The Unusual Marathon

After landing in Delhi in the evening, we went to the train station where we were supposed to board our train to Jammu. My wife and I checked our ticket, which showed that our train was going to be about four hours late. We kept our luggage in the cloak room and roamed a little nearby the station to explore and pass the time.

In this busy three hours time, we realized that we had not feed our stomachs in a long time.

Hot potato parathas with chilled sweet curd, what else could you ask for if you are in Delhi? We ate to our fullest; I mean more than our stomachs could ask for. Since we were nearby the station, we relished our food taking an entire hour.

We came back, took our luggage, and moved ahead. We began searching for the platform number where our train was supposed to arrive. But to our surprise, no such platform existed! We panicked and began running here and there. We decided to ask the vendor on the platform. Now what, another surprise was in store for us. The vendor informed us that our train was not from this station “New Delhi” but from “Old Delhi”! My wife and I looked at each other and uttered “What the hell!!” under our breath. The vendor told us that Old Delhi was 45 kms away and would take half an hour to reach there from the station we were standing on! We had no time. My wife looked at me angrily, my guilt was apparent. It wasn’t my fault that I relished my food for a complete hour! We had the time back then!

The vendor explained to us that we needed to take a metro train to reach the other station at our soonest; the metro station was 2 kms away. It would take 15 minutes for us to reach it, and 10 minutes from the metro station to Old Delhi. “God save me from my wife,” I begged.  We ran to our fastest we could, took an auto rickshaw immediately, went to the metro station and stood in the queue for tickets. We finally got the tickets, and what we saw was another queue for checking our bags. “What the hell!” was becoming the theme of the day.

My wife found some men that might have been able to pull me out of the fire. She begged the policemen to wave our bas check and showed them our tickets. She knew the process would take a lot of time and we would surely miss the train. She told them we had another train to catch within next 10 minutes from Old Delhi. They allowed us to board the metro train without checking our bags. Bless that woman.

“Yay! We reached Old Delhi and we have some spare time too!” said my wife. But nevertheless, we learned how fast dreams can crash. We found that our train was from platform 8! Can you guess which platform did our metro train left us on?  Hmm..well sadly on platform 1.

Then what?  I took 2 bags from my wife’s hand, one on one shoulder, and other one on another, third was already on my back. For a moment, my wife called me a “Coolie”!! Well that was too funny.

Our last mission was to catch our train. I caught my wife’s hand, looked into her eyes and said “Baby, unfortunately I cannot lift you like these bags. We need you to perform a miracle. I hope you understand but if you don’t run today, we won’t reach Jammu for the next two days!” That was emotional blackmail against my wife, but she agreed to it!

We began running. Running, in truth, it was a sprint. A sprint so fast that nobody could ever imagine a marathon like this! Lot of people at the station, the Delhi hot weather, unexpected baggage on my body, my extremely tired wife, the steps and bridges between platform 1 and 8, our four running feet and those “delicious parathas with chilled curd”  filled my senses!

Announcements on the station urged us on, and we channeled the speed of leopards! At one point we heard that our Jammu train had already arrived and few seconds later we heard it was about to depart! With no energy at all, we came down through the last steps of platform 8. We saw the train and we boarded, we had no idea of which compartment we stepped in! Gosh! We stepped in and the train started!!

Well, this is what happens if you just look at the departure time and not the departure station! Specially, if there are two stations of similar names!!

I and my wife blame each other for this stupidity! But yes, we have no place to forget those hot parathas with chilled curd!! We always wish to get that day back in our lives just to run a marathon....