Saras India

Before I begin my story, I will start to mention my timings. My flight was scheduled at 09.55 arrival time 12.25. My train was scheduled at 3.05 pm.  The traffic between these two places are mad, so my friend had told me it would take between 1-1,5 hours.

As soon as I checked in, I asked if my flight was on time. “Yes madam”, was the answer I got. When I got my boarding pass he said “departure is at 10.15am”.  So much for the no delay! Anyways, the flight was obviously later than that, 10.45 am we were in the air, so almost an hour late.  I fell asleep and slept lightly the entire flight. Before landing I started talking to the guy next to me, to make sure how I would go from the airport to the train station. The best bet was to take a pre-paid taxi. And since the arrival time was 13.15 I had plenty of time to get a taxi and reach the train station. Oh, how wrong I was!

When the luggage finally started to come on the belt, it didn’t take long before it stopped! So there I stood, little stressed and without my bag. After 15 minutes, I was almost in a panicy mood! I ran after a Spicejet lady (The airline I flew was Spicejet) and asked her where the heck my bag was, I need it now! “Oh, some technical error is there” Okay, well change the belt then. I need my bag now otherwise I will miss my train.

Since I was close to panic (being in a situation I am not used to, and not knowing exactly what to do next and where to go, stresses me out if I don’t have enough time, which I did not have!) my voice got louder and told her that if I miss my train, I am going to take a taxi to Jamshedpur and Spicejet will have to pay my bill! And since my voice was louder, people started coming and wanted to help out. The time was now 13.55 and everyone told me there was no way I could catch my train! (At this time my bag came on the second belt, yeeey)!

The lady was not at all helpful (from now on, no more Spicejet for me) so I decided to give it a chance, I started running towards the exit, gliding in the curves on the slippery floor,  pushed my way through the que for pre-paid taxi, ran out of the airport, ran over the street with my hand out, showing the cars to stop, pushed my way through the second que to get my pre-paid taxi. Ran like a crazy to find my taxi, yelled at the taxi driver “Jaldi, jaldi” (Skynda på) and when he realized we had only 50 minutes before my train left,he left in a hurry!

After the crazy drive in the mad traffic (which he called pagal traffic, mad traffic in hindi) I arrived at the station 15.00 pm! I was soooo stressed and I had no idea where to go! I thank God for India and the cheap labour, a man came up to me, put my bag on his head and started running towards my train while my driver yelled out my train number for him! We ran and we ran and we ran, and finally we reached! Oh, the happiness when I realized I didn’t have to go through all the hazzle with getting a new train and not knowing how the heck to do it! I was on the train 15.04 and the train left the station at 15.07!

Before the man left me with my luggage I thanked him and thought I was generous when I gave him 20rs. He looked at me and started to say something in hindi. Some guys on the train started talking to him and eventually, after laughing (at me or at him, who knows?) told me to give him 20 more rupees.

I left a cold and raining Bangalore and arrived to a humid, and extremely hot Kolkata! The run I did to the train, for four minutes, totally drenched me. Thank God I didn’t have to carry my luggage as well!