A train journey to remember....

This was one of my oh-so-frequent train trips between Mumbai and Goa which occurred last month. I had actually penned most of this down in the train itself, as I was beginning to wonder what to do with the incredible amount of time I suddenly had on my hands.

With a sigh of relief as I finally got the bookings for the exams done, I stepped out to book my train ticket for the journey back to Goa. Should have seen it as a sign of things to come. The online booking, a 15 minute process, took an unusually long 50 minutes. After finally having got the ticket for the train I left to complete the other formalities of picking up a couple of books from my regular roadside bookstall and finally, checking out of my room.
I reached the station at 2230 hrs as the train was scheduled to depart at 2300 hrs. Just then, there was an announcement that the train was rescheduled to depart at 0020 hrs! Like, wow! And due to non availability in the sleeper seats that I usually travel by, I had to book a seat in the A/C 3 Tier compartment and that too under tatkal quota... (what else could I have expected after going to book for the train ticket that evening?)
Wonder of wonders! The T.C. came in and told me that I was UPGRADED to the A/C 2 Tier section! (Upgraded. Made me feel like an outdated piece of electronic equipment) I got to my seat and next to me were a group of 'youngsters' chatting away to glory with a very thick gujju accent. Guess I've learnt to detect it from the innumerable 'saas-bahu' serials running on television. All of a sudden there appeared this bevy of beauties who looked to be travelling WITH the 'youngster' guys. Seemed that they were married couples! Looked like kids! Come to talk about that, one of them had a little baby girl! So yeah! One of the guys wanted to borrow a pen. 'Dost' he said. Funny. I've never heard anyone refer to a stranger that way. I mean I've heard of 'Boss', 'Patrao', 'Bhaiyya', 'Bhaisaab' and 'Mahashay'. (For the uninitiated, first two are common in Goa, next two are common almost everywhere in the northern part of India, and last in Kerala) This was a first. He was 26 yrs old and he was a father of a beautiful baby girl. And it seems his honeymoon was in Kerala. Though I didn't seem to get the gist of why he called it his 'first honeymoon'. And the look he had on his face when he was talking about Kerala? Dreamy. Almost like he had the best time of his life there. Well, why wouldn't he? He had his honeymoon there!
All things moving on, we seemed to have been moving unusually slow since early morning. I presumed it was because we were moving through the landslide affected area which was demarcated as a 'slow zone'. An hour later we stopped right in the middle of a tunnel. What do you know! The locomotive engine broke down! Now how often would you have heard of something like that happening? On inquiring with some of the T.C.'s onboard, we finally managed to find out that the fuel line was not developing pressure in the forward direction but was doing so in the reverse direction! So, it was decided to take the train back to the station we had just passed to attach another engine there. The delays just kept piling up.
In the end we stopped inside another tunnel again because the locomotive engine just broke down completely. The place that we stopped was called Aadavali, or so the locals said. It had a lovely river, more like a creek actually, flowing right beneath the tracks.
I had borrowed a travel guide book on 'South India' from a couple travelling in the same compartment to see if I could find any info on this place but to no avail. I thought they were British at first but later found out the guy was Irish while his girlfriend was British. They were with me in the previous compartment until they too were 'upgraded'. The reason I thought they were British was because when the T.C. told them that they had been 'upgraded', she exclaimed "Wicked!". Typically British if I may say so. But the guy had a distinct Irish accent. So I wasn't actually sure till I finally spoke to them and we had introduced ourselves to each other.
After the new engine had arrived and was finally connected, the train resumed it's journey at 1240 hrs. Revised ETA was now 1630-1700 hrs.
There was an interesting bit that I'd begun to notice in my last couple of journeys to-and-fro Mumbai. The Madgaon-Diva-Madgaon train has the lower half of a few bogies spray painted upon in the form of graffitti. I'd never seen a train like this before!
Now that the train was well on it's way to Madgaon we had fallen into complacency and assumed that normalcy had taken over the journey. How mistaken we were! At Kankavali, SOMEONE from S3 pulled the emergency stop chain! Aaaaaargh! Frustration was beginning to show. Another delay of 20 minutes out there.
Finally. At 1600 hrs! Karmali! But wait a minute. I was supposed to get off at Madgaon. The last stop and the next station. I just couldn't wait for that. The fear of another unscheduled stop was too much to bear. I got off at Karmali and grabbed a motorcycle pilot to the bus stop. Took the local bus to Panjim. From there, I took a shuttle service bus to Vasco. Met Dad in Vasco.
HOME SWEET HOME!

