It was a long night ... part III

I woke up by the strange vibrating sound of the train that sounded like there was some thing definitely wrong, and while I was still getting acquainted with the idea that there was something wrong I could feel my self slipping from the top birth feet forward as the whole train seemed to be tilting gradually till the side finally hit the ground and then the whole thing came to a screeching loud halt that had a silence that was numbing. Then as people began to realize what was going on I caught hold of my laptop bag strung it around my shoulders and tried to figure out where I was, I spotted a bottle of water near my foot I picked it up and put it in the bag. I then took out my cell phone just like everyone around me in order to figure out a way out, I noticed there was no network, I secretly hoped it was just being in the coupe that blocked the coverage. My seat was in the coupe that had the emergency window and for a moment I felt it was a good thing. Of course there isn’t really anything good about being in a small closed place with the only way out being a reinforced glass pane that is designed to be resistant to all Indian weather and traveling through Bihar where often the train is stoned, in terms of relativity I felt it was some what better to be in a coupe with a window that is designed to be removed than any other. One of the gentlemen in the coupe tried to pull the rubber around the window but it broke. The emergency window had failed us. I felt a slight wetness on my hand I guessed I must have grazed it somewhere during the fall but now was not the time to care. One of the people trying to get that window to open asked me for help so I tried to make my way to the window on the top stepping on whatever foot hold I could find in the dark. I tried tugging at the window but it would not yield, then someone from the outside shone a torch inside, and all of us started calling out to the who ever was outside to break the window. While I was still tugging at the window and banging, calling for help, a stone was thrown on it, help was on its way which was my que to get out of the way, which I promptly did.

Soon the window on the top was broken and there were a couple of men outside with a big torch shining light inside, there were lots of bed sheets and blankets scattered everywhere and there was some blood visible, we moved some of the sheets and saw a disembodied leg, following the general direction revealed a hand, someone checked the pulse, there was none. There was nothing we could do about it, no one even knew who this person was. As inhumane as it feels now at the time it seemed more important to get out of the train first and let the experts handle the rest. One by one people were hoisted out from the broken window out in the open, an old lady who was injured went first, then a few juniors from my college and finally I was pulled out into the cool winter air. I checked if my phone had any network, it did, I called up home. It was around 2am and everyone at home was obviously asleep, papa picked up the phone drowsily, I told him the train had gotten derailed and that I was ok and that I really dint know when and how I was going to get home but I was quite certain that I would manage, he really dint know what to say, he was shaken, then stirred and then he gave the phone to mama who also dint know what to say and asked if my luggage was ok, I had no idea where the rest of it was. That is when I realized that I had lost my specs and my shoes. Then I called up Krithika, she was in the sleeper coach of the same train, she was also ok and I tried to figure out where they were. Then finally after figuring out what was where I got down from the top of the train, it’s a little difficult to explain the orientation but basically I got to the ground. My parents called again they had decided that they were going to come and get me right away, that was the first time I wondered where we were, I asked someone, around half an hour away from Jaipur, I told them it dint make any sense for them to come because they would take at least 4 hours or so to get here and there wasn’t anything they could do here that I could not even without my specs and shoes, they decided to hold back a while.

I located the others, Krithika and Sindhu, they were fine, they had managed to get their luggage and safely get out of the train even though their coach had also turned to its side. They had contacted another friend who stays in Jaipur, Roopal. She and her father were coming to get us. Krithika had an extra pair of footwear in her luggage so I borrowed her floaters, which fit quite nicely with a little help from the straps. Armed with the knowledge of a certain rescue and footwear I went to see if there was any way in which I could get my luggage back, my beloved digital camera was in it. I went and asked some people who looked like they had an idea about what was going on, I met a gentleman who was also seeking an answer to a question when he asked me if I was from NLU, to which I said yes wondering how it mattered. He then told me that he had seen someone from my college get hurt in the head and she had been taken to the hospital. He then went on to add that it dint look very good

I was naturally scared, I looked for other people from college and if they had any more information on this injured person, I found some first years one of which was missing, a few calls later we learned that Sonal was missing, Satyam, another friend was with her at the time of the accident and he has rushed her to the hospital. Among the same first years was another girl, Kriti who was also looking to retrieve her luggage, she had her class 10 certificates stuck inside. We waited for a while near the derailed metal box that was once our train, which was now being looked at by professionals from the railways. They had these huge lights and oxy acetylene flames and were well equipped with first aid etc.. they were going to cut up the coach and then remove anything that was still inside. I told them my seat number and the fact that there was a body there for them to retrieve.

