Vadas and Samosas. We were all lavishly buying them and after some time were all full still our throat. After drowning another glass of coffee(the last coffee i had for the next four days), we all got into the train. After that it was some more chat and another round of pathetic ordered dinner(we wasted most of it). More sleep continued after that. I had a vey bad sleep that night and I woke up and got down from the train at every station(every two hours). The stations were deserted in this part of the country and they were all guared by well armed Army people. When I got down at a place called Sambalpur, Some of the men out there looked very much like robbers. They were all staring at me. I was a bit frightened and I got back into the train and locked the doors. Later in the morning, tony was telling me that they were indeed robbers and the TT has asked them not to open the doors from 10 PM till they reach Rourkela. After more hours of sleep, I woke up at Roukela. Many of the guys also had woken up and I had Tea in Kulhar(remember Lalu introcucing these mud pots in railways) at Roukela with Anuroop. Later Tony and Chandy also Joined us. And what followed was the most pathetic jouney that i ever had in my life. From Rourkela to TATANAGAR, It was a three hour travel and our train took 5 hours stopping at every bloody place that it came across.