Utter Callousness by VHP!

Nationwide protests is what they wanted, to 'highlight' the hindu culture that would be destroyed if the Central government went ahead with the Sethu Samudram Project.
Protest they did. Blocking railway tracks and creating traffic jams by blocking major roads. In the midst of this mayhem, a pregnant lady trying to make her way to the hospital with her husband is stuck in the traffic. With the VHP was in no mood to relent, the husband tries to find a nurse to help his wife, only to return and find out that his wife has had to deliver the child on the footpath!
Is this what we plan to achieve in the 21st century? Political parties and religious fundamentalists calls bandhs and stage dharnas all in the name of protecting the common man's interests and culture. But at what cost?
When the news channel Aaj Tak tried to contact Praveen Togadia on the phone, he refused to acknowledge that VHP was responsible for the woman's sufferings. Later on, another person from the VHP apologised on behalf of the VHP, but continued to claim that this was being done to protect the hindu culture!
Why make the common man suffer for the whims and fancies of these organisations? You want to call a bandh or stage a dharna, then do it in your area first. Shut down your daily life first and then go to the common man asking him to just drop what he is doing so that your aspirations can be satisfied.

We WIN!!!

Series is level at 3-3!
God! What a match! After a humongous hue and cry (raised (only) by yours truly), on the atrocious decision resulting in Owais Shah scoring his MAIDEN ODI century, the match proceeded on with England scoring 316 runs for the loss of 6 wickets.
India responded in brilliant fashion scoring 150 runs for the opening partnership between our very own Tendulkar and Ganguly. Sadly Ganguly would fall at this point, (painfully to Broad, the same bowler with whom he had a verbal altercation earlier) thus making way for the entry of Gambhir. Gambhir struggled in the partnership with Tendulkar who could not take the quick singles due to his frequent bouts of cramps. Tendulkar, on 94, would fall quickly to Panesar, with the score on 156 leaving Gambhir and Yuvraj to try and conjur up a partnership. India then received a double jolt wherein the wickets of Yuvraj and Dravid would fall in quick succession with the scores at 209 and 216 respectively. Mascarenhas and Shah would be the bowlers responsible for the fall of those wickets. The change in pace and the ball stopping on the batsmen would create much trouble for the Indian batsmen.
Gambhir would follow soon after in the 41st over and the score on 234. His wicket would fall to Mascarenhas again. This bowler, responsible for hitting 5 sixes of the last 5 balls in the England innings off part-time bowler Yuvraj, would be responsible for quite a few saves in the field and the two wickets as well. Dhoni and Uthappa then came together to put up a substantial partnership. With 90 runs required of 70 balls, Dhoni started improvising his shots and with the score on 294, Dhoni would be bowled by Broad trying to improvise a shot behind the wicketkeeper.
Agarkar came in to score a single run off the only ball he faced, but was involved in a 13 run partnership, only to be run out trying to go for a second run off the last ball of Anderson's over with the score at 307. With 10 to get off the last over, in came Zaheer. With 2 runs taken by Uthappa off the first ball bowled by Broad, Zaheer was run out the next ball when he was found short of his crease after backing down the wicket too far. His departure left the score at 309 and 8 runs to get off 4 balls.
With Panesar at fine leg, up in the circle, Uthappa improvises the sweep shot to play it over his shoulder and down for a boundary!
4 to get off 3 balls!
Deliberation goes on between the bowler Broad, and the England Captain Collingwood. Fine leg is sent down to the boundary and mid-off would be brought into the circle.
Guess what? Uthappa would smack the next ball straight past mid-off to register the next boundary and level the series for India!!!
3-3 all with everything to play for in the FINAL ODI to be held at Lord's this Sunday!
LORD'S!!! HERE WE COME!!!

Travesty of justice by a debutant umpire!!!

So India has England on the mat. England seems to be developing a partnership between Owais Shah and Luke Wright, when Ramesh Powar comes on to bowl and has the ball take the back of Shah's bat, hit his elbow and balloon up to the keeper for a catch!
Horror of horrors!!!! The umpire turns it down!!!
This decision by an umpire who is making his debut in umpiring in ODI cricket! And then we have umpires by the dime and dozen who are willing to wrongly give the Indian batsmen out denying them match winning innings or a century!
And best of all, Shah has the audacity to indicate that his bat didn't make contact with the ball!!!
Needless to say, Shah goes on to register his century and propel England to a target of 316!
Damn! If wishes were hitmen, he'd be out in the other world by now! The umpire, that is to say.