Trip to Bhutan: Chennai to Patna

Me aur Meri Zulfe

“Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”
― Dr. Seuss

In my previous blog-Kuzuzangbo La, I mentioned that Ill be visiting Paro, Bhutan for World Conferene of Gera, which is completed now. Ill describe the exquisite journey from Chennai to Paro in this blog. My journey was completed in 2 parts, first from Chennai to Patna and the from Patna to Paro, both were terrific.

A word of advise: If you beloong to sophisticated middle class family and you are travelling in a train which passes through U.P., Bihar, W.B. states of India, please travel in 3^rd AC Class least, else you may face some problems.

I started on a sunny morning (24^th June) from Chennai to Patna in a special train known as Patna Express, it was a typical bihari train. People travelling with lots of luggage, no idea about all the rules of IRCTC, with waiting tickets and with Children. Initially I had a RAC ticket and the person whom I was sharing my berth had no idea about RAC (fact that he has to share his berth) and on top of it, he was accompanied with a waiting ticket person. On the other hand of compartment, there was a family from WB with 2 kids.

Meri Zulfe Maanti Nahi

This is how it was, within some time, TTE (ticket checker) was able to confirm my seat and gave me a complete lower berth. As soon as I got it, I exchanged it with my favourite berth: Upper one. Finally I though, its time to take some rest, but I was gifted with 2 naughty kids from W.B., they were shouting all the time and their voice was like killing my ears all the time. I dropped the idea of sleep and started playing with them, they were awesome. They were brother and a sister, brother was elder and known Hindi, so it was easy conversation, on the other hand sis didn't know Hindi and was a shy personality.

After midnight, I was able to get some sleep. In morning, I had conversation with their parents and soon it went to the US President: Obama. Their parent had an indirect connection to him, funny but true and who cares. All of us were so involved in conversation that I started learning their language and they forced me to have Jhal-Muri (famous snack of Orrisa) with them. Overall it was a nice experience. Our train was running late and I was fearing that I may miss my connecting train from Patna, but it was also running late. Night I reached Bihar ki Rajdhani Patna. There were 2-3 trains running late which passes from Patna and due to that reason, station was so crowded so much crowded that there was no space to sit, 2 persons were even sitting on water tap.

Next half part i.e. from Patna to Paro in next phase.

From Chennai to Nepal

INDIA-NEPAL Border

Really we have to call it “The Journey”. Journey for all of us was different; one had to join us just after Rajasthan trip, one had to come from Pune, another from Indore and I from Chennai. Let us talk about my trip, aaaa leave the actual trip, because if I tell you the actual one, you will get confused or mad on me. What I can tell you is I started my journey from Chennai after completing my night shift. I pre-poned my shift from 10-7 to 7-4 so that I can catch the only train (Rajdhani) that starts from Chennai at 6 am. Let me tell you some facts about my train, it connect major cities of India to Rajdhani (Delhi). It is a superfast train having few halts between origin and destination. Obviously it is a costly train having minimum coach as 3^rd ac, best thing about it is it provides you enough food that you don’t have to bother about taking any food items with you, train staff provides some food stuff once in every two hours and even you can request for additional things like salad, if you wish. So don’t carry even a single food item, but eat well in Rajdhani. My ticket was in waiting list a day before, although waiting no. was 2 which had a high probability of getting clear, still I didn’t wanted to take any chances and booked a Tatkal ticket. Therefore I started from Chennai via Rajdhaani –one of the best trains of India, changed my train to meet the rest of the crew. Anna already came to Bhopal station a day before; we had to board the Kushinagar Express. Maag and Pahadi started the same morning from Indore. As soon as I board the train to Gorakhpur, Pahadi shouted Kuntalllll, she seemed to be very happy after founding me. I was also glad to join them. The moment, we joined became awesome, amazing, actually beyond words.  

