THE Kovai Trip

Funda:
I hate this funda part time and again. But as it goes with every story, you need an initial narration to set things up. Amalgam is the annual fest of my dept(to be specific, MME). This time I had(rather have)been given two huge responsibilities on my tender(he he) shoulders. One was that of webops(you can have a view of my "work" under http://amalgam.iitm.ac.in) and other was that of Publicity. As part of plans to publicize our fest in the city of Kovai(short for Coimbatore :D), we, a team of four members inclusive of me, went on an incredible(duh) journey.

Now, for something more interesring:
For a long time myself, and my co-core, looked at our academic calendars and decided that-"ya, 5 and 6th of feb are the ideal days to go to Kovai da....We will be done with Saarang by then(i mean the hangover would have gone by then) and we will have enough time for quizzes da". So we began contacting colleges in Coimbatore(quite a list actually PSG,CIT,GCT,Amrita,KCT etc.). We had also succeeded in scheduling all the slots(a slot is an appointment to give a ppt at a given college)on the 6th of Feb, a Saturday(my co-core was severely against scheduling an appointment on a sunday citing attendance issues...it made sense in a way). So we decided to leave Chennai on the night of 5th and come back on 7th morning.

We initially thought of making the entire trip on a bus. After severe counseling sessions(!!) and advices, we decided to make the trip by train. When I first took a look at the Reservation Charts on the 2nd, it was a hopeless situation with each strain exhibiting waitlist figures in 2/3 digits(pun unintended). The only way out was the tatkal booking scheme. But my mom suggested that her friend might be able to get us tickets. Soon enough he got us tickets for the onward journey from Chennai via a travel agency(it was an air conditioned coach too :P) and the return journey(he put a lot of fight) and got us tatkal waitlist(in single digits)himself.

So we were all set to make the onward journey. I was pretty happy myself considering the comfort with which we would reach Kovai. It was the Cheran express that we had our tickets on and it reaches Kovai by 6 in the morning. Peace in life!!!. I had to take a dose of paracetamol on the night of travel coz i felt slightly feverish. I travelled along with my coords(two of them) and my co-core reached the station directly from his home. The journey to the station was peace max as there was not much of traffic on the roads given a friday night. So we reached the station one hour in advance, just in time for the pasting of charts on the coaches.

We went to our allotted coach B4. The guy sticking the charts had just finished his job. I searched for the seat numbers allotted and suddenly found crazy names sitting there on the chart instead of our names. I was puzzled. I was standing before the right coach and I saw the right seat numbers, yet my name didnt flash up. I immediately took out my ticket. And to my horror, for the first time ever, I saw that the date mentioned in the ticket was 5/3 instead of 5/2!!!!!!!!!!!!.

There was chaos around as expected. I retraced back the scenario of the ticket booking. It had passed around the eyes of almost three people with none of us noticing that the date on the ticket was wrong!!!. We then tried to make our way into Cheran but the TT was firm(as expected) and didnt allow us. But he did suggest that we wait for the train named Rapti Sagar Express which was scheduled to arrive @1.30 in the night. I looked at my watch-9.30!!!!!


Despite my enthu levels hitting rock bottom I was quite astounded by the enthu levels shown by the three others(one of my coords had devious intentions!!). We then stood in the ticket queue for almost an hour, got 4 unreserved tickets in the other train, changed places within the station almost thrice due to a flood of mosquitoes. I finally ended up sleeping two hours after we settled at one of the grand stands of people settlement at 10.30. The others were watching a horror movie titled "Ghost ship"!!!!. We finally made a move at 12.30, had a cup of coffee and then waited in the platform for another hour for the train to come. The train finally arrived close to 2 in the morning. My co-core then took up the responsibility of talking to the TT, bribing him and getting us seats. This wasnt easy as even locating the TT was a big pain in the ass by itself(we covered the entire stretch of the train twice before we located him). But he seemed to be peaceful, as he allotted us seats readily.

And hence, finally the journey to Kovai began at 2.10 on the 6th morning. We had a horrible sleep though with the temperatures taking a severe dip along the journey. We then had to make several phone calls in the morning postponing all the existing appointments and all.

The greatest part of the journey, according to me, was the utter chaos that existed between 9 and 10.30. The chaos included from trying to catch the Cheran express, debating on whether we really had to go there, trying to sit in a place free of mosquitoes and finally, trying to watch a movie....

It was one hell of an experience for each of us. The first one to all of us. Our stint at publicizing our fest at Kovai, I should safely assume now, was a reasonable success. Hopefully all our fight bears fruit this Amalgam(march 5th-7th).....


And there begins the trip :D


cheers,