You can never call a day to be a happy one when your closest friend is leaving the town and moving out. But my day, today, had more challenges for me, than dealing with this emotional stress.
The morning seemed to be going great initially. My best friend had his train at 3.15pm....he was leaving the town forever and I was all set to bid him a happy farewell with a sweet goodbye. I had booked him a cab at 2.15pm and had decided to help him out with his horribly large amount of luggage. Well, my first mistake- should have booked the cab at 2pm instead of 2.15pm and not waited till 2.30pm before realizing that the cab was never going to arrive!
When the cab didn't arrive till 2.30pm, restlessly I did rush out to get two autos (one auto couldn't have had accommodated the huge number of bags and their awesome sizes). Well, thanks to Pune auto drivers. They never seem to be ready to go where the passenger wants to go, they have their own choice of travel destination! After a good struggle of 15 mins, I finally did manage to get two autos.
2.50pm...luggage loaded and off we went for station. The journey from Model Colony to Pune Railway station is that of 30 mins (average)....and we had some 25 mins in hands before the scheduled time of the train's departure. I could feel every throb of my heart! Tension was building up. There was kind of a mixed feeling here. Will not disagree to the fact that one selfish part of me really wanted him to miss his train, so that I could get to spend some more time with him in Pune. But then again, the practical and good side of me didn't want him to suffer (well, mostly a waste of time and a huge loss of money would be the highest degree of suffer I am referring to here). My friend and I were in separate autos and I didn't have the guts to call him up and ask him his state of mind at that moment. Every time our auto would get stuck in a traffic jam, my heart would miss a few beats!
3.12pm....still stuck in at the entrance of the railway station. The train leaves in 3 mins. I had almost given up on all hopes of catching the train.
3.13pm....just reached the station. The train was on platform 2 and we needed to travel till there (rather till the right coach), with all the bags. Hired two coolies and ran. I hardly remember the journey from the entrance of the Railway station till the train's entrance. We declined the staircase....coach number B5...needed to reach A3. B4, B3, B2, B1, H1, H2, Pantry Car, A1, A2 and then A3. It was 3.14pm.
This was one of those rare moments when you wished your train would get delayed by 5 mins.
3.15pm....we had somehow managed to reach till A2, just a few more steps, when the train started to move. I suggested my friend to hop up. The experienced coolies managed to get the luggage up on a moving train. I almost threw all the luggage I had in my hands into the moving train. Well, the first breath of 'phew..its over' just made me realize that my friend's laptop sack (with his laptop still inside) was on my shoulder. I surely couldn't throw this one in. It was a struggle to hand the bag ALMOST safely to a passenger at the gate and request him to pass the bag over to my friend.
No goodbye, no time for sweet-talks. By the time the entire drama ended, the train had already started to speed up. All I could manage to scream was- 'Call me once you settle down in your seat!'
Part one ended. Part two begins:
The coolies had to be paid. Thanks to all the commotion in which I had already spent out all the possible liquid cash I had in my wallet, I didn't have a single penny left in my wallet. I asked the coolies to follow me till the ATM so that I could withdraw some cash and pay them. As goes the famous saying -"It never rains, it pours." The Axis bank atm machine was out of service and the SBI one would give out only 1000rs notes (nothing less than that). I didn't have an option but to accept a 1000rs note. Now needed change to pay the coolies. I handed the note over to one of the two coolies and asked him to get a change. Well, here I needed to use THE weapon, which I generally don't like using much. I had to make a puppy face with a sweet smile before I could convince him. Sometimes I need to accept, had I not being a girl, the coolie would have only abused me with some slang instead of helping me out. In this case, he asked me to wait in the shade and went someplace to get change. I paid them off. Phew over!
Part two ended. Part three begins:
I boarded the bus from Pune station to get back to Model colony. The Pune afternoon heat makes it impossible for people to come out of their houses which resulted in an almost empty bus heading to its destination. My coolie had given me changes which contained only 100rs notes (of-course no one will ever give me change in currency value of 10s against a 1000rs note). I handed one of the 100 rupee notes to the conductor for the ticket. He asked me for change, I didn't have any. The conductor said -"Madam, mai kahase du aapko change. Fir aapko last stop tak jana padega. Wahase hi change karwa sakta hoon mai (translation- Madam, where do I give you change from? You have to travel till the last stop. I can get you change only from there). Well, probably that was the only thing left to have happened. I again had to make an innocent face and plead to get me the change somehow as I couldn't travel till the last stop at any cost. Again the girl factor worked. Before my destination arrived, he did get me the exact change and handed it over to me with a smile. Not only that, when I finally did get off the bus, he even did wave a good bye to me!
I had a few more things which I thought I would get done before returning home, but the entire experience told me that nothing doing was safe at the moment. Whatever I would do, would only mean another experience added to my day's list! I quietly headed home.
