Good afternoon buddies. This is your friend 'rising from the dead'. I am going to narrate a very interesting and mind boggling incident now. Please hold on to your seats!
So you know my good-for-nothing (!) colleague Jessica right? Oh you don't eh? OK, she is just...good-for-nothing :)...OK sorry Jessica (in case you are reading this)...Now lets get back to the story...You know my good-for...Oh god, not again you say? OK OK I am getting on with it...
So I went to Delhi with Ms. Jessica Wade on an official trip. Suddenly she gets this wild idea to visit Agra so as to capture the brilliance of one of the seven wonders of the world. And we decided to go. Mind you, this was totally unplanned and we had no idea what we were getting into!
After we were done with our meeting at UNIDO, we planned to take an auto to Connought Place (spelling maybe a little off the mark :)). This was supposed to be this posh place with a lot of posh buses which will take us to the destination in style and comfort. But the auto guy we approached said "Oh you should go to ISBT instead. You get buses every ten minutes". We said "But we want deluxe AC buses, yeah?". And he said "Oh yeah, you get deluxe buses too". We said "OK, then lets go there". And he took us to ISBT. All the way there, he was saying how he was supposed to get some commission if he goes to Connought and how he sacrificed this for our goodwill. Then after an hour or so, we reached ISBT. And lo and behold, there are NO deluxe buses in that place. Apparently, it was a lot further from UNIDO than Connought and the auto guy just wanted to get the extra fare!! You do find all kinds of people in Delhi, don't you?
So we had to take this run-down local bus to Agra. And I got the aisle seat (guess how??)! The entire five hours was a nightmare! People were stamping my foot all the time, hot air was rushing into my face (windows had to be kept open or we would have sweat to death), baby howling, men farting and the list goes on!
And in the end of what seemed like a lifetime, we reached Agra. And we spent the night at a dinghy hotel with a 'out of the world' air conditioner. The next morning, the g-f-n (you know who) colleague of mine woke me up at 5 A.M. (can you believe that??!!) so that we can see the sunrise on the Taj. I get ready and all that (come on that's true OK) and go to the East gate and the guard says it will open only at SIX!! I could have murdered the g-f-n &*^%!! Then we went in and took some snaps and came back to the hotel by 10 A.M. Now we had to catch the flight back to Chennai from the Delhi airport at 4 P.M. and we hadn't made any plans on how to reach Delhi from Agra. We gulped down a breakfast (with ants in it) and rushed to the Railway Station.
As soon as we entered the station, we came to a counter which said "Unreserved Second Class Booking Counter". This was what was recommended by our kind hotel manager and so we decided to get a ticket from this counter. We went in and said "Two tickets for a super fast train please". And the clerk handed us two tickets and said "it's leaving immediately". We ran with our backpacks (which were heavy mind you) and finally got into the train just before it started. Five minutes in that train and we wanted to commit suicide!
So you know my good-for-nothing (!) colleague Jessica right? Oh you don't eh? OK, she is just...good-for-nothing :)...OK sorry Jessica (in case you are reading this)...Now lets get back to the story...You know my good-for...Oh god, not again you say? OK OK I am getting on with it...
So I went to Delhi with Ms. Jessica Wade on an official trip. Suddenly she gets this wild idea to visit Agra so as to capture the brilliance of one of the seven wonders of the world. And we decided to go. Mind you, this was totally unplanned and we had no idea what we were getting into!
After we were done with our meeting at UNIDO, we planned to take an auto to Connought Place (spelling maybe a little off the mark :)). This was supposed to be this posh place with a lot of posh buses which will take us to the destination in style and comfort. But the auto guy we approached said "Oh you should go to ISBT instead. You get buses every ten minutes". We said "But we want deluxe AC buses, yeah?". And he said "Oh yeah, you get deluxe buses too". We said "OK, then lets go there". And he took us to ISBT. All the way there, he was saying how he was supposed to get some commission if he goes to Connought and how he sacrificed this for our goodwill. Then after an hour or so, we reached ISBT. And lo and behold, there are NO deluxe buses in that place. Apparently, it was a lot further from UNIDO than Connought and the auto guy just wanted to get the extra fare!! You do find all kinds of people in Delhi, don't you?
So we had to take this run-down local bus to Agra. And I got the aisle seat (guess how??)! The entire five hours was a nightmare! People were stamping my foot all the time, hot air was rushing into my face (windows had to be kept open or we would have sweat to death), baby howling, men farting and the list goes on!
And in the end of what seemed like a lifetime, we reached Agra. And we spent the night at a dinghy hotel with a 'out of the world' air conditioner. The next morning, the g-f-n (you know who) colleague of mine woke me up at 5 A.M. (can you believe that??!!) so that we can see the sunrise on the Taj. I get ready and all that (come on that's true OK) and go to the East gate and the guard says it will open only at SIX!! I could have murdered the g-f-n &*^%!! Then we went in and took some snaps and came back to the hotel by 10 A.M. Now we had to catch the flight back to Chennai from the Delhi airport at 4 P.M. and we hadn't made any plans on how to reach Delhi from Agra. We gulped down a breakfast (with ants in it) and rushed to the Railway Station.
As soon as we entered the station, we came to a counter which said "Unreserved Second Class Booking Counter". This was what was recommended by our kind hotel manager and so we decided to get a ticket from this counter. We went in and said "Two tickets for a super fast train please". And the clerk handed us two tickets and said "it's leaving immediately". We ran with our backpacks (which were heavy mind you) and finally got into the train just before it started. Five minutes in that train and we wanted to commit suicide!
Have you ever travelled in a second class unreserved compartment? I would think not. It so happens that only dirt-crested, nitpicking, drooling ANIMALS travel in these compartments. We went through hell. I don't wanna say more friends. It brings back DIRTY memories!
After 5 hours of such torture, we reached Delhi and took the flight back home. And the fact that I am writing this blog says that I am back to normal (or does it?).
