Do you like to travel by train ? How often do you travel by train ? After almost a decade, I finally got an opportunity to travel by train. The boy got a Table Tennis Competition at Kolkata, and their school sought my permission to let him go with the school team, but I was not very comfortable so I decided, I would take him with me. It's not that I am over protective about him, but going in a group has pros and cons, so I wanted to be with him for his very first experience. It also allowed me to de-congest a bit from the stressed life and relax for few days. He will definitely remember this experience for his life time.
As this was his first train journey so he was very excited about this trip. Ideally the school should have sponsored the trip, but instead they asked us to pay for all the costs, that would force him to stay in the event premise. Since I have my maternal uncle's brother working at Kolkata at a top executive post, I contacted him and he had everything arranged for us, so that was a big joy to enjoy this trip without spending from our pocket.
First thing first - go and figure out in which platform the train would come.
Now we have escalators / lift in the station, which makes life easy, back then, we had to run through the steps. Ever faced that situation, when you discover at the last moment, the train would come in a different platform ? You wish, you had skills like Spiderman then :)
Picking up some drinks, for us, an empty water bottle from home and water from station - who remembers that ?
We also had his friend with us, who stays in our society. So I was like a Coach for these two kids :)
I would pick up a Hindi Novel, every time I go by train then. That has now changed to downloading few movies on the laptop.
An old lady sitting on the station, caught my attention - that ball must be for her grand children.
While they were watching the trains from the over-bridge, a train passed by and that bridge shook and the kids were like what the hell is this !!!
Relax kiddos - Newton's third law in action.
Time to go to our platform, look at these boards to know where you need to step down - don't wait for the lift - there is always a long queue.
Our station is going through renovation, hopefully we will see a world class station next year, but things have changed a lot, so be ready to face inconvenience.
Who runs the train ? Here is the man responsible to look at signals, but it's a collective effort, to avoid unfortunate accidents. Make sure to stay away from the tracks and don't ever try to board a running train - we have to teach the kids.
And what do we eat ? Go and explore yourself.
Kids are much smarter than us, they quickly figured out and ordered food from Zomato.
Who runs the AC ? CAN we ask to reduce the temperature ? They have so many questions and I was patiently helping them to understand.
The beautiful view of the bridge coming on our way.
Sleeping in the train is the most enjoyable thing for me, it feels like sleeping on a moving swing - Time to relax.
After nine hours, we finally boarded Howrah junction, the train was delayed by more than a hour just before the station. As we went through the station, the kids were shocked to see so many people moving on - that's the reality of metros - it's crowded way beyond where we live. So be ready to do everything faster, because time is the most valuable resource here. A car was waiting for us to take to the guest house.
Some nice homely food to wrap up the day and take rest - we had to get ready at 5 am next day for their event - more to come on that.
Did you ever looked at the tracks when going by train ? A small video capturing the memories.
They did learn a lot from this trip, certainly this would not have been possible without me going, we need to educate and enable them.
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