This happened sometime in May(?) or was it April? I can’t really remember clearly. I was supposed to go to Gulbarga to coach a few students for the purpose of campus recruitment. The train was supposed to leave from the Yeshwantpur Railway Station at 5:20 PM. The ticket was with my colleague who was to board the train at the Yelahanka Railway Station! It normally takes about an hour & a half to reach that Railway Station from my house. Unfortunately, I left home on that day at 4:05 PM!! I rushed to the bus stand & somehow managed to get a bus that left at 4:15 PM! This buy dropped me off at the Mekhri Circle bus stop at 5:00 PM. From there, I had to take an auto to the railway station…. None of the few autos there agreed to go to Yeshwantpur railway station. Given my hatred for autos, you can imagine how tense I must have been at this stage. I finally managed to hail a passing auto & requested him to really race to the station. I managed to reach the station at 5:16 PM & at this stage, I didn’t know what platform the train was on!! I asked an IRCTC shopkeeper & was told that it was on platform 3, which meant that I had to take the skywalk with my HEAVY luggage…. It was at this point that the button of my shorts broke!!! Clutching my fast slipping chaddi with one hand & my luggage with the other, I made quite a sight as I was running down the platform with my chappals slapping across everywhere (ha, ha, ha) I boarded the train EXACTLY at 5:20 PM only to be told that the train would leave at 5:45…… Boy that was one day when my tension knew no bounds…. Whew!

The return journey was another story! That will come up in the next article…