Travel Travails. Review on Bokaro, Alleppy Express

I travel - not as much as a corporate executive, but enough to be spending a fourth of my husband’s annual income on tickets. I prefer traveling easy and although flying is the easiest mode of travel, in India it is still very expensive and largely considered a luxury. So I travel by train. If one expects a train journey to be leisurely and pleasant, the myth is completely shattered by one of the world’s largest rail services. I made one such journey from Visakhapatnam, in Andhra Pradesh, to Cochin, in Kerala by train number 8689 – the Bokaro-Alleppy Express.

Once my reservation was confirmed, I was chided by my malayali friends for choosing a train that is (in) famous for being late…. 5 hours on good days and up to 24 hrs on really bad ones. Apprehensions aside, I had no alternate because it was the tourist season and the other trains were heavily booked. Luckily for me, that day the train was on time on time, With my luggage secure in the AC II tier compartment and my favorite book in hand to accompany me for the 36-hour journey, I felt reassured at the prompt arrival of the train. For once my folks would have the pleasure of receiving me at the scheduled time. Because you see, I was famous for being late!!! I never arrived on time, whether I traveled by rail, road or air. The flights I would be booked on would get delayed or cancelled on seemingly perfect days. The trains would be late by hours, even those with impeccable records. The vehicles I traveled in would get punctures or get delayed in incessant traffic jams. My predicament was so unfortunate that my friends and family were convinced that I was jinxed. My mother (the laugh vein of our family) even accused me of delaying all the poor souls traveling with me because of my bad travel luck. So this time I had good reason to believe that a train, traditionally known for being late, and I traditionally known for being late too, would arrive our destinations on time and break the curse upon our heads.

In a matter of hours I heard more reassuring conversations. Some of the passengers discussed that this was the first time in more than 5 years that the train had arrived on its scheduled time. That was the approximate duration of my treatise with traveling…was it another sign? The TTE informed us that many berths were going empty, as many passengers had missed the train…perhaps unaware that the train had actually arrived on time. As we continued our journey, I slept a lot, read a little and forgot to eat. Sporadically I would awaken to discover that the train was keeping up the good work. It was around 4:45 am when I awoke with a start. The train was on a platform. The compartment was hot, as someone had turned down the air conditioning stirring more and more passengers out of their sleep. I stepped out into the cool dawn air and waited for the light to turn green. I was told that the train was already late by four hours. We were more than 20 hours into our journey and I was certain that the train would make up for the lost time. I mean this was the journey that would change my luck!!!!

In the next two hours that we stood at the platform, three announcements were made on the PAS requesting the driver of our train to leave the station. Finally, after the fourth and last warning, the driver decided to pay heed and we resumed our journey. Later that day the attendant informed us that the Station Master’s strike for better wages had begun at midnight, resulting in the halting of all trains at every noteworthy and unworthy, scheduled and unscheduled stations as a mark of respect.

The rest of the journey was uneventful to say the least. Train number 8689 arrived at the station more than 9 hours late. My mother laughed, my father ‘tched’ and my brothers cribbed. I hate the sight of the book I had carried and the thought of traveling by AC II Tier suffocates me. In the end, I did make a resolution though. I will never travel by the Bokaro-Alleppey Express even if it were the last train to heaven…because one accursed soul per journey is better than two.