The 26th of May, 2009 & the journey home

Around 2:55 pm - a call from dad, he has never sounded this anxious, almost on the verge of breaking down. Mummy is really sick. I ask him to calm down and try to reassure him, but deep down there's a bad feeling.

I spend the next few minutes in a daze .... there's a briefing about an IIS related problem with Satish's website going on. My mind is elsewhere. Briefing over, Rajalakshmi & Rajani ask me to join them for some snacks & juice.

4 pm - Just as we are about to place the order, a call from dad .... I expect an update .... instead he informs that mom is no more. He asks me to come home and hangs up. I'm dumbfounded. Look out at the sunny afternoon outside the cafeteria windows. And then the brain takes over.

Head down straight to Pavan's place since I need a credit card. He's not there. Head to my place ..... Pavan is joking around with Mani & Manoj. Grab his hand & ask him to follow me outside .... he does.

'My mom expired .... I need an air ticket to Kolkata' ..... Pavan looks even more dumbstruck than I should be at this moment. In a moment he whips out his cellphone & is on the line to an agent friend of his speaking in Kannada. My mind is racing ahead ..... what after I land in Kolkata late in the night? Where do I go, should I book the rail tickets from here? In 5 minutes, he has it in place, the ticket will be in my mail. The flight is for 7:30 pm .... you'll have to rush, he says.

I go back to my place, open irctc & search for connections from Kolkata ..... damned site is too slow & pages won't load. Guru comes over & sees what the 2 of us are upto, oblivious of anything. I decide to junk the thought of booking the rail ticket. Call up Sid, ask him to arrange for a cab to the airport .... he promises he'll get it done. Head over to the printer to get a copy of the air ticket .... the blasted printer is out of paper. Decide to get it from some cyber cafe and leave. Pavan drops me home. The N73 shows 4 battery bars remaining .... I estimate it should be good enough to last till next morning.

Get into the Sify cyber cafe .... locked, shutters down. Rush to the other one near the temple ..... 'no power since morning sir .... UPS bhi kaam nahi kar raha hai' .... I'm well & truly in a spot. Without power I can't charge the phone/get a printout of the ticket/get cash from the ATM. It's 5:15 pm now.

Joy bhaiya calls up from Hyderabad .... asks if i need help in Kolkata .... I tell him I'll manage. He asks for Jolly's number which I SMS. Which is when I notice that the battery bars have dropped to just 1! The memory effect on the Nokia battery has manifested itself at the worst moment possible. Without the phone, I won't be able to contact the cab driver who'll be calling up shortly.

At this moment, I'm standing outside the gate of #77, looking around helplessly ..... when the water pump hums to life & the LEDs on it light up. The power is back .... thank you Jesus!

Rush upstairs, put the phone on charge & bundle a few clothes into the bag. The cab driver calls up .... as usual he has landed up near the 'traffic' police station in place of the parent police station which has been given to him as the landmark. But he soon has the place sorted & lands up in time for the departure. I tell him to wait while I get the ticket printout & cash. I'm back by 6, just in time to avoid the rush hour. There's no charger on the Meru Renault Logan & I switch off the phone to conserve whatever little is left since I'll be needing it for use in Kolkata.

The driver makes good time. Sid calls up on his phone via the cab company's call center after finding my phone switched off. I tell him I'm ok & will manage to catch the flight on time. The driver gets ripped off at a petrol station on the way after falling for the double-attendant-sale-promotion-diversionary-tactic-while-meter-is-not-reset-to-zero trick. It's amazing how a cab driver fell for it .... I tell him so, & he seems to have realized it belatedly. Anyway, he pushes 140 along the airport expressway past the Hebbal flyover & we reach well in time. He apologizes for the speeds after having spotted me eyeing the speedometer .... I tell him it's not a problem. It's my 1st time at the Devanahalli airport.

Jetlite is the carrier I'm booked on .... and the flight is 1 hour late. I'll be landing in Kolkata sometime around midnight. Inside the airport I try to fight the urge to buy something edible after looking at the high prices ..... but succumb eventually for a chicken sandwich. The one and only charging point available for personal chargers has been taken over by a gora using it to operate his laptop. 2 guys sitting next to me are talking in Bengali .... one of them smells of gutkha .... how I hate that smell. Call up Vini didi .... enquire about dad, ask her to take care of him, I'm so thankful they all are there with him.

Get on the flight. It reaches Kolkata at 11:45 pm. The typical Calcutta humidity greets one on the tarmac. 3 domestic flights - ours, an Air India & a SpiceJet have landed within minutes of each other. I hope to catch a taxi & reach Howrah by 12:30 am. But my hopes are dashed.

Cyclone Aila had visited Kolkata 2 days ago .... a lot of rain ensued & there were areas of the city where there was still no electricity or water supply. So the residents of those did what they do best in Kolkata .... took to the streets in protest, blocking the main thoroughfares. As a result, there's a mile long queue at the pre-paid taxi counter. I am probably in the 120th position. Each person will take at least 2-3 minutes to process .... and so here I am - hungry, feeling sleepy, tired, having lost my mom, not knowing what I'll do once I reach Howrah & a 2 hour standing wait to look forward to.

