The one-dayer at Madurai – 4th Jan 2006

It was such a memorable day; I did not want to forget the events/visuals. So I thought putting them down here could be of help, not only for me to remember forever but also for you people to refresh madurai memories and get updated on how madurai looks today.

It was a one-day trip, well planned in advance. Though I had second thoughts about attending the marriage (should I say whose marriage?), I knew I was just fooling myself away from the inevitability of me attending the marriage. Pandian express on 3rd evening would take me to Madurai on 4th morning at 6:00. I had a return ticket on Ananthapuri express scheduled to leave madurai at 11:10p.m meaning I had a whole day to spend at madurai.

Events started right from 9:00 at Egmore station. As soon as I reached, I wasted no time to reach S11 and dumped my bags. Then I went to the AC coaches, AS1..AS2 … looking for the name ‘Aravind/Arvind’ on the charts. AS3 … and I found a bunch of names with Last name ‘Lee’. This could be it, Arvind’s family? I scanned the chart but found only Anand Lee. Ah ah. This is not the coach. The A2 .. .A1 … then oops … Unreserved compartment. No luck. No ‘Arvind’ on the charts. I went back to my coach and waited for mai to arrive.

By the time she came, I saw 3 people, and one of them had a familiar look. I tried hard to compare Arvind’s photo and yes there was resemblance. I scanned the AC coaches again. Yes I found a name ‘Arvind Lee’. Lee? Yes I had missed the name in my first attempt. I scanned the Lee list once again. I found ‘Anand Lee’ as well. Confirmed, I had missed Arvind on the first attempt. Seat number 40. Ok. I went back to S11. It was 9:12 and mai hadn’t arrived yet. How could I alone go and speak to Arvind. ‘Mai come fast’, I said to myself. The phone rang.

At 9:15 we were inside S11. I said, ‘Mai lets go and meet Arvind. I have seen him and his coach number’. We did not even plan what to speak. We went straight to AS3, confirmed the Seat number to be 40 and went straight in. Mai was speaking on her mobile to her room mate while she got into the coach … ‘We are now going to meet Shirley’s would-be now …’, she hadn’t finished. I was nervous. Seat number 64 … 56 … Mai was not finished yet. Made me more nervous. Seat number 40 and yes I saw Arvind; Mai was just in time to cut the call.

I went past 40 a little, turned back and called out … ‘Arvind?’.

‘Yes…Arvind’, he announced.
‘Arvind, CMCH?’, one more confirmation just in case and he nodded.
‘Hi, this is Vinayak and this is ..’
‘Niranjana’, Mai joined, ‘We are Shirley’s friends’.
‘Oh, you both work at Satyam?’, Arvind did not understand who we were; Of course we hadn’t told him yet.
‘No! We both work at cognizant’, I said. That was a stupid and irrelevant answer.
‘We are her college mates’ Mai saved me.
I could see smiles and laughs from his family members. There were around 10 of them. We didn’t know what to speak. And even he didn’t know what to speak. That’s very natural. And as usual I started blabbering …

‘We knew you would be in this train, so we thought we could search you and introduce ourselves. Tomorrow you might be very busy that we cannot think of personal introduction. Just thought we could say a hi … ‘ when I could not proceed Mr.Arvind took over. ‘This is my cousin Anand …. and this is his wife and that is my parents … ‘ but why introduce us to all? There is nothing more we could speak at that time. I knew I was putting myself into an embarrassing situation. So more blabberings …

‘Ok … its almost time. We have to go till S13’ It had to be S11 but I don’t understand till this point why I said S13.
‘Oh you are traveling in the same train?’ Arvind asked and others around appeared as though they had the same question in mind.
‘Yes’ we said together.
‘Ok, so meet you tomorrow…’ Arvind concluded. Thanks. Everyone was giggling. We got down.

I was sweating. But somehow it was not a flop. Though words did not come out as well as I liked, I was a bit happy that I will not be lost in crowd the next day at marriage. Then after a small conversation that lasted about 30-45 minutes, mai and me went to our respective berths. I tried to sleep immediately. But it did not work. Just as I was thinking the lights were off, and there was no chance for me to read ‘The other side of me’ I remembered that the lights will be on near the door. I went there and a policeman occupied the seat near the door. From then on till 12:00 I was in company of Sidney Sheldon. His life-story was as boring as mine!

I woke up at 3:00. Tried hard to sleep more. But again, nothing works out, as I want. I couldn’t sleep. It was 4:00 and I gave up. Resorted back to Sidney Sheldon. We got down at 6:30.

Now, I give you a chance to escape my story, but hey I will take you around Madurai here (with snaps): The familiar places of madurai and the marriage.

Sony Ericsson took revenge on me again. Battery was again low. It could get switched off any moment. My energy battery was also very low that I could hardly walk. My legs were paining as never before. I dragged myself to enquiry, and yes! Status of my reservation improved from RAC/1 and got confirmed. The coach was S10 seat number 64. I thought I could finish off Sidney Sheldon. I tried but I was too tired to concentrate on pages. The train came; I was the first to get into S10. 64 was side upper. I was disappointed. But that’s ok if I get some sleep. I slept immediately. I don’t remember whether I got up myself or the TTR woke me up. I showed him the ticket. He handed it back. And immediately I was doing my duty with all respect – Got up only at 8’o clock at chengalpet. Life will be back as usual in one more hour.