It has been a while, 3 months exactly since my last train journey.. Busy work schedule, foggy winter and lazy attitude meant no travel and finally i decided to break this routine... As usual Saharanpur was my destination and for a change i got a AC chair car seat easily in dehradun shatabdi 2017... It was pretty dark in the morning and i had made up my mind not to waste time on clicking pictures as 2017 had same dirty coaches built in 93 -94... The biggest surprise of the morning was the clean platform no 15, only the first time i found a clean platform in New Delhi railway station.. The train wasnt too crowded and I spent most of my time sleeping... Surprise no 2 was idli vada being served in this part of the country...
It was pretty much a boring journey with too many irritant passengers around - shouting at the peak of their voices in their mobiles - all at same time.. The train was 20 mins behind the schedule but this is how trains here run.. I found a tempo/share auto to Sarsawa, a small place on the NH 73, my ultimate destination.. The third surprise of the day was the smooth relaid NH 73.... The road is usually very bumpy... At the end of the journey I was pretty happy having slept well all through ..
The return journey was the most entertaining part of the whole trip - I wanted it to be so just because the onward journey was boring... On entering the station the display showed that Jalandar New Delhi express was late by 2 hours and I sensed the fun I was going to have due to that....This is a day train that caters all season ticket holders/daily commuters and two hours late meant whole of the crowd would be in the next earliest train which was 25 minutes behind this one. I had my reservation in Dehradun Indore express, the next one.. Though I had reservation I had to compete with the crowd to get into my side upper berth(no 8, the first bay)....
The Sleeper coach was filled with so many people just like an general bogie, but I was satisfied with my undisturbed position... The daily commuters expressed their unhappiness on why this train had to have sleeper instead of chair car and that they had little place to stand.....Apart from the vendors, daily commuters and trans genders/beggars policemen taking the accused to Meerut is a common sight in this sector... This time two accused were handcuffed to each other and three policemen with rifles companied them - yes thats the right word.. One of them held a long chain, the other end of which had the accused with the handcuff...
I woke up from sleep irritated by the smell of beedi and tried to see who the hell was smoking....And no prizes for guessing....It were those policemen sitting in the doorway but it wasnt just that....!!!! they shared the beedi with those accused and what I saw after that pumped up my adrenaline... All the 5 of them were playing cards, (not a bad time pass I guess) and I wanted to capture this on my camera.... But the very thought getting beaten by all of them and being thrown off the train cooled me off .... Hence I continued to watch the entertainment they provided....
A young lady committed the biggest mistake of her life by going to the washroom, the doorway of which was guarded by the 5 great people and other men... The manner in which all those men behaved with her and the smile that was seen even on policemen face....gosh!!!....It was a sight I wish I dont see again anytime, anywhere.A while later one of the policemen went to the washroom and guess what?????? he handed over his rifle to one of the accused, probably he didnt trust his colleagues!!!!!.... Most passengers around made fun of this but the police guy never appeared to be embarrassed.... May be he was used to it or he took it as a compliment!!!!!!
This little incident lightened my mood for a while..Soon the undisputed owners of indian railways came to claim their tax from passengers... Transgenders..!!!!! I hate them obviously for their filthy behaviour and the minute I saw someone i pretended to sleep...My gud luck that one creature left me alone and moved on....This one creature held lot of rupee notes between her fingers like a bus conductor and this one too did the mistake going to gang..... I have seen police accepting bribe in the past but this was the first time I saw a police snatch money from someone.... Of all people, these guys dont spare beggars/trans-genders as well!!!!! yuks........
All these filthy people got off the train at Meerut and rest of the journey was pretty much uneventful....While my initial plan was to write more about the lovely little DEMS, this nothing short of adventurous journey changed my ideas..... This wasnt a memorable journey but unfortunately whatever I had witnessed will continue to stay in my memory for ever....This kind of scenes I doubt if it ll be found anywhere other than this part of the country, though there may be few exceptions.....
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