40-hours of Train-ing!... Part 1

Till date, my longest train journey. Nearbout 40 hours on the Upper Berths (and thanks for that at least) of Sleeper Coaches of the Indian Railway.
And if the prospect had been daunting even before I started, it was no match for the dreariness and backache at the end of the expedition!
After office, the Falaknuma Express to Calcutta was a 26-hr journey, and from there, it was onward to Ranchi the next night on the Howrah- Hatia.
So, anything exciting? Well, let’s see …other than the usual bit of quarrel between the TTE and a ticketless traveler, the bunch of eunuchs (as soon as you had entered West Bengal) asking for money, the debate over when the lights should be turned off and the middle-berth raised…not much!
So yeah, on went the train with my only companion being Frodo Baggins, Merry Took, Sam and party, on their first Middle-Earth saving adventure…Fellowship of the Rings. Disturbed of course by the aforementioned distractions and yes, a stiff neck or a sore elbow out of being used much too long as prop.

DIGRESSION…Side-Middle
Oh, one criticism here, and that as a rule any Bong must do while traveling - the extremely uncomfortable implementation called the Side-Middle-Berth. What, is this a train to get refugees from Lahore to Amritsar, that you must pack in people in max numbers? It pushes up the Side-Upper even more and leaves everyone cursing a side-berth. Whoever made it surely assumed travelers were dwarf-sized or could unhinge their heads and put them in their bags when needed (that sounds disquieting). And of course, no one thought of where to create the extra seating space when you’re not sleeping on a 26-hour journey.
My verdict (and I give it of course with such conviction since it hardly matters!) is to make the person who’s brainchild it is, to be forced to travel on it without being allowed to climb off (other than to go to the washroom) from the length of Kashmir to Kanyakumari…and back!

In Cal for 3 ½ hours
Anyway, back to where I was before I digressed to vent out gyaan and all other things less than indispensable, and I reached Howrah…6.45 pm, Day 2. Another first – my shortest stay in my hometown.
The warm air of Calcutta and that old mushy thing called nostalgia made me want to go out for a breath of air under the Calcutta sky and beside the Hoogly river (I suggest you stop there with your sensible-nostalgia, just short of soaking your feet in gonga-jol and filling a bottle as many do. FYI, a million sewerages in the city drain into this :) ).
So, Rs10 at the cloakroom meant my luggage was taken care of and out I went with my Nikon in my hand. The Howrah Bridge, I must admit, looked quite a sight under the night sky, hued in an understated purple (I think…since I’m bad with colours), thanks to Philips, who did the lighting sometime back. Slow shutter speed, ISO as high as I dared, a steady hand and that thing called trial-and-error gave me a couple of good shots from one of the bathing ghats.
I still had time to kill before my 10.20 pm train to Ranchi, so, I decided to take a walk on the bridge itself. I was a tourist in Cal right now, and never before had I spent so much time on the Howrah bridge, which usually served for a deep sigh and of course, the way to home.
(To be continued... Howrah Bridge)