TRAINS, TIME DELAYS AND THE PLATFORMS OF JHANSI

In hindsight, this tour can be categorized as ‘WORST’ in more ways than one, be it the train timings that left us on the platforms of Jhansi or the pathetic organization of events at IIT Kanpur or the 70 different species of bugs and insects that kept running/crawling/flying over us in the store rooms where we were put up. So, plainly speaking, this tour had more negatives to it than you can ever imagine.

It has become a practice now for me to blog about a tour I’ve been part of. So when I sat down today to type out my blog post, one thing was clear- considering what all transpired during the tour, there was no dearth of ideas. But all cannot be put down. So I decided to take out 3 main things from the tour that kept coming back to haunt us- TRAINS, TIME DELAYS and THE PLATFORMS OF JHANSI.

TRAINS:

The Chennai-kanpur part of the journey was difficult we thought, considering we had to get down at Jhansi at 1 am and switch trains in a couple of hours in order to get to Kanpur. Agreed, that was the first time I had to wait on a railway platform so early in the morning but considering we had company and the local attention seeker who kept us entertained( in this case, the early morning alcoholic who sat down for a sip in the middle of the platform), time just happened to fly.

The iit bus picked us up from the station at the correct time and if memory serves me right, that was probably the only time during the entire trip that they didn’t screw up. Why I say this is because on reaching the campus, we were asked to immediately report at the ground for our first match, the reason? The team that was scheduled to play that game hadn’t arrived yet! Never before have we gone to the ground with our luggage and oh ya, half the team didn’t brush before the game! No breakfast was provided and the water that was left for us was also below par. The only good thing that happened the whole day was our relatively easy win over our opponents. The next day was an off! Talk about lame scheduling! :/

Next came the stay. 30 of us put up in a small 2 room flat with ONE toilet and ONE bathroom. After 1 full day of fighting and complaining with the organizers, the cricket team(14 of us) got moved to a new room which was no better. But atleast the toilets were good so we shifted. Not that we had a choice really.

TIME DELAYS:

Once again, the organization of events was so poor, the semi finals that were supposed to begin by 8 eventually began by 10. Stupid rules were proposed. Again we had to fight with the umpires and the organizers. Eventually, we lost.

The time delay came back to haunt us. Our bus from iit to the station was scheduled to arrive at 7. I asked them to make it 8 pm considering our train wasn’t until 9.45. They refused and said they had strict rules to follow and that we had to report at the gates by 6.45 and not a minute later. Strict rules they said. When the bus eventually arrived, it was 7.55 and jam-packed. We decided to let it pass but not before letting the organizers know how badly organized the tour was. They didn’t quite understand the sarcasm in my statement! Iit Kanpur! The future engineers of the country I thought!

The train from Kanpur to Jhansi was again hell. Only 6 of the 11 tickets were confirmed, we ended up sleeping in abnormal positions and after 3 hours of that, we landed in Jhansi.

THE PLATFORMS OF JHANSI

The fother muckers in Andhra who call themselves the TELANGANA decided to hold up trains as a show of protest. Our train that was scheduled to leave from Jhansi at 7 am eventually left at 2 pm, the 11 of us having spent a total of 14 hours sleeping/lying down/charging our mobiles/fighting for breathing space with creepy looking insects on the platform outside the waiting room of JHANSI station.

14 hours is a long time and we did happen to come across a lot of interesting characters, Be it the ‘swarna akka’ who kept demanding money every time we stepped into the bathroom area for something as simple as a face wash or the ‘wannabe hero’ I ended up chatting to who’s sole aim was to become a kollywood hero. Some more loose talk later I found out that he had an engineering degree in electronics and instrumentation and was currently on his way to attend his SUB-INSPECTOR interview! :D

The NEW DELHI-PONDICHERRY EXPRESS eventually arrived a few mins past 2. 1 hour into the journey, we realized why that was one of the worst maintained trains in the Indian railways. majority of the toilets didn’t have pipe lines and the few that did didn’t have locks on the doors! The train didn’t have a pantry car and because it was running late, it decided to reduce the halting time at stations. Since we were travelling in a group, we were able to manage with the limited food and water supplies because we were able to split the tasks of buying food and water at the stations. ;) as for the others on the train, god knows how they managed the 28 hours journey! :S

At half past 6, the train reached egmore. We said our good byes and went our separate ways. Within an hour of reaching home sweet home, this blog post happened. Truth be told, whatever I’ve said here wouldn’t quite do justice to the hell like treatment we faced through this entire trip.

If you are wondering as to why this blog post even showed up, I want people out there to know that just because we sportspeople study here on a scholarship doesn’t mean we get everything put out to us on a platter. We do go through things you cant even imagine. And ya we do live on to tell the tale.

SPORTS QUOTA STUDENT AND PROUD OF IT! :D

Oh ya, my laptop arrived home a couple of mins before our train chugged into Chennai. But unfortunately, it was of a different colour than what I had ordered. So it has been returned. The next post would hopefully be from my new lap.

Until next time,

Keep smiling,

Adios!