Route Plan

Now let me introduce you to Kushinagar Express as well, it is a typical train of eastern India, in which sleeper is similar to general and 3^rd ac can be compared with sleeper. I am not criticizing the train, or the crowd, just a suggestion for travelers that they should book at least 3^rd ac ticket if they are thinking to travel in those side trains, especially when you don’t have habit of travelling in such trains. This train led us to Gorakhpur-a major station on the eastern side of India. Major because this is the last station on this side, up to which train is available, after this you have to board a bus or hire a shared cab to reach Indian border last village sanauli. From Sanauli you can either have a cycle rickshaw or walk for 5 minutes to cross the Zero Land- an area between two borders, also known as no man’s land. I advise walking provided you can carry your luggage for about a km. Here Indian border ends and Nepal starts. Tune in to next blog for Nepal, remember Journey is not complete yet.    

Will Power

From previous posts you might know/ remember that there were 4 diffrent cultures present in our conversation.

Israeli-Jewish
Musicia-Christian
Driver-Tamil
Me-Hindu.

Our conversation started with some here and there talks, that why this Israeli person came to India. He said he feels good to roam in India, even alone. Many people from his place have already visited India including his brother, so I said "is it normal for your side people to visit India". He said "no its not like that, even my grandmother does not understand my philosophy of coming India, but I do, whatever I like"

Then Driver said "How do you earn so much that you have came to roam in India for 6 months". he said "its easy and cheap to travel in India by trains and for stay, I work wherever I stay"
Musician said "You dont have to give any share of your earnings to your parent." He said "No, I dont, they are also earning, I am also earning, now I dont take anything from them and I dont give anything".

He said "I was living near Kodaikanal for last 2 months and before that in Goa for a month". In Kodaikanal his rent was very less (since it was in outskirts of Kodai, it was not famous and hence less rent) and in Goa, he lived in beach and worked there so they gave him place to stay, food and on weekends, they gave him bike.
He has planning to live in North for next 3 months because his sister and her Boyfriend were coming next month to visit India. And then visit Nepal for visa renewal and again back to India.

You might be thinking that why I am giving every detail about him, "what we have to do with some Israel person".

So let me tell you the reason behind every detail, that guy aged 20 yrs only was just a security guard for his village and didnt had a lot of money, still he had courage, will to visit such a big, multicultured, little dangersous country like India. If he can do it, why we cant do our little works like talking with our parents, texting a friend, organinsing a get together. We just say, we didnt had time or money or whatever foolish reason such as my parents wont allow me.

Just think about it, its not about time or money its about priority, if you make something your priority, you will be able to do it, these little reason wont be able to stop you in any way.

Only English

Welcome.

First of all, let me reveal the secret of “Only English” guy from last post. Well the secret of him knowing English only was….he was not from India. He was an Israeli, strange right.

Israeli and I started talking about here and there, and then I asked him “where are you from? How come you know only English” He told me “I am from Israel” Believe me, with his dressing sense no one could have guessed, just by bare looking that he’s not from India. Obviously if you keenly look, you can tell, ………………………………but being a guy, I gave only a bare look. 

Although know it was confirmed that he’s not from India, still I had doubts on him being from same location he says. It is in me, that I do not believe on anyone so easily, especially when I am travelling alone and person sitting right next to me know this very well. In order to clear my doubts, I asked him for his passport, he showed me and it proved that he was actually the person, he was saying to be. Another person (Tamil guy-Driver) sitting on left, found it very interesting that a man from Israel has come to visit India. Since he did not know English, I helped translated whatever he was saying. I have this level of maturity/ common sense that if I am sitting between different cultures, either I speak common language. In addition if someone is lacking some part and I know that I can help him by translating, I take that responsibility. 

But where I live/work/ have fun, I barely find a person who understands this thing. For example, 2 days back I was sitting with my Bolly* friends; suddenly they started talking in their regional language. I didn’t say a word, but one of them spotted me being annoyed, so I just said it feels like I am sitting between Blues*.

Even today, when I was in training, I experienced the same. One guy from my area was giving training; even then I asked all the doubts in neutral language respecting all the cultures which were sitting with me. But But But when it came turn of a Blue guy, one of my colleagues asked a question in Blue language only and he got reply back in Blue. I didn’t do anything, thinking that all the people besides me have lower level of maturity and even if I get frustrated/ get angry, I will be the loser one. So I just keep my calm and smiled from inside.