Word came, Sonal had passed away, and there was no appropriate way for anyone to react, I don’t even remember what my reaction was. We just waited to hear something about the luggage, after a while we met this officer like person who said that there was no way that the luggage would get out any time soon and that we should check at the Jaipur station the next morning.

I got a call from Krithika saying that Roopal and her father were here, so I left Kiriti back with her batch mates and located Krithika and Sindhu and Roopal. We were joined by a few more people from college. The rest of the night was a dream, between sobering from the adrenalin rush and Roopal’s family’s extreme hospitality it passed, with a lot of phone calls from everyone who knew we were on that train. In the morning after a heavy home cooked breakfast, Roopal’s father took us to the station to see if my luggage had survived the train, it had, getting past the red tape took a while, and the fact that not a single cloth in my bag was neatly folded helped convince them that the bag was mine. Finally I was united with my luggage. We then headed directly to the bus stop where we headed to the destination we had originally boarded the train for, Delhi. At around 10:30pm, the night was over I was home.

It was a long night...Part 2

I hurriedly finished packing and in even more haste packed up everything that was there in the room. Then I looked at my laptop and then at my now in a dilapidated state laptop bag, and then looked at the poor laptop that would have to either travel in one of the 2 already over full bags or in that laptop bag that hardly looked like it was in a state of carry it. I decided to put the legendary culcom rope to some use and tied the laptop bag to ensure it would hold its own and then sadly packed the laptop in it.

It was around 5pm and I was ready to leave, I had to take care of some more loose ends before leaving, which I did with a little hiccough and then I left for the railway station along with Preethi and Iti, who were headed to the city for a little after end term celebration. Packed food and the regular take home lassis. Then we were heading towards the train, but there was a very long line for the platform tickets and Preethi was in one of those “lets not break the law” moods, so after waiting for a few minutes we decided that I would miss the train if they waited any longer. So unwillingly Preethi and a more willing Iti came on the platform and made sure I got on the train and all that. I then saw them both stealthily sneak out of station (remember they dint have platform tickets) and then I retired into the AC three Tire coach B2 of the so well known train mandore express.

The train took of on time and I had just settled down and started listening to some music when along came Krithika and Sindhu who were in S1, we chatted for some time and then I went along with them to meet Roopal who was sitting in B1. This was all very usual on this train on the last day of the semester, everywhere there were students, some chatting, some watching movies on laptops, others roaming from one coach to another in search for other friends, it was like NLUs Hogwarts express.

At around 9pm Sindhu and Krithika remembered that they had seats in the sleeper coach and in a while the gate that connected the two classes would be closed and then they would be stuck in the AC compartment till Jaipur. So we bid Roopal good bye and went back to our respective coaches. I was feeling much better now but the fever had left its weakness and I decided that I could do with some extra sleep, so I finished the sandwich I had packed and went to the top birth set an alarm for 5am ( that’s when the train normally reached Gurgaon) and went to sleep.

Suddenly I was shaken awake.

To be continued …

It was a long night

We know how it is with vacations, internships and blogs, they all usually start together and get dormant at the same time. Yes, another vacation has started and this post is about the first 30 hours of this vacation and it’s a long 30 hours.

The last exam was labour law and I was not feeling too well, dint really feel up to writing the paper, somehow I wrote enough to satisfy my conscience and then I got up and rushed to my room to pack and move. Still suffering from a bad cold and terrible body ache, I packed in haste, just picked up everything and stuffed it in my 2 bags. Little did I know that this hap hazard packing would turn out to be a boon in the near future…

to be continued...

