a trip to ...

I wake up at 4 in the morning .(generally i wake up a couple of hours later) I got a train to catch . Yeah my eyes are sleepy because i slept late , as i was not sure if I would be leaving till late in the evening . At around 9 my friend had confirmed . so it was then that i started packing my bag (trying to make it minimalistic so that we don't have to carry the burden through out . anyways back to the morning , i was ready to leave for the trip with people i had never met and to place i had never heard . i get out of the house with a small bag containing my wardrobe and necessities for the days to come (how many i am not sure) . now out on the roads at quarter past five , the roads are as empty i had ever seen . Am i going to get a bus here?? As if the almighty told my sixth sense that the answer is no . So i will be making a luxurious start to my trip driving all the way to railway station in a taxi and handing over a hari patti . anything to reach the station in time and join the troupe . well one thing nice about traveling in the morning is that you get to see Kolkata like you want to see it during the day while standing and sweating profusely in a bus hold up in a traffic jam. So finally i reach the station about around 6 in the morning . The train black diamond express,will leave at 6.20 . so need to find them fast . well I pace down the platform in a sort of wild goose chase . don't know anyone except my friend and how am i supposed to know the other people as they are the relatives of my friend who arrived from Gujarat a couple of days ago, it was then the first time my friend had met them . Since it was group of 10 so it was easy to spot . on meeting them it came to my knowledge that the tickets we had were not confirmed . So for the first time(there are many firsts waiting to happen in this trip) i got into the general compartment of a train to reserve the seats for this BIG group of ours. though i have traveled in general compartment but then we being young don't quite care about getting a seat . since there were a couple of elderly people and a whole lots of luggage (i was asked to bring less luggage and now i understood why cause they already had 4 suitcase and a couple of handbags but thankfully they were not very heavy) . We managed to get 6 seats so there was a decent level of comfort . it was a passenger train so only seats and no berths me and my friend were roaming around the train just so that we don't get bored . anyways one good news that came to me was that we had to spend 5 hours in the train . another piece of information was that we were to get down at dhanbad . once a couple of hours passed the rush kept shedding and after we crossed Burdwan , there was enough space for all of us to sit comfortably and a couple of stoppages the compartments were so empty that everyone could sleep if they wanted to . anyways finally dhanbad arrives. We got down at the station and were greeted by someone I don't know who (actually i figured out that i might not know many things on this trip cause these people were from interiors of Gujarat and thus spoke the language spoken in kutch district , so even though i understand Gujarati it was difficult to follow what they were saying.) . He escorted us to the vehicle that was to carry us through the trip . we were 10 people with a 10 years old child and to our utter shock we were to travel in a bolero . well though there were a couple of girls nearing anorexia but still it was too small a car for a group of 10 1/2 . anyways we just hopped on somehow (i cant explain how but it was so stuffy it seemed we were trying to establish a record for most people that can be accommodated in that car . ) anyways our first stop was not far off where we were to have our lunch . so we got down and had what could be called proper Gujarati food (more sweet less spice) . then we moved back to the car and tried to figure out how we can adjust within the car as we had to travel in it for the next 3 days (at least as per the plan at that point of time ) . so things were sorted out and we moved ahead towards a place called pawa puri . the place was supposed pretty far off as we were scheduled to reach that place around 7.30 even though we left dhanbad around 1 pm . but what was in the future was still to be seen . after a couple of hours of bumping my head sitting on the roof of the back seat on the so called highways of jharkand . we stopped at a place for refreshment s and then got to sit in the front seat . i had a feeling that we were traveling in the wring lane while in the back seat . but when i came to the front seat i came to know the way the vehicles move on the highways there . where the other states repair their highways once a year there is jharkhand and bihar who dont have a highways as of yet . even though the work has been in progress for almost a decade the work is not complete .there are two broad lanes alright but seldom do they operate together . mostly the vehicles of both directions share the same lane. The other lane seems almost complete but may be is not opened so that the project never ends . I need not be a rocket scientist to understand why the project is kept pending over a long period of time . after all everyone knows how politicians are in these states . anyways the worst thing was that whatever road we had was really bumpy . moreover our driver was the eight wonder of the world , who didn't understand why speed breakers are made . it seemed that they made him go even faster . well it had to take the toll on the car and finally near dusk we had a flat tyre and that brat went off to the nearby garage to get the tyre repaired and the job of changing the tyre was left to us . (i mean i never seen a driver like him and never wish to see anyone like him future either) . well the royal highness came back from the so called garage with the news that we have to travel some distance without a spare tyre as it couldn't be fixed at these small settlements near the highway. and oh yeah on more thing that brat took the keys so we were changing the tyres in the dark without the indicators on , with the bypassing trucks not missing us by much of a distance . well as we proceeded further we come to know something that was going to bother us for the next couple of days. the driver didnt even know the route to the places we were going . well somehow we managed to reach the place after having asked the route to many a people . the curious thing was how these people estimated the distance or what a mile or kilometer meant to them . i mean we ask this guy about how much further we need to go , he say about 27 km . then we move about a couple of KM ahead and we ask someone how far it is and he say 45 km . I mean how is that possible . well as we figured out it was basically a range it was at least 27 km and at most 45km . with all this quizzing around it took us a hell lot of time to reach pawa puri . finally one thing that was good was that there was a huge dharamshala of Jainism followers there and these people i was accompanying were jains . so we got easy lodging and came to believe that finally we get some comfort . well the wish was short lived not cause it came true but because it went to the trash bin , when we found that we wont get any food at that time of the day , 9 pm . so we had to order the chaiwallah for a dozen cup of tea to drink with the thepalaas they had brought for an emergency like this . well as we dosed of in the night we came to realise that life can cruel some times . this time around this message was delivered to us by the fearsome messenger of nature , mosquitoes . wow there was some population of them out there . we had too wake up early in the morning but i don't think we needed to worry about that as we were not gonna get any sleep at the first place . well what a first day to the trip . well lets see what was to come as we wake up on 17th may 2007, the 2nd day of our trip .