The morning seemed to be going great initially. My best friend had his train at 3.15pm....he was leaving the town forever and I was all set to bid him a happy farewell with a sweet goodbye. I had booked him a cab at 2.15pm and had decided to help him out with his horribly large amount of luggage. Well, my first mistake- should have booked the cab at 2pm instead of 2.15pm and not waited till 2.30pm before realizing that the cab was never going to arrive!
When the cab didn't arrive till 2.30pm, restlessly I did rush out to get two autos (one auto couldn't have had accommodated the huge number of bags and their awesome sizes). Well, thanks to Pune auto drivers. They never seem to be ready to go where the passenger wants to go, they have their own choice of travel destination! After a good struggle of 15 mins, I finally did manage to get two autos.
2.50pm...luggage loaded and off we went for station. The journey from Model Colony to Pune Railway station is that of 30 mins (average)....and we had some 25 mins in hands before the scheduled time of the train's departure. I could feel every throb of my heart! Tension was building up. There was kind of a mixed feeling here. Will not disagree to the fact that one selfish part of me really wanted him to miss his train, so that I could get to spend some more time with him in Pune. But then again, the practical and good side of me didn't want him to suffer (well, mostly a waste of time and a huge loss of money would be the highest degree of suffer I am referring to here). My friend and I were in separate autos and I didn't have the guts to call him up and ask him his state of mind at that moment. Every time our auto would get stuck in a traffic jam, my heart would miss a few beats!
3.12pm....still stuck in at the entrance of the railway station. The train leaves in 3 mins. I had almost given up on all hopes of catching the train.
3.13pm....just reached the station. The train was on platform 2 and we needed to travel till there (rather till the right coach), with all the bags. Hired two coolies and ran. I hardly remember the journey from the entrance of the Railway station till the train's entrance. We declined the staircase....coach number B5...needed to reach A3. B4, B3, B2, B1, H1, H2, Pantry Car, A1, A2 and then A3. It was 3.14pm.
This was one of those rare moments when you wished your train would get delayed by 5 mins.
3.15pm....we had somehow managed to reach till A2, just a few more steps, when the train started to move. I suggested my friend to hop up. The experienced coolies managed to get the luggage up on a moving train. I almost threw all the luggage I had in my hands into the moving train. Well, the first breath of 'phew..its over' just made me realize that my friend's laptop sack (with his laptop still inside) was on my shoulder. I surely couldn't throw this one in. It was a struggle to hand the bag ALMOST safely to a passenger at the gate and request him to pass the bag over to my friend.
No goodbye, no time for sweet-talks. By the time the entire drama ended, the train had already started to speed up. All I could manage to scream was- 'Call me once you settle down in your seat!'
Part one ended. Part two begins:
The coolies had to be paid. Thanks to all the commotion in which I had already spent out all the possible liquid cash I had in my wallet, I didn't have a single penny left in my wallet. I asked the coolies to follow me till the ATM so that I could withdraw some cash and pay them. As goes the famous saying -"It never rains, it pours." The Axis bank atm machine was out of service and the SBI one would give out only 1000rs notes (nothing less than that). I didn't have an option but to accept a 1000rs note. Now needed change to pay the coolies. I handed the note over to one of the two coolies and asked him to get a change. Well, here I needed to use THE weapon, which I generally don't like using much. I had to make a puppy face with a sweet smile before I could convince him. Sometimes I need to accept, had I not being a girl, the coolie would have only abused me with some slang instead of helping me out. In this case, he asked me to wait in the shade and went someplace to get change. I paid them off. Phew over!
Part two ended. Part three begins:
I boarded the bus from Pune station to get back to Model colony. The Pune afternoon heat makes it impossible for people to come out of their houses which resulted in an almost empty bus heading to its destination. My coolie had given me changes which contained only 100rs notes (of-course no one will ever give me change in currency value of 10s against a 1000rs note). I handed one of the 100 rupee notes to the conductor for the ticket. He asked me for change, I didn't have any. The conductor said -"Madam, mai kahase du aapko change. Fir aapko last stop tak jana padega. Wahase hi change karwa sakta hoon mai (translation- Madam, where do I give you change from? You have to travel till the last stop. I can get you change only from there). Well, probably that was the only thing left to have happened. I again had to make an innocent face and plead to get me the change somehow as I couldn't travel till the last stop at any cost. Again the girl factor worked. Before my destination arrived, he did get me the exact change and handed it over to me with a smile. Not only that, when I finally did get off the bus, he even did wave a good bye to me!
I had a few more things which I thought I would get done before returning home, but the entire experience told me that nothing doing was safe at the moment. Whatever I would do, would only mean another experience added to my day's list! I quietly headed home.
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