Morning of Mishaps (Stay in France Part I)

If you know what the dune is and what flight I missed please continue reading else you might need some catching up to do please go to the bottom of the page and start reading from 'Flip (welcome to france part I)'

The next morning had to wake up early…. Really early because dad had to catch the early morning flight, so we wake up he gets ready and then when he’s about to head out of the door it began to pour… the car was parked a little far away so I take the umbrella (not ella ella ella ) and go with him and we decide to take another route out so that we might be able to avoid exposure to the rain. Finally find a way out and we are a little closer to the car but still a whole minute and a half away so dad takes the umbrella while I hold on to his bags he gets the car we make the exchange and he’s off. I wave at him saying buy to the only person I knew in France who was driving away in a nice big blue Citroen C4, optimistic that I’ll get to know more people and determined to have a nice time I go back to the room and seeing that if I went back to bed I’d have only 20 minutes before I had to wake up again I decided to go online waste some time randomly.

After the scheduled randomness I started getting ready, shaved, took a shower wiped my self dry and for some reason I can’t remember now I was wearing my glasses and my pants as well I was trying to hang the towel to dry over the rod meant for the shower curtain in my room when I swung the towel over it, it came crashing down on my nose. Yes, on my nose, just a few millimeters under the bridge of my specs making a simple straight line of a scar. I was dazed for a few seconds then I noticed the small little wound on my nose was bleeding a little; I cleaned it up and put some aftershave on it. That having being settled I went on to get ready since I still had to go to work and had to find the way also. I picked up my new white shirt and wore it only to take it off since it was too transparent, so I wore my old white shirt that was not so transparent but then I took that off also because it was missing the second button from the top and I was really getting late for work. Then I just put on my yellow shirt and finished getting dressed. Then since I really should have been on the road, I quickly had two cups of yoghurt, picked up the map and was on my way.

I got out of the building took a left, it seemed like I was on the right path… so far so good… then I found a point on the map that was there and I got happy although there was no reason for me being happy since I had only established that there existed a point on the map that was a real place on the earth… which is what maps are meant for… a nother way of looking at it could have been that I knew on the map where I was… but that I already knew since I was just a few meters from the building I started off at and I still had no idea what direction I was actually headed in. So then I asked someone the way to another point on the map and he told me to go in the direction I thought was the opposite of where I was supposed to go. I figured he had a much higher probability of knowing where the place was and went that way… I was right about the probability part and he was right about the way, either way I finally reached this long road that had no signs on it and it seemed like I was supposed to walk on it till I found some direction so I was doing just that while this silver Renault stopped in front of me and one of my dads colleagues who had taken us out for lunch offered to give me a ride… I was delighted both at the fact that I would not have to walk the rest of the distance and that I was on the right path.

Got to work earlier than I had planed to but that’s ok. Nothing very unusual at work except I had lunch there for the first time which was quite an experience more about that later. I left work at an hour when people usually leave work and walked back. 

On my way I noticed this farm or more like a pasture land which had these beautiful horses grazing there, that time I dint have a camera but the next day I carried a camera with me to work just so that I could get pictures of them they were these beautiful creatures that were lazily going about their business while the rest of the world zipped passed them on the highway at 120kmph. What also got me interested in these horses was that they noticed me, I actually saw three of them lift their head from the grass and look at me and not just look at me watch me go by, I don’t know if it was the fact that I was moving at a speed they could move faster than or if it was the fact that I was probably the only human they had seen wearing a suit and tie walking down that road that caught their eye but either way I caught their eye and was happy to have been noticed. Finally got back to the building at around 1730- 1745 and this is now the part when I talk about the place I’m staying at.

It’s called All suits Home located just off this highway somewhere. It a small building of apartments or studio apartments as they call them, as you enter on you right is a small kitchen complete with a stove, chimney, fridge and all the crockery and you can need. As you move down further there is the room, its got a cosy little bed, a table with two chairs a couple of lamps, a useless TV that only has French channels and attached to that is a bathroom. Small little place much bigger than our hostel rooms much smaller than my room at home, comfortable place to live in for a month.    

