Had a great break of 8 days from daily routine and spent lovely time at Bangalore...
Though a "Tech City", it has no discipline on the roads, traffic is pathetic, local people are adamant, the most expensive city.... And the climate is hot and dry and it starts pouring anytime when it wants...
And the rains out here are like cats and dogs and it makes the city flood in no time and the roads get jammed with traffic soon.....
We had just seen the mess in 3 idiots movie but we experienced a disaster in it.... It happened on the day we had to return back to Mumbai from Bangalore...
We had a train to catch at 8pm and the day was bright sunny but all of a sudden the rain gods got excited and poured down at around 4pm. Drizzling turned to heavy rains in no time and the city got stranded in the floods and the traffic.
We caught an auto at 6pm as it takes 1 hour to reach the station so did not want to take a chance, so left early. But did not expect what was kept ahead for us..
The auto guy took us through all possible shortcuts to avoid traffic and we were happy. But alas! we got stranded in traffic when it was 8 and we were almost 1km away from the station. There came a road where no vehicle's moved even an inch, and it was pouring heavily and roads were flooded...
Mom and my bhabhi lost hopes and thought the train is missed but I kept cool.. I saw an uncle getting down from an auto besides our with luggage and i asked him if he was heading for Mumbai, and as he knew the way to the station I asked mom to leave the auto and told her we need to run...
1 km run with 10-12kg trolley bag and one shoulder bag on me, and 2 other bags with mom, we started our marathon rain run....
I kept on following the uncle running ahead, and kept on asking him how far and he said, "Its too far and we are going to miss the train as it was already 8.10." I did not lose hopes and ran faster, and don't know how but my mom too could match the pace behind me.
I pulled the trolley bag through the flooded road and left the footpath as they are just of no use and are full of stalls and so..
Got my chappals stuck in the wet mud and had to throw them and kept running in the rains bare foot.
Finally saw the station and increased my speed and got a coolie in the entrance, asked him to leave us at the Udayan express of 8.10pm and he quickly pulled all the bags from me and mom and ran ahead. He was very helpful and took us to the platform at the exact coach and there was no train at the platform. We thought the train is gone or either we at the wrong platform, but don't know what to say, Miracle, we heard the horn of the approaching train to the platform....
"THANK YOU GOD", were my first words.... Heartbeats beating fast, my hands trembling with the hassle and whole drenched me sat on the seat in the train and held my head in my hands and was recuperating slowly..... And the train started in next 15 minutes. We got good seats near the window and slowly we realized the pain in our hand and shoulder and legs.. But felt good!!!
All ends well when the heart says, "All is well...."
Comments
I have had a similar run.. for a flight in Tel Aviv... and it was just...so so tense.. Me and two of my friends had to run throughout the airport and try our best to complete all the formalities in the process. Finally we got to the gate and were the last people to board the flight... the hostess was just about to call out our names.
It seems we get super strength from somewhere during such situations... what say :-)?