1026 DWn Pune-Nashik-Manmad Express

Its been more than a year and a half since the Pune-Nashik rail service has started and with the frequency of my Pune-Nashik travels, I must say that I was late when finally on Saturday morning I decided to take the train to come to Nashik. It was my dad who gave me the idea to try it out, as I had time on my hand. Plus I was going to be home (Nashik) till Tuesday. So at the age of 25 years, it was to be my first train journey totally alone. Hope you didn’t jump off your seat, but it is really not my fault.

I must admit that I have not travelled much. I really can’t help it. We don’t have distant relatives (in terms of distance from Nashik). The fartherest (this word doesn’t exist in English language) that my relatives have stretched to is Indore. And long distance travel was always to be juggled with the holidays of my parents and mine too. Most of my summer vacations were spent in cricket and swimming coaching. My mother thought these would reduce my fat. Well they did, but now it is all making a comeback.

Apart from relatives the Borate’s (my family) undertook a tour of North India, where we visited Gangotri, Yamnotri and the works. So that has been the only feather in my travel cap. There have been a couple of train journeys to Nagpur, Mysore and one to Suratkhal to take a look at the NIT there. Ofcourse I never secured a seat there.

So the fact remains that with my experience level with the Indian rail I can be termed as a novice. The first hurdle of getting the ticket was surpassed with excellence when in the morning Neha got me my e-ticket. Atleast now I would not have had to sweat it out in the queue only to discover after an hour that I was in the wrong queue and then feel ashamed about my existence on the planet.

Another plus point was that the train starts from Pune. So I did not have to negotiate hordes of passengers getting down and even more trying to get in and all this happening within a span of 1 minute. When the very first announcement of my train was made I promptly made my way to the assigned platform, found my bogie and settled in my seat. I had just bought a novel to read in the journey. I opened page 1 and patted myself on the back. Nothing had gone wrong until now.

At 12:50pm the train started and I made a few phone calls to the people who should know my whereabouts. I looked around my seat and there was the usual gathering of passengers you will see in any second class chair car. There were a couple of hard nosed 45 year olds, who were stretching their legs on the seat opposite there own. There luggage was the cap they had on their head and the newspapers they were carrying to clean the seat where they were going to seat. From the look of it, those were the battle hardened Indian Rail regulars. There was a family of 5, with 2 kids included. One was asleep but the other was going to throw a tantrum. I secretly wished that they would get down earlier. Then there were the other type of battle hardened minions who loved to get into a conversation with anything and everything and in that they will make it a point to show off their knowledge about the latest timings of some of the important trains on the route and how they got it all wrong when they made Ranchi come before the Shatabdi and how the Panvel Passenger should have been a couple of hours later on the schedule. The scene was completed with the guest appearances of the blind singers, urchins who sweep floors for money, a passing eunuch and ofcourse the many motley salesmen.

The scene outside was breathe-taking. I used to just close my novel and look out till the horizon for minutes together. It was a welcome change compared to the road which I had seen a million times over. At Karjat I treated myself to 2 vada pavs and a cup of tea.

The scheduled arrival of the train at Nashik-Road station is 7:30pm. At around 6:45pm I realized that I should somehow get to know the station where the train stops just before Nashik Road. The train does not have a conductor who keeps shouting the names of the forthcoming stops and plus I wanted to avoid the last minute rush which is the primary reason for forgetting something or the other. I called up a friend and enquired.

After listening to his wise cracks of how I wasted my life if I did not know even that and blah blah….he finally told me what I needed to know. Once the station of Deolali passed I was in ready mode (mentally) and finally at 7:30pm the train halted at Nashik Road station and I got down.

Don’t know when the next rail journey will happen. Atleast with this Pune-Nashik journey I am awaiting it eagerly.

P.S: Read the latest Chetan Bhagat novel “2 States: the story of my marriage” in the train. After the disappointment of “3 mistakes of my life” I must say he is back in the groove. At only 95 bucks it’s an easy buy and an enjoyable read.