No no its not an disco-tech or any night club, but sure it a happening place for most of the grad's from Hubli-Dharwad on friday night. Its a train running from Bangalore-Hubli and Hubli-Bangalore. First let me tell something about Hubli-Dharwad for the readers who dont know much about it. Well Hubli-Dharwad are two big North-Karnataka cities. Around 450 Kms from Bangalore. Thousands of graduates from this region are working in Bangalore, the so called Silicon Valley of India. And one of the most popular train to this place is our Ranichennamma express. Since the journey from Bangalore-Hubli is over night, its very convenient for majority of the people to leave Bangalore on Friday night and come back to Bangalore on monday morning by the same train.
Alright the story is not that simple as narrated like come to station take a ticket and hop on. To get a reservation in this train one has to plan his journey well one month in advance. Later the Gold Rush, oops I mean the train rush phenomenon starts right from the friday morning. The train leaves exactly at 9.15pm and for a person like me who works in whitefield, its like taking a bet...!!! First somehow manage to get away from office as early as possible, for this be alert the whole day and finish the work ASAP. Later come home (airport road), collect the baggage and catch hold of an auto... convincing a auto driver to come railway station is like asking him to do me a favour... and in return he says "Saarr tumba traffikuu saarr, 200 nur rupaiya agathe saarr" (Sir too much traffic, it will be Rs.200 to drop)... " le nim aggi * nann train ticketye 215 aythi, math na nenaga 200 kodbeak yean???...*nim aggi manas valag (My train ticket itself is around Rs.215 and I should pay you 200 bucks to reach station???) Alright DJ some how consoles him to settle at 100 bucks (average till now). And by the time DJ does all this exercise it will be around 7.45pm... now the next step is to beat the traffic and reach the station ASAP... wait a minute beat traffic...great...!!! how you do it?? is that your question... sorry I lied till now I am not able to beat this traffic no matter how many short cuts I have taken. Ha thrice I was successful in over coming the deadly traffic jam by getting down at Hudson circle from auto and walked straight 2 kms to reach station... :-) Ya sometime its pretty much possible to clear the traffic in this way... and later on the platform its like a DDLG scene, i mean catching a running train... I dont know how the people of electronicity manage to reach station... anyway DJ somehow gets into the train... and here starts the next phase of journey... I always book my ticket through online website... now whenever I choose option of Upper Berth n book the ticket... this psycho website most of the time gives me a berth number 70....!!! Now do you have any idea of what the berth number 70 mean? well its a shit berth close to the door n near stinking toilets... yak...!!! I do the reservation well in advance but again I get the berth 70... sometime I dont understand who the hell has designed the online website... would like to kill him in the same boggie toilet... And near the door space, its like a living room for the people.... My god people come in and go out like freaking jerks... they dont carry one or two bags, the whole godown will be with them... when the train starts one can see all different n weird kind of people... some people start staring at others as if they are from any other alien world, some will be in their own deep thinking as if this is their last journey in life... mean while one can hear all the latest rings tones of mobile from all the corners of the boggie... people discuss their whole family stories over the phone and trust me sometime while listening, one gets involved into their story and start feeling the character too.... by seeing so many people in the train n station I recall my school days essay writing, our hindi teacher used to ask us to write a essay on "Janasankya Vispot" (Population Explosion).... and now I realize it very clearly...!!! As the sleeping time approaches, its time for berth negotiation... few people who are not happy tend to negotiate with others for suitable berth... before sleeping people squeeze in all their bags under their head and leg so that bags are safe... first of all the berths are small n upon that ever available space is squeezed in with their baggages... and as the midnight approaches all kinds of high decibel snoring sound are heard from different compartments... and if you are lucky even some faint n loud farting is also heard... yak
But trust me its fun n the joy of going home over looks all these facts... I travel almost everytime by this train to Hubli and I come across various different experience... this train carries all sorts of people from rich to poor... no caste no bar... all these people have to sleep in the same coach, sharing the same ambiance... and its a perfect example for unity in diversity...
