Catching up with sleep in the railway dorm at Jhansi and making way out of the crowd to see the next train was pleasant in the morning hours of the early summer days in the northern (relatively north for someone who has stayed in Mumbai and Hyderabad) part of the country. But the pleasantries shared in the next few minutes and rest of the train journey is one heck of an experience…

Chapter 5: Say No to Reservation

As soon as we saw our train, Tyagi asked – Maity, sahi me yehi train hai?
Me: Haan Tyagi, yehi hai. Tu humare compartment ki taraf chal.
Tyagi: Haan wo toh bahut piche lag raha hai, subah subah mehnat karwayega ye train.

Tyagi, as the above conversation suggests, is not a lazy morning person. He would like to start the day with achi khasi mehnat. What he meant was just restricted to the fact that we were at the beginning of the train and our ‘reserved seats’ were in the compartment that was just quite far away from where we were.
But Tyagi is a visionary. He blurts out stuff out of his mouth and it becomes reality on other dimensions. After brisk walking to the designated coach, we settled down in our seats. The scheduled time of departure was just few minutes away and at a hands distance was a kid with her father. He came towards us and asked the daughter to sit along with us. If you are regular in public transport in India, this is a common practice to share a seat with kids of the fellow passengers. But that was not where this was going to stop. 10 minutes past the scheduled departure, the train did not move a millimeter and the crowd started putting in to the train as if Ankur had invited all to the wedding. The seat share had just started taking the shape of massacre. After the kid, her father and maybe few of their relatives started cramping into the space. All 5 of us were sitting facing each other sometime back and in minutes all we could hear was voices. The stationary train made peace with heat and slowly Tyagi’s words turned reality. Claustrophobia started seeping into all of us and not just Aakriti and then the wheels started with a screeching noise and with that we felt the gasp of mild breeze.

At some point of life, every individual in 20th century has opined about ‘Say No to Reservations’ and yes in India, it is high time to re-evaluate the reservation norms but the people travelling in this train seemed to have taken ‘No to Reservation’ pretty seriously. The smart move of booking a non-AC chair car started back firing from the moment the train started to move and as the sun started rising in the sky, shining bright, the fire and heat was starting to make its place in the already cramped compartment.

The Train halted at Orai around 9 and by then we were hungry as well. Tyagi accompanied me to try our already amazing good luck in getting some things to eat and we grabbed chilled flavour milk to quench the thirst and fight the situation along with some packed eatables. The stop added few more people to the train and Kanpur (Cawnpore, as the britisher’s pronounced the city) was one hope in the bleak chances of having some breathing space as it was a junction. Also, the train would halt for 10 minutes there, so we can get down and stretch the cramps out. Cawnpore was my word for the day and I was irritating people with the repeated pronunciation of the long lost soul of the Britisher that chose to stick with me. Prachi realised this soul attack and chanted the mantra loud and clear – ‘Angrez chale gaye, Maity ko chhod gaye. Jab ye Cawnpore ki Janta hi isko phek degi train se tab ye sudhrega.’ The spell worked its magic with the heat and I went quite and also dozed off to see the train halting at Cawnpore, oops sorry Kanpur Junction. I and Prachi got down to bid adieu to the Cawnpore soul and had fresh sugar cane juice. It was heavenly in the heat. Grabbed few more glasses for our the gang back in train and were greeted to relatively lesser crowd on our return. The next set of journey was now visible inside the compartment but the train had other plans to make it up for the crowd gone-by. It started to take breaks often and we ended up being late by 2 hours in reaching Lucknow. Ankur had come to pick us up (and was not wearing a hat coz it was off for us for enduring the ordeal) and welcomed all of us with a warm hug and a big car so that we don’t feel cramped any more.

