Young Writers Society

My goal has always been to become a good and sensitive human being. It is said that the journey to the goal is more enjoyable and important than the goal itself. This unique truth I experienced during my trip to Kerala.

I woke up on the morning of 19th April with a surge of excitement. A phone from Tata(grandfather) woke me up completely. Normally, it was I who watched people go while I was left with waving hands and staying where I was. Now it would be the other way round. Also the way of traveling was also my favorite. How wonderful was traveling and how lucky were the travelers! Thinking this I completed my morning activities.

As I was leaving our home, I saw it for the last time carefully. The green drawing room walls were as if crying and pleading not to leave it. I felt sad because it would be one and a half months before I would see them again. But the excitement of seeing some new places and meeting Tata and Amma(grandmother) consoled it and brought a smile to my face.

We reached the railway station and its sight astounded me. This was because I was seeing the railway station after 4 full years. There was a lot of hustle and bustle on the ground floor. I saw that hundreds of people lined up in the ticket windows getting and buying their tickets. These people depend upon trains for their various important purposes like livelihood and going to their respective homes. Look there, that person must have got a job in some other place. I think that’s why the family members have come along with the son who is with 2 bags .Poor son! He must have to listen to so many advices by his parents and relatives. But I guess giving advice is in human nature.

In the meanwhile Dad and our driver had taken their respective platform tickets and went inside the platform. The bags were heavy and their presence was a great help. We had reached there at 9 o’clock. Our train was to arrive an hour later. I thought that the remaining time would be a torture. But it proved to be terribly wrong. First of all the train was to arrive at platform no. 6 and so time was spent on going from platform no.1 to platform no. 6. Also we had to know that what were our seat nos. or whether we had them was or not.

Anxious moments passed before we saw that our seats were reserved and confirmed in 3 tier A.C. Then was the finding of the place on the platform at which our compartment would arrive. Funding it took a lot of our time and by the time we found it not much time was left for the arrival of our train. Pop continuously told me to remind Mom of taking her medicines. Nearby on the next platform, there was another train coming which astonished me, not its compartments but the people staying in it. They were different people with different complexions and different cultures. One person I saw was a foreigner. It seemed he was from America but his hairstyle was…well his hair was of brown color and it was not combed. Instead, it was tied in stripes and was very untidy. He certainly was driven into mysticism from stories of Ganga. The train named Hardwar Mail was taking him to one of the holiest places in India known as Hardwar which was on the banks of river Ganga. Why would these people go to such extremes to see God? I also thought about the dress of the man which consisted of an orange colored robe, a necklace of ‘rudraksh’ (a religious bead used in Hindu prayers) and no footwear. Do these people really achieve God by wearing these types of clothes? Many people are religious but they also have to do a lot of work. They have to care about their family and achieve success. Then can they achieve the feeling of God. These mystic people have left their families and come running to see God. But would God show himself to one who has left his family in sorrow by running away and then doing hard penance and thus hurting his body in the process in pretext of pleasing God? I then thought of a story in the Hindu mythology. Narad(a devotee of Hindu lord Vishnu) thinks himself to be the greatest devotee of Vishnu and becomes very arrogant. Vishnu then taught him a lesson by proving to him that a hard-working farmer who prayed to him thrice a day was a greater devotee than Narad. Thinking of this made the looks of these sadhus (mystic people) amusing to me.

The train was coming and I was excited. This was the train through which I was going to meet my friends, relatives and new places. For me this train was a more than a means of going to a particular place. It was a dream, a dream that was going to come true. The long journey ensured ever-changing landscapes which I loved. Our seats were with a family of 3 other people. They were a jolly lot from Rajkot and behaved like true Saurashtrians. They were happy people. They consisted of a father, mother, and a daughter. She had completed her HSc(12th) exams. She was going to go into engineering to which her parents had full support. This astonished me because normally in our society, still it was believed that women had to sit in homes and not do studies. But however the times were changing, parents were becoming literate and knowing the importance of women education. This pleased me much as women were always on wane side of society i.e. their condition was not good. However these were good signs.

Now to describe the landscapes. They were brilliant. I would love a journey in which there would be more of nature and less of civilization. This is exactly what I was able to see. The trip of whole Gujarat was filled with fields and fleeting sights of civilizations in form of small houses and buildings and roads when we were approaching junctions like Aanand, Baroda and Surat. But the majority of the time nature reigned, though it was in barren form. Then night fell while we were passing through Gujarat and I know no more. Morning found us in Karnataka reaching Adoni at a nice pace. The landscape was barren except for a few trees here and there. It reminded me of the Konkan railway line. The railway line was considered as an engineering marvel as it passed through the midst of Western Ghats. It passed through small rivers, streams and forests. This made the journey a very beautiful experience. Also there was an added pleasure of seeing Mother Nature reign. It was very rare to see any woman reign anywhere.

There was a small hitch here and there due to signal problems but otherwise it was all right. A major problem was the food which was horrible. The food was tasteless and I did not like it. But it was my mother’s advice that kept me through it. She used to say,” You may always not get what you want. Thus you must learn to adjust to circumstances and behave according to it. This applies to all the fields in life.” I remembered this advice and decided that it was true in the case of food too.

There was no problem in moving further as the train was moving smoothly. There was a major delay in a station named Bhangarbhet due to signal problem but it soon was solved as the train caught it up. There was a shower in the delay and we refreshed ourselves by bathing in it .It covered the distance soon and we were scheduled to reach Coimbatore before time.

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