Destination Dalhousie
Sunday, February 19, 2006

This was again a quickfire trip. Manali/kullu was the place everybody wanted to go . The fact that we had only 3 days made the task very tough.I wanted to minimize travel time and maximize the travel comfort. Had we selected manali that would have meant , travelling 12-14 hrs in a car( after 9 hrs in office).I was sure with the bunch of punjabis friends, i was going with. Most of them would be sleeping & drinking the next day.I didn't want the 3 days end up in a disaster So I started looking for an alternative location.

I told them"Dalhousie" is the place . I checked the route and then went to railway website to see the train network and i saw a train that matched out time requirements perfectly. All i remember now was submitting the web ticket and taking printout the PNR number.The tickets were dirtcheap @230 rs each .The journey was from New delhi - Chakkibank( last station in H.p before start of hills).I purchased 4 tickets without asking anybody if they're going or not.I knew i was going even if that meant going alone .Going by train saved us 4000 rs atleast The trip was finalized and we were going the next day,I was sure .

And next day, 2 guys backed out . So we were 2 person and 4 tickets. I started convincing people around and 1 guy who i never expected ,agreed to it.The train was at 8:30 in evening and till 7:20 we were in office (the new guy went his home at got his stuff ready) and we're racing against time in office car. It took us 25 minutes to reach railway station from noida , It really helped that our office driver knew delhi routes inside out and we're in platform no.6 in no time . I took out the camera to catch the view around.

One thing i must confess, train journeys are very relaxing (the legroom) .You hardly feel the stress .The train moved in at 6:30 dot and luckily we got a whole compartment and there were still 2 seats left in our compartment.I took the window and i guess everybody was praying that some beautiful girl would turn up from somewhere and say the most cliched line ."Excuse me , I think you're on my seat" but that was never going to happen .It only happens in movies . Wish real life was that predictable.We're still happy that nobody turned up.Whole place was ours.

If you're travelling with punjabi's you can never be bored for a single minute. There were talks of office politics, the new beautiful girl in HR(pataka), the need for speed game (peer to peer version) they have downloaded on office network and then begin the rounds of adult jokes .I had to see around, if nobody else is listening but punjabi's are loud by nature and they have this " i-don't-care-a-damn " attitude. Eventually i gave up and joined in the party and then Nitin opened his bag and took out a pack of card and that was the first time in my life,i tried to understand and actually played cards (besides the Solaitare ) .

I was trying my best to see if i could capture something in night but it was too dark and train was pretty fast and it couldn't capture anything even in the fast moving object mode and finally at Ludhiana around 2 am the train stopped for a while . immediately got out to find any subject when this idea came on to mind . i wanted to capture the uniformness , the length of train on the right frame and the chaos,people on the station on another half. though i wasn't very satisfied with the result . I had to literally tilt , holding camera in my left hand and the train railing on the right . but i guess , the image could've been a little better , if there were some more people in station at that time. We didn't sleep for a while and didn't let any body else sleep and bang at 4:40 in the morning we're in Chakkibank (H.p). Thanks to indian railways and Laloo.For the first time in my life , i've reached a long distance destination in time . India's surely shining.The guys got off the train and started imitating the chaiwalas. people were amused as they recited chai-chai-chai with unimaginable perfection . The fun was about to begin . We were in Himachal.

posted by Vj @ Sunday, February 19, 2006,

2 Comments:

At February 24, 2006 8:23 PM, Shals said...: ok ! so its me first yet again. Not Bad at all i must say !!

Look ! I ENVY you ....TO THE CORe.

I wish you had invited me with tht extra ticket tht you had in hand!!

lemme know when are you off to for your next trip. will try and join you if its a short one.
:) Atleast i could try and take a chance ...... right ??

Dont worry ... i guess i will be a regular here ...

God Bless !!
At February 26, 2006 11:29 AM, Dawn....सेहर said...: WOW...I love the train journey....but here its so expensive.....awesome!!! The pics make one to visit all these places...

keep adding
cheers