MONSOON SOJOURN BY LOKSHAKTI EXPRESS
.
i was yearning for a change from my monotonous schedule from college. plus there was a big reason as to why i had to undertake this trip which u will find in the trip below. Stay Tuned.
.
They...
more...

say " Time and Tide waits for none " and apparently in my case it was Rains......and sadly ( i really dunno if this is sad or good but its been raining cats and dogs in Mumbai. Mumbai comes to a stop during monsoon and i was wondering whether this could jeopardize my trip hence SAD.....but i went to the market today and seeing the HEART ATTACKING PRICE of vegetables,,,,,rains are welcome :P )
I was to attend an interview for the Services Selection Board (SSB) for the Indian Airforce Pilots Cadre at 3 AFSB Gandhinagar, ADI. The reporting time was a horrible 6.45 am at Kalupur station ( Kalupur station is the alternate name for ADI...and to the best of my knowledge hardly anybody uses the name ADI for the station...all refer to it as Kalupur station.) So it meant i had to take an overnight journey to reach ADI. That also meant bunking my college as well but i guess there is nobody on earth who is sad for bunking the class. There was a frantic search for the train and with no trains departing from KYN and reaching ADI comfortably by 28th ..i had to take the longer route of travelling till BCT/BDTS and take a train from there. My first choice was the BCT-ADI Duronto but the buffer being too less…decided to opt for the Lokshakti Exp since it could give me a proper nights sleep as well. So tickets were booked. For some strange reason, I never book tickets online. I simply love going to the PRS. The activities there are engrossing and full of liveliness.
So the D day arrived. I had lectures at my college till 1.30 ( It was a Sunday but still…….  ) . So I had to make a dash for my home had lunch and did some last minute packing. I had a quick round through my documents and then was ready for leaving. Boarded a slow local from DI to DR and then another slow local from DDR to BA. Then had a long walk till the BDTS. I found that the train was yet to arrive and had nothing to do till it arrived. Ooops ! I forgot to introduce you to my new friend Xiaomi Mi 3 who kept company. I did not take a pics since I did not want to get into any trouble whilst going for an armed forces interview.
Soon the train was shunted to the pF at around 19.00 hrs..approx 40 mins before departure. My coach S3 was 16th from the loco. The coach was a 2004 make and was assigned to ST coaching depot. It was clean but the floors and the interiors were dirty. I settled into the SLB and then went for loco spotting. There it was a clean and shining BRC WAP 4e waiting to haul my steed at MPS.
At exact 19.40 the train hooted and started crawling through the points and soon picked up speed after we crossed KHAR. But we were overtaken by the Siemens built EMU and I was left wondering whether we would ever speed up. By now,my stomach started giving miss calls that it was hungry but there was not a soul selling anything on the train. So when it halted at BVI I got down and grabbed 3 samosa pavs…Bah….it was the worstestest Samosa ever…but somehow managed to eat it and then perched back to my SLB praying fervently that nobody would tell me to ADJUST. Soon we reach DRD..an unscheduled stop …we were left immediately and it was then that he LPs decided to stretch the Locos legs and take her for a ride…..soon we were blasting stations like Sanjan, and soon arrived at VAPI.
I felt tired now and wanted to sleep. Hence slept comfortably till I reached Vishwamitri and found that we are ahead of schedule. We were made to wait at the outer and then we were greeted to BRC. The night view after we departed from BRC was fantastic….There is a refinery across the tracks at Bajva…..and it was glittering like GOLD in the dark cover of night…what a fanatastic view it was. But the foolish yours truly did not take any snaps. But the beauty was etched forever in my memory.
TAAK! Before I knew what happened I yelped out in pain……apparently I had not properly locked the glass pane since it was raining and it dropped down straight on my middle finger…..OH MY GOD….my hand bled and I was about to cry….but gathered courage ..went to the wash basin and washed the wound….and slept again…..but could not sleep properly after that.
I reached ADI at right time and then went to the waiting room to do morning chores and then proceeded to the Movement Control Office. Soon the IAF people came and bundled us to the interview location at Gandhinagar. The SSB is considered worlds toughest military test. It divided into 2 phases spanning a 5 day period. The selection ratio is very poor…..hardly 2-3 make it to the merit from about 500 people. Well, I was a fresher having not attended any SSB before. I messed up during the Group Discussion and hence was sent home packing the same day since I was not able to clear it.
Soon at 17.00 I along with other candidates who weren’t screened in were dropped back to ADI. I booked a ticket in 3A on the same train. Food again was a problem. I was so silly that I forgot that food was available outside the station but did not go for some strange reason unknown to me. I tried looking at the comesum . The food looked inviting, especially the Chinese preparations but the MRP board sent jitters down my spine. I contended myself with having a light dinner of 2 sandwiches and then at 20.45 trotted off to PF 5.The train was already there waiting for me and a huge surprise was the 2014 made coach of CR !!!. This joy was shortlived as I heard an announcement in Gujarati saying that since a goods train had derailed at Nadiad, the trains were indefinitely delayed ( I am not a Gujarati but studying in K J Somaiya helped me a lot) ….but I was happy. I went to my coach and saw a family sitting at my window seat. Naturally I was upset but I broke into the widest smile, when a girl in the family offered her SLB….I literally did somersaults there…..well that was an overstatement but then the next thing I did was lock my luggage and sleep. The day had taken a toll on me.
When I opened my eyes it was 05.30 and I thought, OMG…..i have to get down now……we were departing a station and a look through the window told me that we were departing ST……approximately 4.30 hrs behind schedule. It was an uneventful run from ST……we crawled all the way till we reached BL by which we were a horrible 7 hours late….The culprit being torrential rains in the Gujarat..alll rivers had overflown their banks and were on the verge of flooding. Again I was forced to sit without any food….
The return run was slow and uneventful. Finally after a lot crawling and a horrible 8 hour delay…I finally arrived at BVI. Got down from the pf and took a rickshaw to the ST stand. Then a direct bus to Thane. Again my tummy gave out miss calls of hunger and then I gobbled the famous “ Kunj Vihar” Vadapav and then took an EMU to reach Dombivli
Thus ended my 40 hour journey. Thanks for your patience and for enduring the ghastly typos I make. 