Anyway I had promised some people that id post something tonight therefore I am completing this post before I sleep even though I am quite tiered, today was Friday night so I insisted on going out somewhere, at first I decided to go to Bordeuax center but then it hit me and I’m glad it did that I could take a bus and go there but after 2200 the busses stop plying and I’d have no way of getting back so I just went to explore merignac the area where I’m staying, I set out at 1930 and got back at 2200 and all that time I was only walking. This is a very funny town, they have so much day time and they just don’t value it all the shops were closed the super market I found was closed not that I had to buy anything but it was just all shut, so for two and a half hours that I spent walking I actually did nothing but find a place where they sell bread and a place where pizza is available for an affordable price.

 

Anyway I started writing about this trip of mine for a couple of reasons, firstly lots of people kept telling me to tell them how my trip was and tell them about my new experiences, and I promised them that I would and so to keep my promise to all the people I figured it’d be a good thing to write about it. The other reason was… well if you’ve been reading this blog you know my ear theory, every one needs one. For all those who know me, I talk a lot, not even comparing to Bongs and Adhirath, and I need a ear and since in this place no one can understand what I say and there is a limit to what one can say on the phone I began to write it on my blog. People who read it I would sincerely request you to not act like these French people who can understand English but refuse to speak it, please comment it’s a sign that you’ve heard what I’ve had to say I have one more ear. It really means a lot, and for those who have been commenting regularly thank you very much :D please don’t stop.

 

The Weekend is here so i should have some story to tell

They call it a Dune (welcome to France Part III)

Having spent a good portion of the last three years in Jodhpur, a desert one would think I’d know what a sand dune is… either I don’t or the French people have an extremely warped sense of definitions.

Day two of my stay in Bordeaux, I go to work along with dad, he goes for his meetings and I go to my office. I’m given some work that I am doing, some time in the middle the boss comes along to see how I’m doing, she sits for a while and then goes back expecting me to finish the work by evening. While leaving she says that my dad’s colleague has invited me for lunch and I should be at the gate at 1330. It’s good, why say no to a free lunch. Come 1330 I go with them for lunch to this typical road corner French restaurant that are very expensive (I know they are on the road, they are in fact on every street corner in the country and they are all expensive, at least for me) and there we sit to have lunch. The menu is in French, I can read a few key words here and there but the majority of it was like Greek or Arabic or for all you know French to me. As for starters I just followed my dads que asked for some salad which was a huge plate of leaves with some tomatoes and some ham thrown in and topped of with a half fried egg. Different, interesting, edible and to an extent tasty also, the main course however I thought copying that would be a little too much, so I decided to use my French reading ability and looked for the most recognizable thing on the menu and I found the word ‘poisson’ which I knew meant fish and along with that there was the word ‘riz’ which is rice. So I knida put two and two together and thought this must be some fish and rice preparation which is usually safe. What came was fish… and rice…., but as far from a fish and rice preparation you can ever get. There were six different varieties of fried or dry cooked sea food and a small bowl of bolied rice, which would also be quite fine since they had prawns and shrimps and other fish that I have eaten and are quite edible only if I was someplace else like India or even Singapore for that matter. The trouble with the French is that they insist on eating everything with a fork and knife, now I could not for the life of me imagine how one can eat a king prawn with its shell on with a fork and knife or how can you eat a fish that is full of thorns with a fork and knife. So helplessly I ate what could be eaten, ate all of the little bowl of rice that was there and the shrimp and left the rest.

Then came back to the office finished the work I was given mailed it to the boss and then left with dad to back. On the way we decided to go sight seeing so we then turned around to go change since both of us were in suits, it would be a little funny roaming on the beach in suits. So we went back changes and then headed around 65Km away towards this place called ‘Dune du pyla’. From what I know of dunes they are humps of sand that have a tendency to shift normally found in a desert and are very misleading as far as direction is concerned.

