The next day as decided
I met Mohsin and his family at Bandra Terminus, as the train to Udaipur was to
depart from there. The train was scheduled to leave at 11:30 PM. Bandra is the
start point of this train and top it the train left on time, so we were hoping
to reach Joara at 9:30 AM. Udaipur Express travels to Udaipur. Jaora is a stop
on the way. To read about Introduction to Jaora http://merwynsrucksack.blogspot.in/2014/05/jaora-introduction-to-jaora.html
Mohsin had booked
tickets for us in the sleeper class. We were 11 in all. Cost per head was Rs.
380. Not sure about the children, we had two of them with us. One being two
years old, so I don’t think she requires one, and the other, surely half
ticket.
There were more people
who were supposed to travel with us, but they postponed their plans at the last
moment. The tickets were booked over two compartments as the number of people
travelling was big. By mistake he cancelled the wrong tickets and again we were
divided into two compartments.
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| Bandra- Udaipur Express |
The train is not very
clean. A couple of cockroaches welcomed me on board.
Roaches in all shapes and sizes. I was scared that they don’t enter my bag or
my pockets while I was sleeping. The railways should work towards keeping the
train clean and we should do our bit by not dirtying the train with food
articles and paper.
Mohsin, Satish and I
took the seats in the other compartment. Mohsin is a big fan of trains. He can
look at an engine and tell you all facts about it. Amazing na.
Mohsin did bring along
with him, some beef seekh pav, i.e. beef seekh served in brown bread. Start of
the journey with Beef, I am sure that the journey will end with beef. The beef
seekh pav was amazing.
We decided that when we
are back in Mumbai we would do a couple of sessions of rail fanning. The term
Rail Fanning was new to me. Rail Fanning simply means to take photos or videos
of running trains. There is big community of Rail Fanners on the internet and
Mohsin adds to that list. Filming trains did excite me.
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| The compartment we were in. |
We even decided to stay
awake the entire night so that we could see the train change engines at Vadodara
station at around 5 AM. The electric engine changes to diesel engine. To keep
us awake we had bought ourselves a couple of Red Bulls.
As the train gained
speed, it grew chilly and so we decided to call it a night and went off to
sleep. We did keep our alarms at 4:45 AM so that we are awake when the train
switches engines.
Our alarms rang and rang
but we were so fast asleep that we could hardly hear it ring.
Finally when we woke up
at 6 AM, the train had left Ratlam station long behind. The weather was chilly
when we left Mumbai; it grew chillier when we crossed Ratlam, wondering what it
will be like when we reach Jaora.
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| Scenic view on the way to Jaora |
When we left Bandra the
train was packed but the next morning the train was 3/4 empty. I guess most of
the passengers alighted while we were sleeping. Now we had the train coaches to
ourselves, pick the seat of your choice and enjoy the scenic view outside.
It was foggy outside,
when suddenly Mohsin shouted, "Peacock"
Though I was sleepy, I
jumped up asking where. This is the first time I saw peacock, face to face.
What a sight. Sadly I couldn’t photograph it as by the time I could take out my
camera we had moved on.
This was totally
unexpected. I didn’t in my wildest dreams, dream of seeing a peacock near the
tracks.
Frankly speaking, I too
used to see peacock's on a regular basis when I was studying in St. Xavier’s
College and used to travel by train from Andheri to Marine Lines. Matter of
fact, is that the ones I saw were not peacocks but humans shittin next to the
tracks. A good friend of mine, Neel had coined this name for them. And it stuck
on. Every day when we commute to work we see them by the sides of the track. To
which Mohsin burst out laughing.
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| Photo from the Train |
As the train turned
along the curved tracks, I did notice the Diesel engine emitting smoke out. I
took some amazing photos of the train. The scenery outside was also wonderful.
Lush green fields all around with hills in a distance. I could see houses too
in a distance. It gave me the feeling that I was in a village, and I am
loving it.