The line moves forward very slowly. News comes in that taxi drivers are asking extra for taking diversions. My turn comes at around 1:30 am. My taxi driver is as usual back in the stand & not where he should be to pick me up. He asks for a 100 bucks extra straightaway. I agree .... just get me to the darn station already. We travel fast on Kolkata's bumpy roads inside the rickety Ambassador. The door on my right feels like it's gonna fall off. On the way, there's a long stretch of main road brightly lit by Halogen lamps. I notice a long line of ladies of the night, along with their fat madams & some pimps as well. I wonder how they can do business so openly, which is when I notice the white uniformed Kolkata police standing at a rounabout barely meters away .... it's all 'legal' then.

Howrah station looks quiet at 2 in the morning. A few laborers are working away unloading a large consignment. I look around & notice some counters. Head there, and ask for the reservation counters .... the helpful clerk points me in the direction of the main entrance some distance away. I enter & find all the counters empty bar two. I ask for the 1st train to JSR. He tells me there's an EMU local leaving at 2:30. I ask for the ticket. It costs Rs. 32 .... for a distance of around 300 kms. I paid Rs. 650 for the cab to Bangalore airport, a distance of 30 kms. A confused villager from Bihar asks me for the way to reach Darbhanga, I plead helplessness.

Reach platform 11. Wash my face, buy a packet of biscuits & wolf them down hungrily. The EMU's lights appear in the distance as it moves into the station. I jump into the first rake that stops near where I'm standing on the platform. No one sits next to me, or opposite me. There's a few tribal guys in the seats next to mine. They promptly spread out their gamchhas & go to sleep. The train leaves 5 minutes late. It picks up speed rapidly. A cool breeze starts blowing. I put my feet up, place the backpack on my lap & try to catch a bit of shut eye.

The EMU stops at every station - small or big. But it's just for a minute. And it accelerates rather quickly. Still, I'm worried about the >10k cash on me & the 3500/- Casio G-Shock I'm wearing. The train clatters on in the darkness. 3, 3:30, 4, 4:30. I awake. The train has remained stationery for an inordinately long time. We're not even at a station .... it's some place in the countryside between Kolkata and Kharagpur. From somewhere far away, waft in strains of music .... some kind of live late night concert ..... we're definitely in the eastern part of the country. I suppose it's some Bengali song .... but it sounds familiar, I listen more closely .... hell, it's somebody singing Daler Mehndi's Ho Jayegi Balle Balle! At 4 in the morning! In rural Bengal! I smile to myself ..... my 1st smile in a long time.

We move on. Dawn breaks. I spot signs of the cyclone's aftermath still fresh .... uprooted trees, water in the fields, but nothing too destructive. The train stops near a pukur .... I follow a duck as it walks into the pond & proceeds to swim across to the other end leaving ever expanding ripples in it's wake. A calming sight.

The crowds begin to swell. We move into KGP at around 5:30 am. It turns out to be a long halt. I'm running out of patience and beginning to feel irritated. There are no vacant seats as the train leaves KGP. Soon the sun is beating down in full force. There are huge crowds at every station. Everyone seems to like the EMU. Just when you think the rake can't take in any more, even more manage to adjust themselves inside. Very soon, every inch of vacant floor space is occupied, even between the benches. People get in with all sorts of cargo, some even have ingeniously devised hooks which they hang on the strong window bars holding earthen pots meant for sale in the city. I feel like Shah Rukh Khan in the train in Swades.

The heat rises ... thankfully I have the window seat. Every new station ratchets up my irritation level one notch higher. There are stops I didn't even know existed .... even though I've traversed this route so many times ..... that's a local train for you. Sometimes I wonder whether we are even heading to JSR or somewhere else. Finally we cross the border into JH. And an hour later we are at Tatanagar. It has taken around 6 hours for a journey I usually cover in 4. A huge crowd rushes out. An autowallah on the overbridge probably senses my foul mood & asks for 60 bucks for the trip home. I agree, relieved at not having to haggle for the fare. 60 is the accepted rate.

Reach home, give him a 100 note. He doesn't have change .... I'm at the end of my tether, ask him how much he has, he shows me three 10 rupee notes. I say lao with a hand signal & open the gates to enter the house. Sanatan comes out. I'm meeting him for the 1st time. Gives me the keys. Dad's not in. The house is eerily quiet.

There's a stack of chairs in the verandah. Dad has been busy organising. Chhotu runs out as I open the locks on the grill. I go in & put the phone on charge. There's no network .... & the landline isn't working. Raju bhaiya drops in like a god send. Use his phone to call dad & inform him that I've arrived. He can't believe I'm here already. Neither can I. It's now 9:30 am. I've been on the road since 4:30 yesterday afternoon.