Mom had already had her piece of turmoil to make it to Patna and now it was my and Dad’s turn to wait and watch how things would unfold for us (though we were mentally prepared for surprises, but sometimes no preparation prepares enough).
Mom had reached on Thursday (17th) morning and we were to leave on Friday (18th) evening at 2015hrs. Thursday evening was again a busy evening, with last minute hurdles to be cleared, as my office and dad’s client discussions on Friday wouldn’t have left us with anytime to even look for the lock and key.
So every nick was knacked till wee hours. We were so ready that only thing unchecked on our ‘things to do before I board the train’ was ‘* board the train’. By the time I and Dad went to our beds it was already 1am (but both of us knew that we were sleepless thinking about what North eastern Railways had in bag for us! ).
Friday the 18th arrived with a bright Sun. Things seemed perfect with I and Dad ready to kick start the day and finally wrap it up on berths in the AC coach of our train; with that spirit I left for office.
As our train was scheduled for departure at 2015hrs from New Delhi, we’d had to leave as early as 1700hrs in order to avoid peak office hour traffic jams (Yes! once again I had to take an almost half day’s off). My colleagues were already made familiar with the series of incidents that made mom reach Patna 24hrs late and so they were eager to follow my forthcoming adventure too. But the moment I shared my train’s name, there was a pin drop silence in the room for almost 10sec and then I was standing with raised brows and frowned forehead in a pool of laughter; same excuse-nist colleague of mine enlightened me that the train I had booked was the most infamous one to get as late as almost getting cancelled.
This time I had to take his words seriously (After all I was once bitten twice shy). So I decided that I’ll try to follow up with my train’s status before wasting another half day’s leave. It was 1200hrs and not just I but my whole team was trying to look for possible means of ensuring my train’s departure timings.
Finally at about 1420hrs the 139 Railway enquiry call center executive uttered my train’s number and the operators words were ‘train number 12402, Magadh Express from New Delhi is running late by 17hrs and it’s expected departure is 1315hrs on Saturday from New Delhi Railway station.
For that moment whole world came crashing on me. I was awaiting a delay but not as long as 17hrs. Who boards a train after that much of delay? What if it gets further delayed? What if it finally reaches on Sunday evening (Di’s marriage was scheduled for then) ? That’ll kill the whole purpose of our travelling to Patna ( I could almost see myself an Dad reaching the wedding venue with our bags in our hands when Di was leaving with Jeejs after marriage). I was so very disheartened that for a few minutes I decided to drop the plan to go at all.
But then I got a flash from my school times when my English teacher had once shared Albert Einstein’s words with us, ‘If there was a hope, it comes from east, it comes from India’; and I realized that being an Indian wanting to travel to east India I must keep faith.
With that Einstein’s hope I shared the scenario with Dad over phone and suggested him to visit a travel again to look for options in other trains; thus started a race against the scheduled/ delayed/cancelled/ rescheduled trains to Patna that could make our arrival to Patna meaningful enough. But at around 1630hrs I and Dad had finally given up and concluded that we had no option other than playing the gamble of boarding the train no. 12402, Magadh Express, already delayed by 20hrs, (as not going was not an option) and with droopy eyes and spirit I shared the same with my fellow team mates.
Listening to that the excuse-nist rose from his chair and said aloud in a filmy style ‘why fear when I am here!’, he asked, ‘you surely want to reach Patna in time no matter how much it costs?’, I said. ‘if it’s not in 5 figures, yes !’. And then he made a few calls back to back; asked my details and conveyed the whole issue to the person on the other side of the call. Once he disconnected l, looked at me with a smile and said, ‘cancel all previous bookings on Magadh, I have got you tickets on Gareeb Rath Express which is running late by 11hrs. It had to leave at 1715hrs today but shall leave tomorrow at 0430hrs, so gear up!’.
Whohaa ! What a moment it was! I was speechless! The excuse-nist had become the exorcist who had changed entire scene in my favor as against Mamta Didi’s (Railway Minister). My eyes sparkled; my entire team became cheery all over again; and as I told my Dad about the scenario I could hear a sigh of relief from him on the call.
The guy whose words I had initially blown in the air had become the hero for my trip and I couldn’t stop thanking him. The tickets were mailed to my personal email-id that I had to check at home, so things looked quite positive. With a grateful feeling I came back home after completing the day to office and to checked my mail anxiously. There were suddenly 60 unread mails in my inbox so hunt for The Mail was obvious, but I finally fund the mail and opened it with a grin to cherish the beauty of my ticket to Patna. But perhaps the planetary positions of the day had something against my blood pressure and the ticket played with it too. Our ticket had waiting status 50 and 51 which was not a very pleasing view at all.
The very moment I called my, suddenly become, erstwhile-savior to make him aware of the situation but he sounded confident and asked me to check the PNR status; and yes he was right; our tickets had got confirmed (due to 12hrs delay people had rushed into cancellations and many waiting listed had got confirmed ours being one of them).
Now I was completely elated. Suddenly, a train that was 12hrs late seemed to have got late especially to help me out of a tricky situation. Dad booked a cab for us to reach to station so early in the morning as to catch our newly booked train on time, while I cancelled our earlier booked tickets (ones that were confirmed 2months in advance).
Saturday rose early, even before the Sun, and we were on station platform at 4am in the morning with hundreds of others, many of whom visibly were waiting for the train for last 12hrs at the platform itself. At 0440am , we were on our berths and train departed from railway station for Patna Junction, expected to reach at 1810hrs the same evening.
We had left but there still was time to reach to Patna…
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