We visited to Bangalore in May 2008. Shrikant is presently staying at Bangalore and has a good job at SAP Labs. Actually he insisted or somewhat pressurized us to visit there. He has been asking us for long to visit there. For us to visit from different places at the same time needed some reason and lacking of this was only delaying our plan.
Pondi (Shailendra Sinha), Abdul (Abdul Mazid Khan), Sachin (Sachin Pandey) and Baikunth (Baikunth Nath Shrivastava) were from Bilaspur and myself (Jaydeep Banerjee) from Kolkata. They were to start their journey from Bilaspur and had to change train at Vishakapatnam. Although I had a direct train from Howrah to Bangalore, yet I preferred to travel with them from Vishakapatnam. Vishakapatnam is the junction station at which trains from Bilaspur and Howrah met. From Bilaspur to Vishakapatnam they traveled by 8517 Korba-Vishakapatnam Link Express. I traveled from Howrah to Vishakapatnam by 2841 Howrah-Chennai Coromondal Express. From Vishakapatnam to Bangalore we all traveled by 8463 Bhubaneswar-Bangalore Prashanti Express.
I reached Vishakapatnam at 4 o’clock on the morning of 4th May 2008. Their train i.e. Link Express was scheduled to arrive at 7.30 in the morning. As I had few hours I stayed at waiting hall. There I met some Railway personnel posted at Araku. One of them name Basudev is Bengali speaking. As Araku is a tourist place, he can arrange rest house and food for seasonal tourist. Araku is situated in Vishakapatnam-Jagdalpur section or more specifically called Kirandul-Kotavalasa (KK) section. Only on passenger train runs in the section in each direction in a day.
I had earlier toured Vishakapatnam, Araku and Burra Caves. As I had time I decided to visit Vishakapatnam sea beach. Basudev directed me the way to reach there. I visited the beach earlier in the evening and there were too many tourist, food stalls and vendors.
But in the morning, the scene was entirely different, no vendors, all stalls were closed and no tourist. The beach was scantily filled with joggers, people doing exercise, children playing. The bus from station dropped to a place near Taj hotel, and I walked to the direction where there a submarine is placed. Shrikant informed that Link-express is running on time. I tried to call Abdul or Pondi, but their mobile were not responding. I returned to station at about 8 am, and came to know that their train already arrived. i found Abdul buying sweetened milk. Also Baikunth was sitting at a place where the entire luggage was kept. Sachin and Pondi went to pay-toilet. I asked Abdul to go to waiting room upstairs for toilet and bath, yet they completed there only.
Now we had to take food. They had brought Puri, vegetables, pickles, and stuff for salad. We went upstairs to the waiting halls and had our lunch. Our next train Prashanti-express arrived at about 12 in the noon. Our seats were scattered. Pondi, Abdul, and Sachin were in a group, Baikunth in a different bogie and I in a third one. Due to our combined effort our seats we got seats in two bogies and only baikunth has to spend night at a different bogie.
Sachin and Baikunth took alcohol in the train, don’t know how they arranged and when they take. At almost every big station during day time we used to get down. At Rajmundhry, we purchased bananas. The seller hardly agree to our bargained price gave us unripe bananas though yellow skinned but hard from inside. Yet thanks to hunger which helped us in eating those. Beside Rajmundhry there lies Godawari barrage a long one.
The next big station, (I dropped some stations) is Vijayawada. We took some food and coffee there. Sachin and I helped a girl to fill her water bottle. She was traveling along with us from Vishakapatnam. She was going to Satya Sai Prashanti Nilayam (SSPN) and doing some course at Satya Sai Institute.
The next big station was Guntur. We reached at about 7 pm. The station was big and very beautiful, clean platforms and well maintained, well decorated. The interior looks like of a cinema hall. Pondi and I went outside initially and later Abdul also. The station is provided with many mobile charging points which helped us.
We went to sleep late. I was in middle berth and Abdul under me. Pondi was on the middle berth opposite to me. Pondi and I talked long as sleep was suppressed by sharing of experiences and emotions. Our train stopped at a small and dark station for about 30 or 40 min. both of us went down, shared and smoked one cigarette.
