A Journey Home, Almost Through Hell...

20^th Jan 2011; Start of my 10 days leave after October 2010. I was really looking forward to it. Thanks to the Maoists who caused the trains on the route through Kharagpur, Rourkela to be delayed, due to which my train which was scheduled at 8.15pm on 20^th Jan, was going to start at 5.30am on the next day. It was difficult to get a transport late at night so we decided to reach the station at 1am and then wait till 5.30am; didn’t have a choice. After the party on a night before I had spent a sleepless night packing up my luggage; I was going to have another sleepless night on the platform and it was going to be followed with another one such night since I would reach Dhamangaon around 2-3am. I absolutely loved this thought!

Finally the train arrived at 5am. I and Bhavik got in; we had seats in the different bogies. The moment I found my seat, I slept; that’s what I needed. Don’t know when the train started, all I remember is that I got up at 1pm, looked around to check where the train was and sat back in my place hoping some ‘Chaiwala’ would come. Finally I got one and the train continued. The journey was really boring and the thought that I had lost a lot of time due to the delay in departure from Kolkata added to it.

After having dinner, I was thinking that within a few hours more, I will be in Dhamangaon and from there in an hour at Home. God knows if I was cheering myself up or whatever, I just wanted to get home. After Wardha passed at 1.30am, Dhamangaon was the next station. I and Bhavik were standing at the door waiting for it. I had told dad not to come so late at night so I had to look for a transport to reach Yavatmal from Dhamangaon. In the happiness of reaching there, I had forgotten that I won’t be able to meet Bhavik for a long time now as he had taken transfer to Pune. After giving him a big hug, I got down from the train. Mission was partially accomplished, home was just hour away. An hour was like going to Hinjewadi from Karve Nagar in heavy traffic via bypass. It sounded very comfortable looking at it that way.

“Haan Bhaiya Yavatmal hai kya?” shouted a man; probably the guy who owned the Maruti Omni that I was looking at. I nodded and got into the car. Now I just had to wait till a few more people come in. They came…..off we went. When we started, it was 3.00am, it was dark and cold like it was 9-10 degrees. Just after we left Dhamangaon like after 15-20 minutes, the driver stopped the car in the middle of the forest and got out to look at the left sidewala front tyre. “Tyre baith gaya (punctured)”,  said the driver……."Kya kismat hai", "Iski Maa ki", "What the fuck", "Lag gaye"……….Choose whatever line you like the most….but the feeling I had can be expressed in none. We all got down as he searched for the carjack and all that only to realize that he didn’t have the carjack. Now my frustration had no limits……3.20am….all we could do was wait for some car to come and take the carjack from them.

A car in the middle of the forest, 7 men and a punctured tyre which wasn't gonna be repaired until we find a carjack….thankfully, after 5 mins passed, a car came. The driver took the jack and I took a sigh of relief….it was going to be done and then we were going to start. He started taking out the screws and was at the same time setting up the carjack to support it. Soon he realized that the jack was not of the height to support the tyre. He told us that and we realized that we were at the same position that we were before we got the carjack. Now the driver said, you all lift the car and I will take out the punctured tyre and replace it with the better one. For the first time I took a look at people who were in the car to find out how much efforts were required from my side. Everyone looked equally eager to get home & that’s what was required. We lifted the car with all the power we had, he took out the punctured tyre. When he tried to put the other tyre, he wanted us to lift the car a bit more, we gave it a little more push and he said a bit more….after 2-3 such pushes, he was finally able to put the tyre and tighten the screws. After that was done I took a bigger sigh of relief hoping that nothing else can go wrong now. After he tightened the screws of the tyre, we all sat in and started once again, 3.45am…..In between lifting the car, dad had called twice, so I called him back saying that I will be home in an hour. An hour would be enough to get home and relax. But wait....what was happening? Things had got even worse now....When the car gained some speed, all of us were feeling like we were doing belly dancing. "Gaadi lehera rahi hai" that’s what the driver said. "Ajab leher hai" I thought ……….."ab sach me phat gayi thi". I asked the driver to please check if anything can be done, he got out and checked once again if any screws were loose. Bhaiya dheere dheere chalao koi jaldi nahi hai……Mujhe ghar zinda pohochna hai…..it was me who said this…..Me……who was probably the most eager person to go home…..we didn’t go beyond 40kmph…crossed the ghat at that speed and I was feeling like we had achieved something really huge.

Throughout the way, I was praying for nothing else to go wrong, for God’s sake. After I saw my town emerging out of the woods, I probably had the same feeling that the Indian soldiers must have had when they conquered Kargil. The car came to a halt and I got down, looked at the watch which said 5.30am…we had taken almost one and a half hour to reach Yavatmal. On the way back home in the auto, I decided to write this post to narrate this experience. It must have sounded a bit usual or not very scary to some of you who have experienced bigger things than this…for those who thought that way, here’s something to shut your mouth…..( I would like to thank the dialogue writer of ‘No One Killed Jessica’ to have written this dialogue that suits my situation)…… Waha Hote Na…..