Headed there we were driving down this road that seemed like a mountain road, lush green trees on both sides, clear blue sky some fir cones lying around on the side of the road and the GPS takes us through all of this and then to a parking lot where we stop get off and walk another 30-40 meters to see what they call a dune. It is a massive mountain of sand around 100 meters high and extending till as far as I could see. On this ‘dune’ they had built a permanent staircase for people to climb it. We went up and the scenery only got more beautiful because on one side of this dubious mountain of sand was thick dense forest and on the other was the wide open sea with the sun setting in the horizon. Then taking inspiration from a high spirited golden Labrador and a seemingly high owner we decided that the appropriate way to go down the dune was not by taking the stairs, so we half ran half walked half tumbled down the 100 meters of sand… it was fun :D 

   

Then we went to this small beach town called Arcachon which is a small peaceful strip of beach with a cool sea breeze. We walks along the beach for a while admired the scene and then decided to head back home.

On the way back we remembered that there are no clothe hangers in the room so we should stop by at some place to get some and we would have to do it on the way because it was already 2030 and most of these shops close at 2130 or 2200hrs. I changed the destination on the GPS to a hyper market that was on the way back (you have such a setting called points of interest en route) if found a hyper market called Auchan a familiar name so I keyed it in and we were on our way. Somewhere 25Km from Bordeaux it asked us to exit the motorway, we complied and then it took us to some town that I doubt will even be there on the map, through streets that seemed to have been formed by the last car that passed being. Without option we complied, and one second we are moving between what seems like two warehouses and the next moment out of the blue a huge outlet of Auchan right in front of us just like that, impressed with the system we went got hangers and some other stuff and it was straight back to the room after a quick bite at McDs.     

That's all for today... more later

Flip (welcome to france part I)

Hey, how can one tell when the vacations at NLU begin? The city of Jodhpur becomes peaceful, the net quantity of content in the world goes up by leaps and bounds and Adhirath starts blogging again. Now I’m not sure if he has started his internship yet and has got enough bored to blog but my internships started and its actually not boring at all, in fact this time my internship promises to be an experience of a life time, and therefore I’m blogging about it as it happens.

9^th of May 2009, 11:45 am…. I am sitting in an exam hall writing an exam on RTI which is the most useless subject known to law student kind. It was basically write what you can about what you know for three hours and we will mark you for that.

9^th of May 2009, 1200 pm…. I am a free bird cruising across the skies of freedom headed to the mess for the last mess meal of the semester; I got a call from Subhash, the 5^th year who is going to pass out very soon, he said he needed me in his room urgently. I obliged to find him sitting in the middle of what was once a place that looked, felt and seemed like Subhash. He was packing away at break neck speed and had a whole pile of books that he thought I might need sometime in the next two years. Along with that came a horde of other things that altogether made a huge carton full or articles that were to stay on campus until further notice.

Having finally finished packing his room I had to come back to pack mine. Relatively I took no time to pack my suitcase and a half and was ready to leave the sun bathed Jodhpur for greener pastures.

An auto ride and train journey later I was back in Delhi where I was welcomed by home and the loving arms of family, and the divine taste of good food, add to that the fact that I had the company of very good friends and that was something I really could get used to but this time I just dint have that much time.

I packed the bags I had unpacked and at around 2130 hrs I left home to go to the Airport, I was headed to France. Went through all the usual boring flight stuff got in the plane, not a great seat but that was trouble for the guy sitting on the isle seat. A few hours into the flight I felt like I wanted to drink something, a coke or my current favorite apple juice with sprite. I called for the hostess a couple of times to no avail, mildly annoyed with Air France I gave up on my drink, decided to go have a stroll. After troubling the gentleman on my right I went up to the back of the plane I found the hostess and I asked her for my drink. Her response will make a lot of my friends very very jealous, she pointed me in the direction of what I gathered was an open bar, a drinks counter with all the drinks you normally get on a plane complete with a stack of thin lemon slices. A few glasses of apple juice and sprite later I was back on my seat sleeping through the rest of the flight.

I had to take a connecting flight from Paris to Bordeaux and I thought I had enough time to make it from one terminal to the other, turns out the first flight got a little delayed and there was a huge queue at the security check where while I was standing with the tray in my hand my phone decided to ring (it was an alarm) making me drop some of the change I was carrying into the tray (thankfully) and at that very moment the security check person called me forward so I somehow stabilized the tray on the x-ray machine switched off the alarm and went in for security check, a few questions later I was out of the security area and was running to gate 55 only to find that the flight had left without me.