Chapter 5: Vicco Turmeric, nahi Cosmetic

We reached the venue and got ready in quick time. Chinkita, Deepti and Amit had reached in morning and were waiting for us. Ankur’s Haldi ceremony had already begun and as good friends would do, we went to the lunch buffet straightway leaving Ankur to get himself paint in turmeric. Post lunch we added colors to Ankur’s life by making a mess of the simple and homely ceremony. We started clicking random pictures and selfies all through-out and also pulled Ankur out of the room to the garden. The ceremony had shifted outside and now everyone was clicking photos and having a fun time with music being played as well. Outside in the garden there was a rikshaw and HRCians took less than a second to start posing with it. Komal and Tyagi had 3 months to their wedding and had no better place to have their pre-wedding shoot than in Lucknow. Though they had great plans to shot at the the palatial places but the cart as prop was used perfectly to start the shoot. All of a sudden, the haldi and pre-wedding shoot turned into a group photo and thats how we ended up clicking the amazing group photo of HRC. We missed Anupam, Sumedha, Pratik, Aanchal, Pooja, Juggi, Chandra, Sim, Roshan and Deepti who clicked the best ever group photo of the gang. There are couple of self claimed photographers like Me & Chandra and some professional ones like Ankur but we have a bad strike rate when it comes to clicking good photos. 1 in 10 maybe. Cometh Deepti, who clicked one and it is the one. The entire afternoon was just amazing to be put up in words, the click itself speaks volumes of the fun we had.

If the haldi ceremony was telecasted in any of the prime time TV soap opera, it would have been a sure hit and this click of ours would have garnered the highest TRP. Also, HRC ke is dharawahik ke prastut-karta hai – Vicco Turmeric, nahi costmetic. Vicco turmeric Ayurvedic Cream. (Desperate attempt to do a Brand Endorsement – Koi to Sponsor kar do 😛 )

Chapter 6: Sangeet ka plan hai?

It was a long tiring day with travel but the day seemed to have perfectly shaped up with the fun at Haldi. While wrapping up the ceremony, Ankur mentioned that we have Sangeet in evening, followed by dinner and then a roof top cocktail party for the young crowd. We had strolled to a nearby shopping complex to kill the time by having some chats, momos and turned off the heat with CCD’s Oreo Shake and in the process returned little late than the expected time. We thought that we were late for Sangeet like the haldi ceremony, but to our surprise, on our return there was no song, no sangeet. We went to Ankur and asked – Bhai, Sangeet ka Plan Hai? Ankur replied – haan hai na, tumhara hi wait ho raha tha.
Well, yes HRC has been known as a fun loving set of people and the afternoon masti added a sort of reputation but ‘humara hi wait‘ was like re-affirming the above in bold. But then Ankur brought us down to earth and said – Arey tum log hi host karoge Sangeet. We were like – Aing!!! Sangeet hum karenge? We thought that there will be a cam somewhere and Ankur’s cousins would come out saying that – aapke saath ek prank hua hai. But nothing of that sort happened and Ankur handed over the mic to me to start. Not that I was new to hosting parivaarik sammelan but this was Sangeet and I had no clue kon kiska rishtedaar, Desi Kalakaar. Neither any of us had any idea about what to do. Ankur introduced us to tiny-tots who were ready to dance on any song. The entire hall of Ankur’s relatives were staring at me and I was clueless.
The tiny tots came to me and said – bhaiyya – High Heels laga dona please and thats how the Sangeet started. The bachcha-party kept dancing on high heels every now and then and I, Tyagi and Amit pulled the entire ladko ki toli to the dance floor with Jumma Chumma dede. Deepti earlier performed on Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo and later it went to dance as you will with random shaadi song playlist on Wynk. Chinkita’s Wynk music subscription and my ages-old bollywood collection saved the Sangeet Night. Dinner was followed by the roof top meet up of all cousins and friends and the cocktail party made it a perfect set up to retire after a long day. The Next Day was D-Day and Ankur was excited. But then there was HRC who were more excited than Ankur to let the next day fold in. True Friends Indeed. 🙂