Have you traveled impromptu? Picked up your bag with minimum requirements – just your card, money and that's it. Its not easy for most folks, one can and is never used to such travel techniques. But the charm of such travel is never ending as, it gives you a high that can never be had even with a joint.
It was a business trip in fact that made me travel 500 km out of Mumbai and I was back home at night. Five hours of travel both ways for just two hours of work. But it felt like I was defying every known rule of travel and in fact gravity itself. Exhilarating, is what I am trying to say. I could not take leave from office, but I had just one day to meet an important person and close the deal.
I booked one way ticket out of Mumbai, and he booked the return ticket for me, which I would collect from him when I met him. I reached at 12.30pm and we talked, completed the deal, had a proper Gujarati lunch, when he gave me the return ticket. I would reach Mumbai by 9 pm, not later than that. What luck, on that day this particular train was running on time both ways – it was not even 15 minutes late. Not by even by Indian standards, it brought a smile to my face, in fact an impish one at that. Yes, I had won the battle I had set out to win.
It is very hard, physically to accept such travel, the tiredness that refuses to go away even after three days. But what people cannot do in three days, I did it in one day. Yeah, you need the money, for the train speed, in fact is the one that cuts your time of travel and 8 hour journey to five hours. Three hours both ways, and you are safe and sound back in your bed before anyone can say 'where were you?'
The love of my life – travel and I love to defy the rules, my own way. Do the unbelievable – what others think is not possible, but it is.
This trip made me think; yes someday it will be possible to defy time, maybe in a couple of years. It is only possible today to shave off a few hours here and there, but I wait for a time when travel will take a few minutes to say the least. Am I imagining too much or is it possible? Then I would love to own a time machine like the one in HG Wells novel Time Machine. I could be any where, in any time, meet anyone, any year no questions asked and none given- even for holidays from work- ah! what an idea!
Hey, anyone out there with the recipe or formula for one, I mean time machine.
But back in time to my trip, Yes, as I was saying, this particular train reaches its destination and makes a comeback trip on the same day back to Mumbai. I, in fact, got the same coach but a different seat; the waiters were surprised to see me back again, but not that much. For many, businessmen travel back and forth on the same day. This train is a favourite with them in fact, and mines too always. I use it quite often to reach my particular destination in minimum time and then come back leisurely in a slow traveling train that stops on every small station – giving me a chance to study the people, the villages, the station, its name, maybe decipher the history behind the name itself. And many times, I have come across what are small villages but in history have held very important positions at the crossroads of time.
But today they have been pushed into unknown edges of the black hole that is dominated by places like cosmopolitan places like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangaluru etc. Ah, but for how long can they hold on, someday they will stand at the crossroads of time like these small villages, and we will watch it go by maybe from the window of a fast train.
Let's enjoy the time we have now, savour every moment – a fast or a slow one. It will be filled with memories that will serve you forever.
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