Don't get confused by the flashy title. Just a plain old travel tale of three best friends (and this was before ZNMD was released, mind it!). One of our Tikadi, Saurabh, was flying off to the US soon for his PhD in phrma stuff, and we 3 had never had a chance for a trip together. An adventure trip was on the cards. A few days of research and we zeroed on white water rafting in Rishikesh. And since we couldn't get direct reservations for train (haaye ye gareebi!), we decided to route our journey through Amritsar, another destination not visited by none of us. bookings in place and prayers for the tickets to get confirmed, finally came the day of the journey.
Sadly, the tickets were RAC but not confirmed. RAC bole toh you have to share your berth with creepy dudes and sit rather than sleep through the whole journey, which in our case was on 24+ hours. Thankfully, the guy who was allotted the 4th seat with us in RAC left us the two whole berth and adjusted himself elsewhere. I still get dreams about that guy (since I have forgotten his face, I just see a halo of light in place of his face). We decided to take turns for the whole berth and the other two will share the other berth. and thus the journey began...
The food that came along the aisles was really good. I was especially fixated on the tomato soup and matka dahi (pronounced as motkaa doi,, god bless the good bacteria). Saurabh hogged on his single berth time and caught on his beauty sleep while me and Sumedh sat chatting. After lunch, the train entered Rajasthan (or could be Madhya Pradesh) and it was hot as hell, though we were on the brink of monsoon. After a little head-scratching, we tied a Gamchha (a thin cloth worn usually as a head gear) to the window and kept hydrating it with a Bisleri (or could be Aquafina) bottle pierced through the cap. The experiment was moderately successful, as the water squirting game that followed took our mind off the god awful heat.
As we approached Delhi, we saw the first signs of rains since we left Mumbai. Delhi wasn't the stop I expected it to be. I was expecting to be greeted by the awesome taste of Chhole kulche and what not, but there was only thin kinda posh food restaurant and I the amount of hygiene there couldn't have agreed with my appetite much. The night was cold and almost uneventful. After dinner and a couple of rounds of Motkaa Doi, Sumedh finally got into the single berth and me and Saurabh adjusted somehow in the single berth......
Sadly, the tickets were RAC but not confirmed. RAC bole toh you have to share your berth with creepy dudes and sit rather than sleep through the whole journey, which in our case was on 24+ hours. Thankfully, the guy who was allotted the 4th seat with us in RAC left us the two whole berth and adjusted himself elsewhere. I still get dreams about that guy (since I have forgotten his face, I just see a halo of light in place of his face). We decided to take turns for the whole berth and the other two will share the other berth. and thus the journey began...
The food that came along the aisles was really good. I was especially fixated on the tomato soup and matka dahi (pronounced as motkaa doi,, god bless the good bacteria). Saurabh hogged on his single berth time and caught on his beauty sleep while me and Sumedh sat chatting. After lunch, the train entered Rajasthan (or could be Madhya Pradesh) and it was hot as hell, though we were on the brink of monsoon. After a little head-scratching, we tied a Gamchha (a thin cloth worn usually as a head gear) to the window and kept hydrating it with a Bisleri (or could be Aquafina) bottle pierced through the cap. The experiment was moderately successful, as the water squirting game that followed took our mind off the god awful heat.
As we approached Delhi, we saw the first signs of rains since we left Mumbai. Delhi wasn't the stop I expected it to be. I was expecting to be greeted by the awesome taste of Chhole kulche and what not, but there was only thin kinda posh food restaurant and I the amount of hygiene there couldn't have agreed with my appetite much. The night was cold and almost uneventful. After dinner and a couple of rounds of Motkaa Doi, Sumedh finally got into the single berth and me and Saurabh adjusted somehow in the single berth......
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