De-Tour

And here I am taking an elongated trip from Delhi to Lucknow through rustic North India. Shatabdis are meant to be short and quiet. What it can’t help is with a train accident at Aligarh. So the engine, thirteen coaches and the solitary brake van roll along wherever the rails, their switches and those guards let them. As long as they touch the capital of Avadh at the end of their meandering. The damages ofcourse are worth about 5 hours. At the current rate we’re to reach the famed city of the Bhulbhulaiya at 6 in the evening. Delay or no delay, the kids at the Khurja Shahar station are quite excited at the site of these German-built air-conditioned coaches stopping over at theirs. The coaches do look neat. There’s a North European touch definitely. Not that I’m an expert on the North European Rail Manufacturing industry. But I did notice that the window glass in the efficient toilet had Norwegian markings! The unscheduled stop at the station ofcourse was courtesy of the changed course and elongated itinerary of this Express. So Khurja Shahar is where I decided I’d scribble down between chapters from The Broker by the legal beagle J.G.
(To be continued...)