ISRO Exams, biggest adventure

I am just back from Bangalore today after giving my ISRO exams and having a load of adventure which was nearly unexpected. The whole trip looked something like Dil Chahta Hai and Jab We Met or something like that.

I left for Bangalore on 25th evening via Shivamogga to Bangalore. Since the direct train from Mangalore to Bangalore reaches quite late in the morning, so the other route via Shivamogga was preferred since we can reach our destination at 5 in the morning. The bus from Manipal was at 3:30PM to Shivamogga. After boarding the bus, we found that there is no place to sit anywhere in the bus and everyone was going till the last stop. Standing for three-and-a-half-hours is not as easy esp when we had to cross Augumbe in the middle. After standing here and there, we somehow sat on the engine of the bus! Phew! Somehow!

The journey from Shivamogga to Bangalore was as smooth as possible. We reached Bengaluru at 6 in the morning, after which I left for my sis’s house. This was a chance to get fresh and relax myself, spread legs after such taxing journey. The exam was from 12PM at Vijaya Pre-University college. Everything went fine, the questions were easy, some were too easy. After finishing the exam, I left for Forum mall, Kormangla which took around an hour to reach. First, I met Seema , then Anurag Upadhaya. After having dinner at KFC, we left for station. We were to leave back to Shivamogga, train being at 11:40PM.

A blunder

We entered station at 11PM. Suddenly I saw the ticket and found a major blunder. I had booked tickets for 26May instead of 26April. For precaution we took tickets for General coaches and entered the platform. The train which is usually not so much full was jam-packed on this special day. The only thing I could see was RAC on the reservation charts. After checking with the TTE’s, we came to know that there is one First Class coach which got some seats. We had a nice argument and bargaining with TTE, he wanted to share the same seat with many people and take the full fare.

Train Tour

We then moved to the last sleeper compartment. Me and Rock met an engineering student from Mangalore who was also in the same fate as us except that he didnt make the mistake we did. We kept standing for an hour, when train reached Tumkur the TTE tried shooing us out. After running here and there, that guytold us that there is three general compartments in the beginning of the train. Crossing 9 coaches, that too running with luggages was something  I had never thought of , especially we didnt know how much time the train stops there. In one of the comparement, we got  place to stand on the door. All three of us closed the doors and cuddled in one place and started discussing about our engineering. He was also from 8th semester and had just a few weeks left.

Troubles pours in

After  half an hour, I felt a lot sleepy and maybe I dozed off. Suddenly I woke up by the flies which came inside the coach, thanks to our location which was next to door. The place had become a headache, we got off the train on a station to relax ourself. After moving 2 coaches ahead, I saw a luggage compartment which was closed. That guy said “Look! People are inside”. This was a time, banging the doors since we never knew how to open the luggage compartment doors. The door on the other side was open. Now came a challenge to cross the coach and get off the other side that too crossing the general coach. We were not even able to enter the general one, how come cross it completely? We pleaded people to allow us to cross somehow, jumping over others and opening doors here and there to get off.

Hunting for a place to sleep

Even though we managed to get off the train on the other side which didn’t have a platform, getting up was a trouble. The tracks are laid on a heap of pebbles and stones and luggage compartment dont have anything like ladders to help us climb. At that time the door was at the height of our head I somehow hurled myself in the compartment after pushing aside the door. After entering, I was like “What to do next?”. Fortunately, there was ample place on the shleves of the compartment which is the railways probably uses to keep small boxes. After sleeping for 3-4 hours, I got up around 5:30 in the morning. The train was standing as usual in some unknown countryside which didnt even have a station. Our other friends were in AC. Now we both jumped out and tried to move in the AC coach. The other guy from Mangalore had left an hour back before we got out.

Return journey ends

After reaching Shivamogga, we took a bus back to Manipal. Though the seat we took was in the front, the whole journey was a PITA and even worse than the up journey on saturday. The bus driver took 4 hours for a journey which can take around 3:15 hrs. He was driving with so much ease as if we are the most vella person on earth and have loads of useless time to waste. Reached Manipal at 11PM, got fresh, had lunch and off to sleep! Slept for 6 hours and am still now experiencing the hangover.