I have this thing daily in my shift. Once all the people from my area leave for the day and I am the only one left, all Blue started laughing on everything I say, Even if they are not laughing on me, but being on my side, just think, How I feel  and when I say what happened, they simply says learn Blue. Sometimes I think how fools are all these. They don’t have any professional skills and they are working in an MNC. How Funny.

I apologies to deviate from main story, but these small things are very necessary.

Well coming back to my Original story, so 4 (me, Israeli, Driver and Musician) started talking. In starting musician was sleeping but eventually when our conversation seemed interesting to him, he also joined. I tried to speak English as much as possible to make the ground neutral, because he Israeli was our guest, we should not say anything that makes him feel bad and also English was understood by maximum population (me musician and Israeli) involved in conversation. Also to respect Blue guy, I translated all the major points in discussion from time to time

.

I think It is enough for this post. Will tell you about our conversation in next post,

KeeP Reading and Replying

Tatkaal and Beyond

 I was trying for tatkaal from multiple accounts, even from one of my colleagues’ account. She said that she’s lucky, so I told OK, and then we should try from your account also. Believe me she proved to be lucky for me. From her account only I saw that there were 14 tickets available, so I clicked on confirm, made payment and finally when the ticket came, it was in waiting list 27. I am not sure how this site works, but I was shocked how this is possible.

With God’s grace, my ticket got confirmed and I started travelling, but I didn’t told anyone, I thought Its ok to reach one day before, What’s so big deal in that, also I had some other plans goin on Shhh.

I tried to leave office early; still I got late as usual. I came home, had a bath, because I didn’t had bath from last 2 days….Dont think that I am Aalsi. Paani nahi thaa room par. After shower, had my dinner and ran for train. I boarded train just 5min before, it left station. I arranged my luggage safely, sat for some time and headed for sleep. It’s necessary for me to have proper sleep after my shift due to the nature of my job. Believe me staring at screen for 9 hours is not a joke, may be a routine. In morning, I tried to sleep for more and more time, since in train I don’t have lots of work to do.

In morning time, mid* people came and started asking for money. The person who was there next to my berth said “Only ENGLISH, Only English”. I didn’t understood, how can a person living in India knows only English, neither Hindi nor any other language, I thought leave it, why should I care. I again slept. After some time, I woke lowered my berth (as I was sleeping in middle berth).

That “only English” person offered me biscuits, I said “no Thanks”. Let me tell you about few interesting characters of my coach now, one person were “Only English-security guard”, a Tamil guy-army driver, a Christian guy-music businessman and of course me-a computer Engineer.  

I will unveil the mystery of “Only English” guy and rest story in next post.

*I hope you understood, whom I am calling mid people.

In Indore

Vuowww, this time Indore’s trip was surprising. I was planning to visit Indore at the end of March, but my TL didn’t agree on that, so I thought it’s better to go in Feb itself. I was not sure that I will be able to get tickets or not in Tatkaal. I sat in office on Thursday and tried for it, but got error because of irctc policies, that from an IP only two tickets are allowed in those two hours and our whole office had a single IP. Then I tried from my mobile and got success, but I thought let’s give a surprise this time. I didn’t tell anyone about my plan of coming Indore. I and my cousin share same irctc account, so he got an email about my tickets and he verified that I was coming Indore, so he and cousin sis knew about the plan and they also informed this to ma sis in Pune.

When I boarded train on Friday, I called my both houses in Indore, just to make sure that they will not call me when train is running or else they will ask me and I have to tell the truth. I reached Bhopal at 8 30 and boarded a private bus to Indore. NOTE: these private buses are very bad from Bpl to Indb and vice versa. The last govt bus to Indb starts at 8 30 from Bpl, there was no way I can catch the bus. That’s the reason I took private bus and reached Indb after 5hr 30mins. It was 3 am, my bro was already there to receive me at the station. Finally I reached his home and had dinner. They were clever, as they knew that I won’t eat anything in train, so they kept dinner and juice for me…sweet.

Morning I woke up early and touched feet of my Badepapa and he was shocked plus happy as much as he can be. After breakfast, my cousin dropped me home; my mom dad had the same look, surprised and happy. Both of them said, it’s good that I came, they were all missing me.

