Golden Temple (express)

I usually book my tickets in Baroda express but during festival seasons the ticket booking is house full, nearly within one week from when booking opens.. so had to take the tickets in golden temple express this Christmas(NRI season as in Gujarat).. This was my second experience with this train.. the first time I had to take this train (scheduled departure 23:36 from platform no. 1) As shown on the internet it was two hrs late than nirdharit samay… I reached the station 45 mins earlier against the delay so that parents can go to bed as early as possible.. When I reach station I see the train already standing at platform no. 3 !! I walked neatly to cross the bridge and board the train… my eyes and mouth remained wide open when the train started to move within a second after I stepped inside!!
Today again Golden Temple express, 3 hrs late from scheduled departure.. I reached station at 2 am to see the train further delayed to 3.38 am. The weather was chill as the temperature touched 11 degree; I paid for a cup of adrakh chai at a platform stall and sipped my way to the waiting room. As I sat in the waiting room, dozing and listening to songs, there was a guy two seats apart, all awake, he was in a his thin red lee tee , dint seem to be feeling cold.. sitting and smiling to himself as he was navigating back and fro in his web cam, on his lap was a leathered brown, fancy, ladies hand bag and other luggage surrounding his feet. In the previous row there were three chairs kept close to each other to make a small bed on which a pretty looking lady was sleeping, all covered with a shawl and a blanket, she seemed to be in her own dream world as she found her comfort on that makeshift bed of hers while getting cozy in the blanket.

The announcement was made at 3.50 am, as my train was to arrive.. there was still some time to go and the guy quickly took a picture of the pretty lady as her fair face was seen from in-between the two back rests of the red chair. He gently woke her up while folding the blanket and placing it back in a jhabla theli. As the two of them started walking together towards the platform from the waiting room I could not resist my smile while reading the print on the jhabla theli “MANOJ WEDS NEHA” :o)

May be the person who provided all the warmth did not need a sweater! :)

Their seat was next to mine, bogey no. S/5, Golden Temple Express!

Are you Gamed ???

Registered when the restructuring was going on in my company after it was taken over .. now work had geared up since like 3 days... the dates of the matches were not fixed.. till yesterday mails were sent to the HR to find out if the game was hand ball or throw ball !!
We just wanted to play.. today morning the group of registered gals of IT dept planed to meet at the ground at 9.30 am.. no one being sure if we could get a hand ball for practice I carried my volley ball along ( which did not have any air : ).. by 10.00 am 5 gals turned up in their track pants..
The fun part was that ground already had a set of school kid doing some event.. more fun was, except for one gal of the so called team, no one knew what the game was..
Bharti (who knew the game), managed to find a stick and started to scribble in the mud.. two goal posts.. the ‘D’ area.. three steps.. and so on..
Every one was listening with full concentration coz department ka savaal tha ( no.. not that we dint want to lose.. but we did not want to look like fools :D )
Half and hr discussion and back to office..
At 11.30 am we get a mail saying the match is scheduled for today 1.30 pm !!! what !!! we don’t even have full 7 players :O. we started asking in our respective work teams.. can any one join in... we need two gals.!
Managed to get them by 12pm... back to ground then.. with the volley ball !!
In all this.. my concern was..
A. I did not know any of the gals there.. how does one find out who is in her team and who is not !!
(taken care.. we were all in colourful tees and the opposite team were all in black.. okay just DO NOT pass the ball to any gal who is in a BLACK tee.. )

We still had an hr to go (actually half an hr as the match time was pre pond to 1.00 ).. We started practicing passes.. and tried different goal keepers one after the other.. finally decided upon one who was better than the others in the team.. :)
There the whistle blew.. and we had to go in the court.. they won the toss.. fortunately they selected the court so we chose to attack..
first half.. we made 3 goals.. they - 0... I was the ‘pp’ ( chase the other team babes and try to snatch the ball when my team in the defence act) second half... two minutes remaining.. we made 5 more goals :D... finally in the last minute they got one goal.. !!
One played and ran like this, don’t know after how many yrs.. it was more than fun to play.. making 3 goals was bonus to the fun.. winning the match.. double bonus to fun !!