It is around 2 in the night, we had crossed Agra half hour ago and were about 2ish hours from Delhi. The eccentric antics of our co-passengers kept us entertained. Just as we thought that after 26 hours of traveling we had seen it all, the unthinkable happened.
A half sleepy dude walks up to our cubicle (excuse my IT lingo) and inquires about the train's Agra schedule. We reply in concerned amazement that Agra was a good 50Kms behind. Needless to say he was anxious. The guy's worry seemed misplaced as the train was akin to a bus, stopping where ever there was a station (even when there wasn't one, at times).
He drags out his brick of a phone and starts dialing, he stops midway and looks around. A good 10 pairs of eyes were on him. He says to no one in particular that his mobile is out of currency. A concerned neighbor lends him a mobile. He calls and reels out the situation to the listener, it was difficult to make out what the listener was saying thanks to the wind speed.
The call ended abruptly and the guy was visibly shaken, he starts sobbing. None of us knew exactly what the issue on hand was so we did our best to calm him down, we succeeded in a couple of minutes.
As it turned out the guy had planned to elope with the village Sarpanch's daughter and get marry her in Agra before leaving for Delhi and immigrating to Dubai. The driver put a spanner in his best laid plans by missing the schedule first and catching up later. The train reached Bhoopal an hour late and later took numerous halts, thus making our dude inform the girl to reach the station at half past 3.
The call woke up half the people in the lady's house and she got grounded for good...
I had half a mind to get his contact details to track their lives in the future, but decided against it. Maybe I should have!
Signing off...