Generally, I was avoiding calls, because I wanted to give surprise to all the relatives and friends by directly visiting them, but I had to take one call as dad was having lunch, so I picked up and my fopag knew that I was In indore. I told him not to tell Bhuag about this. He just told her that a surprise is coming and next she said “Kuntal aa gaya kyaa?”. How did she know that I was coming? God Knows. I think this is what we call as connections.

This way many relatives knew that I was In Indore. But my Masi didn’t, I gave her surprise too. I visited her house and she was also surprised to see me. After a day or two, I called one of my friend, when she picked call, she just said “tu indore kab aaya”. No hi, hello, just “nalayak tu indore kab aaya”. I was rolling on floor laughing. After few minutes, I gained my breath and told her whole situation. She was yelling at me “I was asking from last 1 week, when are you coming? Even on Thursday, when your tickets were booked? You didn’t tell me.” This is what I call as friendship, she was happy that I was in Indore, but she was scolding at me like anything. Then she told me that her mom had an accident just a day before, so I told her, that there’s no need to come, will meet some other time. But to my surprise, she said, “I just came home after visiting my mom, shes fine now; I am coming but only for 5mins, so that at least we can meet.” I said Ok, she came and told me whole story, I also told her mine. We departed in half hour, although our talks were not complete and they will never be.

Next two days I spent with one more friend, whenever I visit Indore it’s fixed that, at least one day, we spend together and both of us enjoys each other’s company. One day we watched a movie and other day we visited Khajrana and a cousin’s home. Next day was a big day in her life because she got her pg degree. Actually it may be because, we just came from Khajrana and God is always taking our care from background.

I had already made a call to one of my cousin in Ujjain; he also came to meet me and stayed with me for rest of the day. That’s what I call as relationship. Whenever I visit Indore, he just drops all of his work, even his exams and come to see me.

I gave a visit to one of my mentor; she was also happy and surprised to see me. She told me that “Its good to see you and this surprise is really awesome”. We had a chat for some time and discussed about my life in Chennai and upcoming conference in Nepal. After some time, we visited a cultural show in auditorium.

How can I forget my friend cum sis, I visited her after re planning many times. I was checking FB and read her status "In Indore" and in next second, called her to decide date/time to meet. But we had to re schedule many times before we finally met...hi hi hi both busy personalities. When we met, our chat was going on and on ...and on. But I had to rush for dinner and she was tired, so we stopped in some time.

I visited one of my college mates also, he was also surprised to receive me, he is amongst few who knows my actual situation in Chennai, “How I feel here, How I am treated”. He know nearly everything about me. That’s the reason, he always suggests me new opportunities, I can try. He only helped me to realize that I am a very good leader and has capability to manage people.

There is one more friend, with whom I go for lunch/dinner, because her life is just like that, she has time only for dinner or lunch. So this time, we had lunch but as my stomach was bad, I just had a pie.

This was all about my surprising trip to Indore. I was happy, my parents, relatives, friends all happy. That is what we call as All well, that ends well.

Saturday, I boarded train from indb, reached Chennai in Monday morning and working from the same time like anything. Again back to Corporate Life, The IT culture.  

I must say, I miss Indore...

    

Bangalore...Xplored

Welcome on board,

You must be thinking that there is no update from long time, in the blog. It is because of lack of time. And there is one more thing cooking in my mind, which is responsible for this delay, will tell you about it later. May be many of you might have got the idea, what’s going on. I had two explorations in last month; one was Bangalore and other Indore. Well a Q may pop in your mind, that Bangalore is new for me, so its ok to xpolre, but wats new for me in Indore??? Actually, it was not the Indore, that I xplored, it’s the nature of my loved ones. I will tell you how…

First let us talk about Bangalore, what I call as North in south. I was planning to visit Blr from long time, and the plan became successful this time. I thought to visit there in general only, but I tried for current reservation, hi hi hi no luck… I boarded train and tried to sit in a seat, but I got a very bad blow from a T guy. He pushed me very hard, I was just trying to sit and there was space, still that person did like that. In next moment, I got my favorite seat, the upper berth, in some time, one more person came and asked me, is there space available, without looking at his color I said "come yaar" (normally this does not happen with me, I am living in a place, where I face color discrimination daily), , then one more man came. After two hours, one of them got down. Now there were only two on our berth. I told him, that we can easily sleep in cross manner, but I think, he was travelling in general the first time. He did not sleep and also did not allow me to sleep. Finally, as I had clear directions and correct address, I directly reached my cousins home. There I slept for some time; they were also IT personnel, so they also went for sleep.

