Mad Madrasis - stuck on the train!

Continued from here.

11th & 12th January 2009

Am off in dreamland when there's a lot of yelling and shouting, scraping and pulling. Passengers getting on at some other station I thought, sleepily and tried to go back to sleep, but they created quite a racket for quite a while. Morning came, and I peeped down to see Sheila sitting up in her berth with a scowl on her face - being closer to the racket, I think her night's sleep had been ruined somewhat!

Anyway, got some chai and looked out of the window to discover to our horror that our window was completely messed up, and we could see nothing through it. the grime was in-between the outer and inner windows and so there was no redemption for us. We looked to the other side, and the noisy lot were firmly ensconced behind curtains that never opened that whole day!

I am sure you will not believe this, but the lady on that berth did not show her face that whole day. So what, you say? Well, she had a three-year old son who was busy running the corridors and she kept shouting instructions to him all the time, from behind that curtain! Our faces were not that bad looking, we thought!! AND WE HAD NO VIEW OF THE COUNTRYSIDE!!

So, I took refuge in Rushdie's Enchantress of Florence, and was magically transported to Fatehpur Sikri and the land of Akbar. Lunch time and we were at Nagpur, and did the customary thing of buying santras - oranges. Lovely, juicy ones though they did not look promising from the outside.

Itarsi in the evening, and then we ground to a halt....and the bad news percolated through the coaches. Goods train derailed...train being rerouted....long delays...Even then we did not realise what it would mean. We groaned at the thought of maybe a four hour delay, but also were secretly pleased since it meant that we did not have to get off at Mathura at the scheduled 2:45am, but at a more civilised, warmer hour.

It turned out that we were being re-routed around Hoshangabad in a kind of rectangle, going east to Khatni (where we stood for four hours), before coming back to Bina (which is on the original GT line.   So we trundled along for the whole of 12th, when we should have been inside the sanctuary. We had all the time in the world to be social.  There was a family also returning to Mathura, where the couple had jobs currently.  They could not believe that we were travelling all this distance to go to see some birds. The man looked at me pityingly and remarked how he had gone last winter, and only saw crows!

By afternoon desperation had set in. I purchased a Rs 20 version of Ludo, and we foursome played for something like 2 hours, with Arun very deliberately esuring that we were all sent back to the starting blocks again and again. The delay was so long that even the lady-behind-the-screen emerged! Her little boy, noisy and full of josh, was alternatively khatti with us and meeti!  But we got so fond of him, that we bid him a fond farewell that night before he went to bed!

Finally, when we did get to MTJ, it was 12:30 am on 13th - a 22 hour delay, which meant that we had been on that train for something like 53 hours! An aromatic, sleepy and relieved bunch we were when we did get off.

Saras at Bharatpur

A huge bus carried us all to Bharatpur, about an hour away, and we dozed fitfully, unable to see anything out of the windows. e stumbled out and into the hotel, as Vijay had already allotted rooms and roommates. I was to share with Divya, while Raji and Sheila occupied the room next door.

Saras is an RTDC hotel, and given some of the places we have stayed in earlier, this was the height of luxury, a nice large room, and more importantly, a clean bathroom!
The hotel from across the road, as seen in the morning light
A standard, non-AC room

Our bathroom!
Determinedly, Divya and I braved the cold and had a warm bath at
2am!! The warmth of the bath deceived me, and I got into bed insufficiently covered, and had to get up, shivering, put on more layers before sneaking back under the rug.

6am: Thud, thud thud went someone on the door. Open up to find a smiling Rajput with a tray full of steaming tea, "Good morning madam, aapki chai!" Sigh! I envied Divya as she slept through all of it, and woke up only on my persistent and vigorous efforts!

The only good thing was that we were bathed and clean, and so felt very virtuous as compared to the other sleepyheads who were looking to have a morning bath before we set off for the sanctuary at 8:30. A late start was the concession for the first day.

Biking adventures, up next!