1998, August, Electric train - Singara Chennai

After making a decent score in higher secondary, I secured a seat in a college in chennai. August, 1998, was the first days of my college life. I think it was third weekend, on which I planned to meet my cousin sister at Minjur. (sub-urban areas of chennai). Now, minjur has become famous after ghaana ulaganathan used it in his song (manapponnu vizhangu meenu minjooru thaanungo...). My cousin said there are periodic trains from chennai central and I can catch one of those and get down at minjur which is 45 mins from chennai central.

Since I did not know much about chennai, those days, I tried to explore by taking longest path from the college. and the path went like this...

Caught a bus at Gandhi mandapam at Guindy and got down at Karunanidhi arch in saidapet.

Went to Saidapet railway station for a train to Park (chennai central). After waiting for few mins, a train to beech arrived. Before that, I asked four or five people which train should I catch.. the answer was same, "beech pora train...". The Train was very much crowded, and enough crowd at the station to make my journey a horrible one.. atlast, I managed to find a coach which was less crowded. And the train started immediately after I entered the coach... After the train started I felt some un-easiness and looked at the other passengers in the coach. Oh Man, all were ladies and women.. A gentle lady near me told its a ladies coach. Hmm, it is a news for me, I never knew electric trains have reservations for ladies. She recommended to get down at next station and change the coach. I agreed (in fact, I have to).

Mambalam station: My parents were advicing me to be careful with electric trains, since it stops only for few seconds and it moves fast. As soon as the train reached the next station, Mambalam, I got out of the ladies coach and get into the next one. And the train started immediately.. Again a surprise, the coach was very less crowded, and I thought everyone got down at Mambalam. There was one guy smoking, inspite of some warning boards there.

Nungambakkam: Some ticket checker got into the coach and started checking the tickets, while the train was heading towards Egmore. I showed my ticket. He said this coach is a first class, and my second class ticket is good for nothing, here. It was a painful surprise for me... He caught the other guy also, who was finishing up the last puff of his cigarette. I was calculating how much I have in my purse, some fifties... got some unnecessary imagination of counting Kambiis in jail...

Chetpet: First, the checker was asking the other guy to pay the fine. The other guy said, he know some commisioner etc..(in vivek's style).. but nothing worked out for him. Atlast he paid the fine and the checker turned back to me... I said, "Sir, I new to this city.. first time electric train, study in college..." was olarifying a lot with my arai-kurai english and I showed my ID card. Dont know what he thought, but he relieved me without asking for the fine.. and I took the next train for Park, of course, this time in the right coach.

Park: got down at park, in fact, 3/4 th of the train got down.. I have seen central station only few times (when I went to Hyderabad during my skool dayz), and also in some tamil movies (wheneve the director wants to show Chennai).. After couple of enquires I crossed the subway and went to the central r/w station. Not able to locate trains to Minjur.. later someone told it is the next building, where sub-urban trains depart.. Atlast caught a train reached Minjur safely...

Catching and travelling in electric trains are always interesting.. It is the place where I started liking some old songs, which blind people sing and ask for help.... I am humming the song "koduthathellam koduththaar athu yaarukkaga koduthaar...." and closing this....