High school sweethearts... (#Wattys2017)

Journey to the Chennai...!

Chapter-65

   (Journey to the Chennai)

//Happy Birthday to you John. You have been all your life beside me at any cost. And hopefully i pay you back the sameway rest of my life .//

 

Exams are the cruellest thing that has been ever invented on earth. It is the only means that a teacher wants to check a student in 3 hours which they taught days together.

Globally examination stands on one edge and locally in India Examinations stands on other edge. Examination in India is completely different from the scenario of world. It doesn’t matter how much subject you know but those 3 hours of exam decides your future by putting a stamp on your face, that you are a failure, average or good. 3 hours of exam can never decide the fate of the student that is what I thought all my life. But if at all Mr. Bill Gates was born in India he would definitely be writing his supplementary exams instead of being a dropout from college.

While examination in India stands on one side, engineering exams stand to the other extreme. What they teach in class is how to build a hut and what they expect us to write in exam is how to construct Eifel tower. Engineering students are also equally talented in writing the exams, if at all the question was how to construct a Eifel tower and the student only knows how to build a hut, then the answer would be “First build a hut, place another hut on it, place another hut on it, place another hut on it, place another hut on it, (so on….. Till the exam booklet is filled) so this is the how you build the beautiful Eifel tower.” 

I dint even know when the exams started but by the time I knew they ended as well. This was my 1st year end examination and I performed it so bad that I was clear that I am going to fail in at least 3 subjects. Not only me, all my friends had the same experience. While I was studying Civil engineering, John was doing mechanical engineering, Din was doing Electrical engineering and Raghu (who is Don in Hssh part-1) was doing Computer science engineering each of us in 4 different colleges and in 4 different branches planned to leave Chennai on a vacation after the hectic exam schedule.

 ******

“Chennai 4 tickets…..” Din shouted handing over the Tatkal train ticket form in the ticket form.

“Madras?” the man in the counter said looking at the form.

“No, it’s Chennai” John said.

“Ya, both are same. Where did you mention your age?” saying the man in the counter threw away the form.

Seeing the ticket master throwing the form back Din eyes raged in anger. Tatkal ticket is the train ticket which you book just before the date of journey and the booking is opened from 8.00 am to 9.00 am in the morning, this booking is available in whole India. This is a first come first serve process so Din got up at 3.00 am in the morning and took the line which I later accompanied at 5.00am and John 7.00am.

The only reason of Din’s anger on the station master is that “Who the heck will get up at 3.00am again and stand in Queue.”

But we quickly filled the data and resubmitted which made our tickets confirmed for 28th April 2010, 4.00pm, Charminar Express.

Next day all four of us boarded the train. And this was our first tour without our parents, though they came to drop us in station still we loved to travel on our own. Though we played all sorts of games initially but as it was 10.00pm the co-passengers asked us to turn off the lights and we forcefully slept that night.

I suddenly got up from sleep and checked the time as I was a bit afraid that we were going to miss the station and it showed “1.30am.”

As I was sleeping on the upper berth, I looked down to find my friends and was startled to see Din missing. For a while I felt he was using the washroom, but it was almost 15 minutes but he dint turn up.

I got down the berth and went to search Din, surprisingly I found him sitting near the exit door.

For a while I was scared regarding why is he sitting near the door. Breeze was very cool and I could see him staring at the passing trees.

“Dinnu” I called him standing a little away from him.

“AJ, are you not sleeping?” Din asked.

“No actually I woke up and found you not in berth so…” I said shivering in the cold wind.

“I was not getting sleep AJ, so just came down to breathe some fresh oxygen.” Din said smiling.

“Oh really? I guess it’s very cold and I think we need to go back to sleep.” I said shivering in the cold.

“Stop it AJ, come Sit down here and enjoy the breeze.”Din said looking at the passing trees.

Though I was initially reluctant but sat down on the stairs after a couple of minutes.

Long silence mingled for a while and then Din asked “AJ , what do you see in those trees.”

I just shook my head as I was getting buried in the cold weather and splashing wind.

“AJ that is our life, we are not going to see any tree ever or any tree ever in the same way and similarly with life, nothing will be same again or nothing will be seen in the same way. Time once spent will never ever comeback.”

I was mystified of what Din was saying.

 “3 Years from now everything will change, our lives, jobs, work…! Things will be like these passing trees. I guess we will not even have time to meet.”

I at once became low hearing Din, it was tough to accept but whatever Din said was exactly true. Things will never be the same.

“But our Friendship will always remain the same,” John startled us both.

We both stood up and went to John.

“That is true”, Din said and a friendly hug between three of us lasted for a couple of minutes.

“You said some is coming to pick us up?”John asked Din while we are still hugging posture.

“They are not coming to pick us up John, they are just coming to show us city.” Din said

“Tourist guides?” I asked.

“Shut up, AJ, they are my Orkut friends.”Din said smiling.

“Shutttt up? For what? Are they girls?” John asked.

“Yes bro.” Din said blushing.

“Damn it, that is the reason this fellow said Chennai while I was interested in Kerela.” saying John squeezed Din’s neck along with mine.

All the 3 of us sat near the steps leaving out our A.C Berths, chuckled, shared all memories, laughed heartfelt and that moments are more cherished than sleeping happily that night. And this also proved the saying “You can buy a bed, but not the sleep.” Many in the compartment felt that we are foolish sitting on the floor near door, but really happiness lies when we are with our people who can make us feel that we are still alive.

*****

I felt a heavy tap on my shoulder.

“AJ, get up. We reached Chennai and you people are blocking the way.”

As soon as I got up, I saw we 3 three were sleeping near the door passage and huge crowd was furiously looking at us and if we spare an extra minute they would stamp us or do those mini high jumps to get out of the station.

Very quickly we managed to get out of the train. And our faces were looking like zombies with half sleep.

     // Sorry for the late update friends..!! and next update will be very soon.//                         

                                                          To be continued…………