And above all the best part of this train is that, I tend to meet whole lot of college friends... these people never meet personally in Bangalore but happen to meet in this train... if one takes a walk from boggie 1 to 9 then its sure that he is gonne catchup with one or the other batchmates... well this is the journey of ranichennamma express, train number 6589.
Alright the story is not that simple as narrated like come to station take a ticket and hop on. To get a reservation in this train one has to plan his journey well one month in advance. Later the Gold Rush, oops I mean the train rush phenomenon starts right from the friday morning. The train leaves exactly at 9.15pm and for a person like me who works in whitefield, its like taking a bet...!!! First somehow manage to get away from office as early as possible, for this be alert the whole day and finish the work ASAP. Later come home (airport road), collect the baggage and catch hold of an auto... convincing a auto driver to come railway station is like asking him to do me a favour... and in return he says "Saarr tumba traffikuu saarr, 200 nur rupaiya agathe saarr" (Sir too much traffic, it will be Rs.200 to drop)... " le nim aggi * nann train ticketye 215 aythi, math na nenaga 200 kodbeak yean???...*nim aggi manas valag (My train ticket itself is around Rs.215 and I should pay you 200 bucks to reach station???) Alright DJ some how consoles him to settle at 100 bucks (average till now). And by the time DJ does all this exercise it will be around 7.45pm... now the next step is to beat the traffic and reach the station ASAP... wait a minute beat traffic...great...!!! how you do it?? is that your question... sorry I lied till now I am not able to beat this traffic no matter how many short cuts I have taken. Ha thrice I was successful in over coming the deadly traffic jam by getting down at Hudson circle from auto and walked straight 2 kms to reach station... :-) Ya sometime its pretty much possible to clear the traffic in this way... and later on the platform its like a DDLG scene, i mean catching a running train... I dont know how the people of electronicity manage to reach station... anyway DJ somehow gets into the train... and here starts the next phase of journey... I always book my ticket through online website... now whenever I choose option of Upper Berth n book the ticket... this psycho website most of the time gives me a berth number 70....!!! Now do you have any idea of what the berth number 70 mean? well its a shit berth close to the door n near stinking toilets... yak...!!! I do the reservation well in advance but again I get the berth 70... sometime I dont understand who the hell has designed the online website... would like to kill him in the same boggie toilet... And near the door space, its like a living room for the people.... My god people come in and go out like freaking jerks... they dont carry one or two bags, the whole godown will be with them... when the train starts one can see all different n weird kind of people... some people start staring at others as if they are from any other alien world, some will be in their own deep thinking as if this is their last journey in life... mean while one can hear all the latest rings tones of mobile from all the corners of the boggie... people discuss their whole family stories over the phone and trust me sometime while listening, one gets involved into their story and start feeling the character too.... by seeing so many people in the train n station I recall my school days essay writing, our hindi teacher used to ask us to write a essay on "Janasankya Vispot" (Population Explosion).... and now I realize it very clearly...!!! As the sleeping time approaches, its time for berth negotiation... few people who are not happy tend to negotiate with others for suitable berth... before sleeping people squeeze in all their bags under their head and leg so that bags are safe... first of all the berths are small n upon that ever available space is squeezed in with their baggages... and as the midnight approaches all kinds of high decibel snoring sound are heard from different compartments... and if you are lucky even some faint n loud farting is also heard... yak
But trust me its fun n the joy of going home over looks all these facts... I travel almost everytime by this train to Hubli and I come across various different experience... this train carries all sorts of people from rich to poor... no caste no bar... all these people have to sleep in the same coach, sharing the same ambiance... and its a perfect example for unity in diversity...
And above all the best part of this train is that, I tend to meet whole lot of college friends... these people never meet personally in Bangalore but happen to meet in this train... if one takes a walk from boggie 1 to 9 then its sure that he is gonne catchup with one or the other batchmates... well this is the journey of ranichennamma express, train number 6589.
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"This posting is dedicated to all the frequent travellers of Ranichenamma express and lovely people of North Karnataka region..."
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Hope you enjoyed reading and please do share your own unique experience about this train journey below... :-)
