DARLING, BE DARING: My Rickety-tricky Journey

Excitement comes in good times. Hope and excitement are two brothers. When there is hope, there is excitement.

Last month, I had a break from my tough studies, and god, I have had never stayed that long separated with my beloved ones and my place. I had longed to go and go…and guess what time I woke up. The truth was, I never slept the whole night. I had a friend going to the airport from Bangalore. And it was he who needed to reach at 6am in the morning but my flight was at 9am. And sharing the cost of taxi would be just a matter of fact, I went.

My excitement fought the cool winter night in the airport. We waited for 10 or more hours. I received a message on my mobile that my schedule was changed to 7am flight instead of 9am. As luck may favor, or supposed if I had come late, I would have missed the flight. My friend was the god to me in this case and he talked about the god and human life in many instances. It was his lively discussion about the meaning of life, we had almost forgotten the people around. People looked at us with their big judging eyes when our noises reached them to some extent.

“Are we terrorists to get the beguiling looks,” I asked my friend.

But Abdul jumped to his good conclusion, “Life is like that, to look and learn.”

Our topics touched on many subjects like life, old age, meditation, development, India, Bhutan, and concluding with girls. One general fact came from him. He told me that girls were the real authors of all problems, and every problem occurred from them. Think. He gave me many examples and that I surely would agree with it. In between, we went to the toilet outside the hall two or three times. We thought that the toilet was better than many living rooms of some of our poor people.

By and by, it was 6am in morning. We went to the ticket counter, we followed the process, and the process was all in the procedure. I liked that, but I didn’t like the behavior of a friskier police to frisked thoroughly in a tough manner. Soon we boarded our Jet flight. We were in a different seat. I felt bored without Abdul. We waved our hands time and again. The man next to me was an old man; he slept throughout his journey that forced me to sleep too.

It was in a blink of an eye the plane landed at Kolkata airport. Since I had to change my flight to Bagdora, I bade Abdul goodbye, who will soon fly to Guwahati. After 20 minutes or so, I boarded another Jet connect. I counted the time, as I was excited to reach my home. One minute, two, three… in almost one hour seven minutes the plane landed-too long. But when I reached there, as luck may not have a good turn on me. There was a strike and no vehicle plied towards Phuntsholing. There were some Bhutanese, they said it would be better if we could go and board the train from Siliguri. And that was how we went in a rickety risky Rickshaw for 250/- each from three of us. We booked the train ticket that would be only after 2 hours. I banged my head on my bag. Why this day?

At around 5pm, the local train came. And... I heard the train would be the fastest mode of service, and who said that. That train was running at a snail's speed. My heart was boiling, and my mind was all incensed when the train stopped every one or two kilometers. I bang on the train to move fast as I have to reach Tala; my beloved wife and son. I banged and banged and I cursed. And two Bhutanese friends had another awful news that we have to take another one or more hours journey from Hashimara in a rickety risky Rickshaw. “Maro, Jadha.” I shouted in the voidness of the running train.

At almost to 9pm, we reached Hashimara. The two friends had somebody in Phuntsholing and since they had called that somebody. Luckily, the man was waiting with the Tucson car and the car sped made me gape with small laughter. And within half an hour we reached Phuntsholing.

On the way, my wife called me saying that Phuntsholing cousin would be coming with the car. I asked him to wait at Tashi Commercial building. My Indian voucher balance reached minus and it stopped working. Such a glitch in the critical time! At Phuntsholing, I waited but he was not in the rendezvous place as said in Tashi commercial building. I waited for almost twenty minutes and I decided to take a taxi but the last quick turn I made, I saw his car coming from the Gold building. The Gold building is no gold, it’s a rusted and ramshackle building.
“What is this? Mis-communication.”

We went to get my car. I shivered to drive after a long time. Alone, I started the journey from Phuntsholing, in frenzy and happiness to meet my family, I drove the car and it reached within an hour that usually would take one and a half or more hours. And the rest…happy ending…

Below are some photographs of my journey.