Yeah, I'm back home at last !! :-D.
And it was quite a trip. 84 days since I left home, I was back in Bhopal junction. 3 Tickets, (Just for the "to" trip alone, leave alone the return journey). Quite a wait it was, as I've previously mentioned.
The exams in the last week, the fear of the Minor-2 Jinx (We've never had our Minor 2s on time since we joined college i.e our batch. Each time it has got canceled and postponed.) Going to the temple everyday for the last one week, praying for a good exam the next day and for no hitches in the trip back home, it was all a very troubled period.
Especially the last two days, one being my birthday and the other the last day before the trip. I was not able to even read properly for the last exam because of the impending journey back home and all the thoughts of home, all though I somehow managed to do a passable paper that day !
Time Dilation I guess, each minute was more like an hour (Except of course during the exam [:p]). And finally I did make the journey and I am back in Chennai where I'll be spending a whole fortnight ! :-D
Well, dont feel like writing a lot now. Jus sleepy! Still tired from the looooong journey back home ! So here are a few pictures taken on the course of the journey.
PS: I don't take credit for most of the pictures. Most of them were shot by Manoj on his camera ! :-). Of course, I did take a couple here and a couple there but that's it !
That's my Birthday Cake for this year. A lovely one IMO. :-)
"Happy Birthday to Me" is a take on my Orkut profile name by my friends. :-)
That's Bhopal Junction during the wait for the train. It turned up one hour late after announcements for a half and hour that " Yaatrigan Krupaya Dhyaan Dhey. Train No. 2-6-4-2 Nizamuddin-Kanyakummari Thirukkural Express scheduled to arrive at 17-10 is expected to arrive in a few minutes on Platform No.1" Or something like that. Don't remember the exact words. The time kept changing from a few minutes to 50 minutes finally before the train arrived !
That's my train, Thirukural Express, rolling into Bhopal Junction at last !
That's us leaving Bhopal junction ! Around 6-10 p.m I guess :-).
That's Vijayawada Junction for you. Quaint little city with hills on one side and the huge Krishna on the other ! Awesome sight really. The station's quite good with LCD TVs and stuff!
Rolling out of Vijayawada enroute Chennai ! 12-00 Noon -> 28-9-08
The outer parts of Vijayawada Station. Quite well maintained with well cut trees planted at regular intervals !
Rolling into the Krishna River bridge, close to 4 minutes to get across the bridge ! Such a huge river it is ! Had a whale of a time looking out from the carriage doors into the depths of the river!
That's Airtel Rajdhani Express going across the other bridge on the Krishna. Great marketing by Laloo Prasad. The trains are looking more colourful now !
One more picture of the same !
That's the bridge again. :-)
Ha Ha. Yet another !
A miscellaneous Quaint little Station on the way.
Black and white. Southern Andhra Pradesh, enroute Gudur. We people were really jobless you know, and we kept clicking away like mad !
That's Yours Truly peeking out from the Emergency window while my friend snapped it from the door.
That's the last of Andhra -> Tada ! Finally. Around 5 pm I guess. :-). What a huuuuuuuge state it is!
And that's Tamil Nadu for you ! The first station in Tamil Nadu on the Delhi - Chennai and Delhi - Calcutta routes. :-). And what an apt name - Aarambaakkam. - Aaram meaning "Start".
An uneventful journey mostly except for the cards we played for sometime and the humour provided by two ladies from somewhere in the north on a tourist trip down south. They wanted to visit Rameshwaram and Thirupathi with the misguided information that Chennai is just 5 hrs from Rameshwaram by train (Around 15 hrs actually) and Thirupathy is closer to Madurai than Chennai (rather than the true Vice-Versa). She actually said this when the train was near Warangal - " Naariyal ped aa gaye. Madhraas aa gaya ! Yahaan sabhi jegah me sirf Naariyal hi milta hai" [:-p] (Coconut trees are there. Madhraas (Madras) has arrived. Here coconuts are available everywhere).
Now that I'm back home, time is flying ! :-(. As Einstein (or someone) put it, with slight modifications, "When you are in Chennai (substitute with your home town provided hometown != Bhopal) , 15 Days seems like 15 minutes. Whereas when in Bhopal, 15 minutes seems like 15 days. That's relativity for you ! " :-p.
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PS: No offence meant in anyway to anyone. If at all it offened you, I'm really sorry. Have been wanting to ask this for lots of time. "Hoshangabad" or any similar word is pronounced as "Hosangabad" by most Hindi Speaking people from MP, UP, Bihar etc and in the right way by most South Indians. When it must be the other way round, considering Hindi has 3 "sha" sounds ->श(Sha) ष(Shha ?!) स(Sa) when opposed to ச(Cha) , ஸ(Sa) in Tamil. And when the Hindi Spelling for the same reads " होशंगाबाद " ! Same with "Ischool" for "School" etc. Any idea for the reason behind this ? .. "H","S" allergy eh !? [:p].
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