So I went to the people that change your flight and asked them to put me on the next flight to Bordeaux which they nicely did, also gave me a food coupon, so I had a nice croissant and some tea while waiting right outside the gate this new flight was to go from.

Finally reached Bordeaux and was received at the airport by the warm secure face known to me as dad, who was driving this huge shiny blue Citroen C4 Picasso. We went back to this place that’s going to be hostel for a month, more about that later. A shower and shave later I’m on my way to work, Thales.

This post is getting very very long and will get boring so more about the rest later.       

 

Laughter is the best medicine, but what when that is the disease.

This is a story about a time that was a while ago, about a place that was Hyderabad. It was the second time I was in Hyderabad, the first time being when I was very little. Now straight away to the story. From college a large contingent of around 14 students had gone to attend summons, the feast at NALSAR. It was fun, literally 9 days of planned fun. On one of these days we decided to go see the city of Hyderabad. Five of us that were free that evening went roaming around, first ate Hyderabadi biriyani at this place called paradise which is famed for its biriyani, it was okay, nothing out of this world. Then I remembered from my first trip to the city that there was a very nice ice cream parlour by the name of snow ball. Trouble was it was no where near where we were, but in the absence of any specialized knowledge of the vicinity we decided to find this parlour and have some nice ice cream. We searched till evening turned into night but apparently something had happened to that parlour in the last decade of so. Then we decided to go put something in our tummies and headed for this mall that had a Delhi 7, 8 PM, 9 o’ clock and 10 Downing Street we visited each and every one of these sitting for a few minutes in each of them only to get up and go to the next, soon we were in the mall outside with nothing to do, once more. Among the five of us that were there was V a.k.a voix. She was getting increasingly bugged that no one was doing anything amusing, she insisted that we do something, I really wandered what she meant but well that’s what she seemed to want something.

 

After this what I experienced is something both funny and scary. It’s the kind of time you think, was that not supposed to be the medicine? V looked up; saw a guy wearing a ‘Super Man’ T- Shirt. She exclaimed, “Supppper Maan” and burst out laughing. It was all fine for a while since her bad jokes are legendary. This however was different, she refused to stop. She just kept on laughing, for around 30 seconds I was happy, at least the whining about doing something had stopped, but the laughter showed no sign of retreat and after that I was wondering if that’s the way V laughs, for a long time. This went of for another few minutes, the laughter receded, but just as it was reaching its ultimate she decided that it was also very funny that another one of the five had bought a ‘thumbs up’ and was letting us drink it and the laughter went on with renewed fervor. V laughed for 20-25 minutes, I was freaked out. It was a proper fit, she just had no control over her laughter. On hind sight it is very appropriate, she wanted something amusing, she got her medicine, we got amused.          

An interesting choice

Hi,

this is a thought that hit me when I was talking to my dad the other day while walking our dog, Bagheera. It was like this we were discussing about colleges and their cultures and how every college had its culture and once a culture was established it would take a while for it to undergo a slow gradual change etc etc, and then he was telling me a story about how when he went from IIT, Delhi to IIM A, there was a cultural paradigm shift in spite of the 2 colleges being well IIT and IIM. he told me that in IIT the culture was to copy, journals, assignments all that. now when he went to IIM he was met with this Accounts assignment, he knew nothing of accounts, he had access to an already complete assignment that would surely get him an A+, but the culture of the place just dint allow him to pick up that sheet of paper and copy it, and he was not the only one doing the work on their own, that is what the culture of a place can do to you, after that he did get a A not an A+ but an A none the less. Then i thought allowed, if you had got that A+ you wouldn't be telling me this story, to which he said, a story i can tell 30yrs later over a '+', its the story any day, and i couldn't agree more, but like they say, the ass has 20-20 vision, we can always know the right in hind sight, so we will never really know whether we should do something simply because 30 years down the line there will be a night when it will be your turn to talk and you will have a story to share, a story that will make your shoulders broaden and make you feel six feet tall.