Prologue: A request to the reader. Don’t let this reach my mom. She’ll kill me if she knows I was sunbathing when I ought to have been worrying about my MBA interviews
I. Konkan Railway
"You have traveled through 31 hours of a grueling train journey, and have gone through a thousand questions you might be asked in an all important interview the next Day, each question as agonizing as only the next one. When you finally think you have made it to the last leg of the damn journey and thank God for that, just then, the train’s engine breaks down. How would YOU feel?" I shot at Chandan, out of frustration.
"Delightful. Blissful." says Chandan.
And I knew he was right as I stared down the lush green valley laden with vast spreads of Mango Trees. The morning sun made it look like one of those postcard dream-locations. Right down the valley a seasonal river curled through the mountains, like a sleek serpent disappearing into the bushes and rocks, the water in it, extremely placid. The only sound one could hear was the friendly banter of a group of friends in the next compartment, apart from that utter silence prevailed. No. Utter peace. We were in Ratnagiri, the Mango capital famous for its legendary Alphonso mangoes. It was only when I woke up this morning that I realized the place was not just about Mangoes. And the spot where our Engine, fortunately, chose to break down made it look even more fulfilling.
Chandan is a chap from Delhi. We met in the train the day before only, when he boarded from Godhra. We have been friends since. I am from Jaipur.
As the train finally moved after a wait of two hours, we started discussing the Konkan Railway. Chandan and I were going to Udupi, the temple town in Karnataka to appear for some educational interviews. And, well, at least for the moment we had forgotten all about careers and interview techniques. What would you do, after all, when you find yourself on a mountain top trek IN A TRAIN, where the tracks coil through a maze of more then 50 tunnels and over an equal number of valleys? Each time we relaxed feeling this one was the last of those tunnels another one engulfed us with its sudden ghoulish shriek. But it was not scary. It filled us with awe. It is a project one of the world’s leading consultancy firms declared unfeasible altogether. And we were watching it materialized and in fact were treading on it. We already felt this was a journey of a lifetime but as we later found out, this was only the beginning...
As we reached the southern borders of Maharashtra, the train began to descend. The high hillocks disappeared and the river (I really don’t know whether it was the same little stream or was it a web of small rivers) that seemed too distant and fearfully deep down the valley suddenly appeared within an arm’s reach. We hit the state of GOA. It was about 2:00 in the afternoon and we were wondering how late would we get because of that little snag with the engine that suddenly the whole train buzzed up with activity. Somebody told me we would soon reach Thivam, the first railway station in Goa. As soon as the train crawled into the station I understood why the entire buzz. The station was loaded with people battle ready. Clad in their best beachwear with surfboards and volleyballs, foreigners and Indians alike, got off the train as yet another hilltop station peered down a small countryside road disappearing into the horizon. Somewhere down there, I wondered, would be the legendary beach of Goa. And there it was, a signboard on the station told us as much. It mentioned several famous beauties and their distance in twenties (kilometers). "Twenties", my heart gave me a jolt. I was within walking distance (if you consider the 2200+ kms I had covered from Jaipur in the last 25 hours) of the best place on earth and was not going there. Well while I mused, and considered, seriously, making a move towards one of them beaches, the train started to move, solving the dilemma for me. I remembered the famous lines "The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep", and wondered whether Robert Frost had considered my trip to Udupi before writing them.
Margoa or Margao as they call it there was uneventful, but it was easily the best-maintained station of India. The newly laid Skybus route could be seen from the station and assured us that the Delhi Metro and Konkan Railway (Incidentally architecture-d by the same person) are not flukes but a part of the nationwide infrastructure revolution.
The train halted for a frustrating forty minutes at Margoa. As it slowly edged its way out of the sleepy station, we got a glimpse of typical Goan structures. The influence of the colonial era has not been lost even now. The predominant Christianity is celebrated in every structure, as is the happy-go-lucky attitude of Goans. I did not know what it was, the image of Goa portrayed in all those movies and rumors, or reality, but Goa did seem like a happy place. With poor but cute modifications on antediluvian car models parked beside the newest and the trendiest sedans, Goa portrayed a happily contrasting picture.
We were on the move again, I realized. The much-awaited last leg of the journey was finally on. Udupi was less then two hours from now and we were beginning to get restless, yet again.
The sun went down on day two of our marathon. The breeze was cool and I was beginning to wonder, how beautiful can nature be? As the train cruised through lavish greens of coconut trees and stark browns of the series of hillocks, my amazement only grew. There were a few things about this leg of Konkan railway, which made it absolutely delightful. First, the momentary glimpses of the Arabian Sea, which filled us with childlike curiosity as we raised our necks to the highest window bar to take in as much of the delight as we could. Second the setting of the houses in the countryside, where, each one of them was surrounded by scores of coconut and other greens, with another placid serpent flowing beside. The rivers were wide enough in some parts to be navigated by boat steamers, while in some parts they were a maze of thin tributaries. I realized later that I was witnessing a typical river delta. That brought back the memories of the school geography classes and how they described the phenomenon. One thing was for sure; in books the deltas never looked anywhere close to as beautiful as in reality. In fact they looked terrible in the books.
The tracks are at a higher altitude providing a panoramic view of the beautiful civilization to the passengers of any train. As we watched, mesmerized, a sudden desire to jump out and settle there for till eternity overwhelmed us. I began to wonder how much civilization was good? Well certainly life would be better off without the eardrum shattering noises in any metro, not to mention the choking city air. Do we really need the fast cars and air-conditioners when we can afford to live in this virtual paradise? But the question felt heavy and hypocritical. After all, the reason for this visit of mine was to be a part of that very "civilization".
Somebody announced that Udupi was the next station, and the whole train transformed into a hub of activity like a swarm of bees. I was surprised to see how many people were Udupi bound. The fact that they were all my age told me that even their purpose was same as mine. Also it gave birth to an expectation. Right through the past few days and this journey we had pictured an image of how Manipal and Udupi would look? The Oxford of India as people called it, Manipal had a zing to its name, which portrayed a town with ultra-modern facilities and metro-like lifestyle. That obviously was until we reached the town.
As the trained entered a dimly lit petty little station, I was recalled of the one, which had its most celebrated guests in form of Jimmy Shergil and party in the introductory scene of the movie Mohabbatein. It could not have been more similar to that, however the beautiful Preeti was somehow missing. The whole station had about ten inhabitants, who all are pushed into motion at the very sight of the train, not unlike a beehive disturbed with a pelted stone. The trite sight of coconut trees failed to cheer us as we wondered about the "Oxford of India". Udupi was not at all what we imagined it to be, it in fact it looked like a small fishing community town on the first sight. Where were all the temples of the "Temple Town" and where was the Oxford, which, supposedly was only three kilometers from the Udupi railway station. I was beginning to consider my decision of going there and by the look on Chandan’s face he was doing the same. But, we were going to find out, as always we had jumped to conclusions too soon.
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