A night in the train

After having an amazing experience of the tribes of Bhubaneshawar who had their own Bio-gas plants and solar panels fitted on their roofs, we reached the small station just outside the main-city of Bhubaneshwar. It was already very late and everyone felt very sleepy after around 12 hours of journey over the day. By 12 at night, everyone was in their beds having a sound sleep relieved of all the tensions and giving rest to those loudly singing throats of theirs. And then something happened that was least expected to happen on the journey. A boy named Piyush (usually found in shining red and black shirts) came running to all the boggies to “awaken” us from our metaphorical sleeps as well as our practical sleeps. All of us were shocked because no Indian train can ever cover the long distance from Bhubneshwar to Jamshedpur in 2 hours. And that’s when the shinning boy announced, “Arun, Lee, utho. Train is going for inspection.” Everyone was once again baffled and the laziness of the sleep was gone at once with a thought crossing the minds, “Has Jagriti Yatra also been targeted by the terrorists? Are we that famous? Did LeT really take note of this unique Yatra (by this time, we were sure that the Yatra is ‘unique’)?” Amidst all this hue and cry, we were told by some divine voice that you can use the First Class Waiting Room to sleep for 2 hours and the train was supposed to be back by then. The moment we came out of the train, our astonishment new no end when we saw the Bhubneshwar board in front of our eyes. “What the F**k! We are still in Bhubneshwar”, was the voice that I listened from very close proximity. And our fate had lots and lots for us in store that we were yet to explore. The First Class Waiting Hall was nowhere to be found in that haze of eyes or weather, I don’t remember. And when we finally found it, we realized that the room (not actually a hall, as the name suggests) is big enough to adjust only tens of us and not hundreds. Thank God that this realization came very soon and we found a cozy spot on the platform. And then there were a number of Dostanas happening here and there on the platform with people trying their best to fight with mildly cold morning winds and stretch their blankets to cover ‘almost all’ parts of the body. And true to the spirit of the Yatra, train was back on the track in just five and a half hours at 7:30 in the morning. But this gave me a chance to accompany our Bengali-Bihari friend Siddharth to the nearby dhaba and have his favorite Bengali mithai whose name I don’t remember any more because of its complicacy.

That’s how we spent one of those memorable nights in the train during the Yatra. It was amazing experience to see 350 young people from across India enthused with the potential and motivation to change the country, brought together by Jagriti Yatra and made to sleep on the platform of Bhubneshwar!

Jokes apart, I really enjoyed that experience and I know that you’ve similar feelings about the Yatra.

Yaaro chalo, badalne ki rut hai,Yaaro chalo, sanwarne ki rut hai…