Day 2: The train

The second day was a new experience in the sense that it was the first time I had spent an entire day in transit. An entire day on the Kerala express. I had planned to rise early so as to not get caught in the morning rush at the toilets. Train toilets! Oh bouy! do they teach you about life! I believe anyone who has had to travel long distance on the Indian railway and made it through a day or so, has passed a very valid survival test. You might as well laminate the ticket and look at it with pride. Because my dear friend, you have truly learned the art of survival! And the fundamental ingredients of this testing ground are of course the toilet and the cuisine. One can almost see a chicken-egg situation. Which dilemma came first? the toilet or the cuisine. Having undertaken journeys as far as Mumbai, I knew the rules of the game. Wake up early and I would have the toilet all to myself! I shall be king!..Well not quite! Going to the train toilets and coming out without any mis-happenings is a fine art. An art that is useless if your predecessors are not very good at it. On the bright side, you will witness the disappearance of finer human emotions,disgust and belief in human dignity, vaporize. Your dark side shall be aroused. Such unfathomable power soes the train toilet possess. Anyway, to get up early to visit the loo was of prime importance. But of course, I failed to do that. I woke up at 7. And hence, I was punished. After the queue, I brushed my teeth and at last entered the shrine of transformation. And returned to my seat to have my breakfast, somehow feeling a lot dirtier. And my breakfast awaited me. Bread-omlette, which was not bad and may have been good even, had it not been for my severely prejudiced mind.
And after breakfast I had no clue what to do. I tried reading one of the infinite novels I had on my phone, while others started with their card games. eventually I joined them. Many were grouchy after sleep, having to share berths very uncomfortably.
Desperate situations call for desperate actions! The next time the Ticket checker came, I saw Niby going after him. And after what I believe was pure seduction, he did it. We got our berths.
KRP bought a rail map in between and we traced our route. Initially I thought it was a very boring exercise, but soon, I became deeply captivated by it. It was incredible. We had traveled so much, covered so many states and home was away. We looked up the remaining journey and waited.
The cuisine part of the Survival test, had drastically improved over the course of the last few years. I didn't feel like complaining about dinner the day before or the breakfast. And the egg biriyani for lunch was also passable. But dinner shook me back to reality and made me realize that I was still in my survival test.
The day progressed boring us further and further. Some tried to bring in some energy, but in vain. We slept off, ate, played cards, made laughs at the expense of each other and again slept off!

Day 0 and 1: the 22nd and 23rd of November

We greeted the day of departure after a sleepless night. Unni, Manu, Afsal, Ajay and I (niby couldn't make it) got together at the place we had rented for the last 3 years of our college life. It was a beautiful night. Our friend Sethu joined us all the way from ernakulam after a busy day of work. The plans for the day had already been made. We would cook ourselves a fantastic dinner, play some cards and chat senselessly before we met again the next day. And of course, i would be allowed my pint of beer.
We were to reach our place by 12 noon, buy the necessary stuff and start cooking by 6pm. Well, as luck would have it, not everything worked out as planned. I managed to get my ATM card holding all my tour money blocked, that day. All my shares, which i was supposed to sell before the tour crashed. I hadn't started packing. And the errands at home, that i was supposed to take care of wasn't yet done. And last, but most significantly, the LDF had declared harthal in Idukki, on the day to protest the arrest of M.Mani. So, Unni(our chef) and Manu were trapped. But finally, by about 5, we managed to get together.
We had chosen Unni's brother's place as the site of our culinary experiments. The cooking ware was obtained from my home. Chicken fry, Noodles, ready-made Chapathi and Pepsi formed the Menu. And of course, my pint of Tuborg. Unni and Sethu, who was supposed to be our guest, did most of the work, while the rest of waited impatiently. Finally, the dishes were prepared and we stuffed ourselves as much as our tummies would allow us( having a bigger than average tummy presents with certain advantages during such times).
My plan was to return home, pack my stuff for the tour, get a goodnight's sleep and handle the errands the next day. But the night was good and the pointless chatter and laughter went on and on and so it was decided that i would spend the night there, at our place. But before we went to bed, we decided to play one of our favorite card games "least count". The clock showed 1, then 2, then 3, then 4. Only then did the yawns begin. Having lived with myself for the past 24 years and having fairly enough accurate knowledge of my habits, i promptly declared that I would rather not sleep because I had to wake up early the next day.My friends, who are always keen on weird ideas promptly took it up and so we didn't sleep till it was 6, when i finally went home.
At home, i realized how much I had to do before I reported at the railway station at 2pm. I hadn't even started my packing. I had stuff to buy. I had to go to my bank and transfer the money to an account with a working ATM card. I had to give my bike to Joe, who agreed to take care of it while I was gone. And to shit things up, it started raining. Somehow, I managed to get it all done, with a lot of help from my mom.
At 1pm, Manu came to my place, left his bike there and my parents dropped the two of us at the station. Rony's Mom and sis had also come to the station to see us off. All of us were visibly excited. And some opf us, severely sleep deprived. And one of us already missing Kottayam. And so, at 2:30 pm on the 23rd of November, we boarded our train, the Kerala express and our journey began. Once inside the train, i slept off, only to woken up to play cards and to have dinner.
Our ticket status was confirmed only for 10 berths. So, the 13 of us had to share 10 berths. Having a bigger than average tummy, again proved to have some advantages and I slept that night on the upper birth while 6 of us shared their 3 berths. And so we gave rest to our already tired bodies.

Zindagi mein ek baar.. our 20 day journey across india:-The beginning: 23rd Nov

There were 13 of us. The plans had been made a long time back. A journey to rejuvenate our rebellious spirits, waiting for a release after our final year MBBS, an year which seemed to go on forever and ever. Guided by our seniors who had undertaken similar journeys, we made our plans. We planned the places, the routes, the timing, the hostels and hotels. Most of the queries were made by Vaalan(Mathew) and KRP(Karthik). We did extensive searches on google. Google map as a useful tool has never ceased to amaze me. All of this was done right after our final internal exams, as we awaited the dates for our university exams, the final MBBS exams, the most dreaded exam of the 5 year course. Thoughts of the journey gave us hope, hope that something better awaits, at the end of those days of torture. Anything was better than having to sit in front of those textbooks. And so we planned. But we were confused about the date we should set out on our journey, thanks to our beloved MG university: 'man proposes, MGU disposes'. Because the university hadn't yet declared the theory exam dates and would declare the practical dates only after the theory exams, we had to pick our date carefully. After much debating, we finally chose the 23rd of November as the date to start on what would be one of the best experiences of our short lives. We booked all our train tickets and hotels online from KRP's place. Once that was done, all of us returned to the horror of final MBBS. Days dragged on. Hopelessness and fear found us on most of the days while a part of our minds tried vainly to convince that everything will go on fine. On those days, the trip was the only thing to look forward to. All of us counted the days to November 23rd and so the countdown began. I still remember receiving Hari's message on a day that i lay on my bed, paralyzed by fear and unable to do anything, let alone read anything useful. "75 days", it said. The thought that my agony had an end, made me rise from my bed, and forced myself to somehow read. And so, the days went ahead and the exams, some better than the others, some giving us hope and others despair.. All along, we waited for that day- the 23rd of November.