Then my cousin made dishes for me, the best dishes starting with poha in breakfast and puri, aloo ki sabzi and khir in lunch. Post lunch my jiyag and D were planning for some outing, but my friends called and invited me, so I gave them a flyin visit. There I called one more indori friend, he was workin that day, but as soon as his shift ended, he came to meet me. This is what I called Friendship. We do not need to think, no need to care for any other work, just a single call, not even a call, just a message is enough and he came running to meet me as soon as he can. He is one of my best buddy from school.   

Now coming back to experiencing north in south in Bangalore. In Bangalore, most of the people either know hindi or at least know English. That is why I called it as North in South. Although we cannot judge a city just in two days, still I can say one thing, it’s an awesome place, weather, people, connectivity, all fine. Just one problem is the high cost of living, except that, it’s a nice place to work/live.

Next day again my cousin made dishes for me Pav bhaji and Fruit salad both my favorite. Jiyag bought lots of ice-cream and fruits. In evening we visited a lake. Overall, I felt, like I am in home. There was no sign of the fact that I am in south far away from my home. One more important point I wanna add is, I was being treated as a guest there, by the people who were not even there via phone. The Indian tradition of great mehmaan nawazi was easily seen there. It was being well treated by parents in law of my cousin. They were instructing my cousin and jiyag to take good care of me. They even told Jiyag to bring sweets for me. Hats off to our culture and jiyagi’s parents.

The next day, I left Bangalore and came back to Chennai…back to work…

This is the way I xplored Bangalore, now for Indore, read next blog.

Long Journey

The journey towards base location, towards my actual work place started late night @ 12. It was as usual, totally surprising, amazing. I understand Shit happens; just what I don’t understand is why it happens always with me. All sort of crazy things started right from the beginning of my journey.

I started my journey from home, picked a friend from janki nagar mandir, and confirmed another friend that we are coming to his location. When we were about to reach his house, we called him, his phone was unreachable. All (me, my friend, Dad, Driver) called him, but he was unreachable, and problem was that we had only single no. We reached his location (actually we didn’t know his house address, so we planned to meet at some point) and waited for half hour or more, trying again and again. After Long time I was able to call him; he came to specified location and told us that he has lot of luggage, so we moved to his place. He had so many luggages, that we had to sit in a very congested manner. Now we reached Bhopal at 4:30 am and got to know that our train is just 4 hours late. It was scheduled to reach Bpl at 5:30 am, but it again got late by 2 hours and reached at 12pm. It was a really a long journey from indore to Chennai. As per our schedule, we had to reach Chennai at 6:30 am and report office at 11pm. But we reach office at 4pm.

At that time, we had no idea whats going on, what we were doing, what will be the reaction of office people. We were late right on the first day of our job and that too not by 10-15 mins but by 5 hours. But we thought lets ready to face whatever happens there. We entered into office and greeted all the friends over there; they started congratulating us, saying that we have already got projects. I didn’t understand a thing whats going on, how can we get projects right on the first day and that after being 5 hours late. Soon we faced RMG (a group who allocates projects) who told us, that we had to meet some person on 1^{st floor} in Target. We reached there and knew it’s actually a project and soon after few minutes we faced an interview. Vow Vow Vow…. Everything was so fast, I didn’t understand a thing that was going on, I was just going with the flow. Sometimes it’s better not to think anything, but just go with the flow. After interview, interviewer relieved us and asked to report next day, 1^st Jan 2013. We hoped that maybe we can get holiday next day, so that we can settle down with new location, new room, new environment, but no. We started working right from the next day. It was all hectic, tensioning, but all was for our benefit only and quite enjoyable day. The Whole trip ended on a good note with project in my hand. That is what we call as ‘All well that ends well’.