Day Zero

Halfway to the office, I realized I’d forgotten my ID card – Naturally, that’s the last thing to forget about, but today was not a normal day.

You see, I’d been packing for hours…to select three T-shirts and a couple of underclothes for a three day trip to a place not more that 600 km away. Naturally, forgetfulness can set in.

And naturally, I reached office late – at 10:45. And at 11, I went back home – I’d forgotten to pack a jacket.

The arduous journey to Yeshwantpur Railway Station was a mini adventure. I waited 30 minutes for a bus to Yeshwantpur (“Naturally”, Yeshwantpur is so far away from our office that no buses will ever want to go there - It’s easier to flag down a spaceship to Betelguese). Then I waited 5 minutes for a bus to anywhere else in Bangalore. The bus to Shivajinagar was crawling along like a snail, taking more than an hour to reach there. The connecting bus to the station seemed to be in no mood to move. The driver simple refused to budge for a full ten minutes. Thankfully I had cut my nails before starting on the journey. By the time I reached the station there were just minutes to find the train.

The evening train ride was nice and jolly. Of course, SS seemed a bit miffed when he saw the train passing by his backyard. If this were Bihar, he could have flagged it down from there. We chugged along parallel to the road lined with flaming red Gulmohar trees, without stopping anywhere…until we reached Hindupur. And as if to compensate for the non-stop journey, we stood there for an hour, until the sun set.

The station was empty. No sign of those annoying hawkers who try to sell you everything under the sky. Locals were out for an evening walk on the platforms, and few of my fellow passengers joined them. The Iyengar family in the adjoining seat was in the midst of a lively discourse. The topics ranged from Shivaji’s court to Max Mueller to the phenomenon of Blogging. The elder gentleman was explaining what blogging was to the others: “The term ‘blogging’ stands for ‘board logging’. It is like a bulletin board on the internet, where one person puts up his opinion on a topic. Everybody else should reply to it and give their opinion!”

At 7:30 PM, we pulled out of Hindupur…and to my amazement; I noticed that there was still some daylight left in the sky. Perhaps it’s the same everyday, but in Bangalore you can never see it…Naturally.

At night we committed the biggest mistake of the day – we ordered food from IRCTC. We should have taken the egg biryani from the hawker…Naturally!

To be continued…