Merry go round

            It was my cousin’s wedding. The baraat was scheduled to depart from Wardha to Rampaili village in Balaghat district. As it is, they had to cross Nagpur where I could have joined. However, I was keen to join the fun and festivities from the source to destination. Thus I decided to go to Wardha on the previous day. Due to circumstances I got delayed beyond the last bus timing of 11 pm, but was not unduly worried because of the option of riding on one of the newspaper delivery vehicles which leave early in the morning. When I informed a friend about the plan and asked him to drop me accordingly, he suggested about checking out the trains as well. So we stopped at the railway station en route. Luckily there was a weekly train scheduled to depart in the Wardha direction from the first platform itself. I bought the ticket hurriedly and jumped on board as the train left Nagpur while I waved goodbye and thank you to my friend at about midnight.

            The train seemed empty as I settled down in the compartment to the soothing rattle of a train journey past midnight. By 2 am I got slightly worried as the train didn’t show any signs of slowing down as it rattled past a station which vaguely seemed like Wardha East. I got up to walk around and perhaps strike up a conversation with some fellow passenger. It was then that I found out that I was the only person traveling in the entire unconnected compartment of 72 berths!

             It became an eerie night as I contemplated my options while the train rattled past Warora at 3 am in top speed. I was trapped in a weekly superfast train which was not going to stop anywhere before Ballarshah! It was quiet impractical to pull the emergency brakes only to alight in the middle of nowhere deep past midnight? So, resigned to my fate, I waited out the spooky and by now excruciatingly uncomfortable journey wide awake as finally the godforsaken train pulled to a halt in Ballarshah at about 4 am.

            Here I was immediately confronted by the ticket collector who penalized me because my ticket was valid only up to Wardha! With much trepidation I settled the necessary dues and walked out of the train station to search for some means to travel back to Wardha. I managed to hitch a ride up to Jam on a lorry. Upon reaching Jam at about 8 am I had to take the only available option of an ordinary passenger bus for Wardha. When by 10 am I hurriedly and harriedly stumbled home in Wardha I found that the marriage party had just departed after waiting for me in vain. In those days of pre-mobile phone revolution, I then laid my hands upon the land line telephone and asked the relatives to hold the baraat at Nagpur for me after explaining my predicament! Then once again I had to hurriedly board a luxury bus from Wardha to Nagpur. Where I finally joined the marriage party by 11.30 am at the Rahate colony square but not after a thoroughly pointless but extremely tense and exhausting overnight merry go round journey of about 300 kms from Nagpur to Nagpur!