Next morning we all woke up late at about 8 am. Our train was running late by about 3 hrs. We expected to reach Bangalore at 9.30 am. We called Shrikant to inform about our late arrival. But he already had left his residence for us. After we reached Bangalore and after exchange of hi and hello we went outside.
Pondi (Shailendra Sinha), Abdul (Abdul Mazid Khan), Sachin (Sachin Pandey) and Baikunth (Baikunth Nath Shrivastava) were from Bilaspur and myself (Jaydeep Banerjee) from Kolkata. They were to start their journey from Bilaspur and had to change train at Vishakapatnam. Although I had a direct train from Howrah to Bangalore, yet I preferred to travel with them from Vishakapatnam. Vishakapatnam is the junction station at which trains from Bilaspur and Howrah met. From Bilaspur to Vishakapatnam they traveled by 8517 Korba-Vishakapatnam Link Express. I traveled from Howrah to Vishakapatnam by 2841 Howrah-Chennai Coromondal Express. From Vishakapatnam to Bangalore we all traveled by 8463 Bhubaneswar-Bangalore Prashanti Express.
I reached Vishakapatnam at 4 o’clock on the morning of 4th May 2008. Their train i.e. Link Express was scheduled to arrive at 7.30 in the morning. As I had few hours I stayed at waiting hall. There I met some Railway personnel posted at Araku. One of them name Basudev is Bengali speaking. As Araku is a tourist place, he can arrange rest house and food for seasonal tourist. Araku is situated in Vishakapatnam-Jagdalpur section or more specifically called Kirandul-Kotavalasa (KK) section. Only on passenger train runs in the section in each direction in a day.
I had earlier toured Vishakapatnam, Araku and Burra Caves. As I had time I decided to visit Vishakapatnam sea beach. Basudev directed me the way to reach there. I visited the beach earlier in the evening and there were too many tourist, food stalls and vendors.
But in the morning, the scene was entirely different, no vendors, all stalls were closed and no tourist. The beach was scantily filled with joggers, people doing exercise, children playing. The bus from station dropped to a place near Taj hotel, and I walked to the direction where there a submarine is placed. Shrikant informed that Link-express is running on time. I tried to call Abdul or Pondi, but their mobile were not responding. I returned to station at about 8 am, and came to know that their train already arrived. i found Abdul buying sweetened milk. Also Baikunth was sitting at a place where the entire luggage was kept. Sachin and Pondi went to pay-toilet. I asked Abdul to go to waiting room upstairs for toilet and bath, yet they completed there only.
Now we had to take food. They had brought Puri, vegetables, pickles, and stuff for salad. We went upstairs to the waiting halls and had our lunch. Our next train Prashanti-express arrived at about 12 in the noon. Our seats were scattered. Pondi, Abdul, and Sachin were in a group, Baikunth in a different bogie and I in a third one. Due to our combined effort our seats we got seats in two bogies and only baikunth has to spend night at a different bogie.
Sachin and Baikunth took alcohol in the train, don’t know how they arranged and when they take. At almost every big station during day time we used to get down. At Rajmundhry, we purchased bananas. The seller hardly agree to our bargained price gave us unripe bananas though yellow skinned but hard from inside. Yet thanks to hunger which helped us in eating those. Beside Rajmundhry there lies Godawari barrage a long one.
The next big station, (I dropped some stations) is Vijayawada. We took some food and coffee there. Sachin and I helped a girl to fill her water bottle. She was traveling along with us from Vishakapatnam. She was going to Satya Sai Prashanti Nilayam (SSPN) and doing some course at Satya Sai Institute.
The next big station was Guntur. We reached at about 7 pm. The station was big and very beautiful, clean platforms and well maintained, well decorated. The interior looks like of a cinema hall. Pondi and I went outside initially and later Abdul also. The station is provided with many mobile charging points which helped us.
We went to sleep late. I was in middle berth and Abdul under me. Pondi was on the middle berth opposite to me. Pondi and I talked long as sleep was suppressed by sharing of experiences and emotions. Our train stopped at a small and dark station for about 30 or 40 min. both of us went down, shared and smoked one cigarette.
Next morning we all woke up late at about 8 am. Our train was running late by about 3 hrs. We expected to reach Bangalore at 9.30 am. We called Shrikant to inform about our late arrival. But he already had left his residence for us. After we reached Bangalore and after exchange of hi and hello we went outside.
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