Dr. Ambedkar, why Nagpur?

My last posting has invited quite a few comments – some of them advising me, some criticizing. I think the overall impression most of the people have got is that I don’t know how to travel by train (may be because I wrote I was doing it after some 5-6 years). I have news for the ignorant mortals – I am a veteran of train travel. My father was in Indian Railways and hence I got more than a fair share of train travel… we used to travel even when not required to ensure that all the yearly passes were utilized. On top of that, my father was posted far away from my native place which meant long journeys. And this was not the first time when I got into trouble – I will prove soon… but there is a side story first which you must know…

You might be aware that Dr Ambedkar embraced Buddhism some time in his life. There was a big event in Nagpur where many (or most) of his followers converted to Buddhism. This happened to happen on the day of Dussera (दशहरा ). And going by the glorious Indian tradition, the event is celebrated every year on Dussera at Nagpur… which essentially means millions of people thronging to Nagpur for God know what… and throwing the normal life completely out of gear… and yes, you guessed it right, including the train services…

So much so for the "side story"… incidentally, as it happens, my father planned for my grandparents’ pilgrimage to Dwaraka… and as it happens we were supposed to leave – you got it right – on the day of Dussera. Now, I am not really a pilgrimage type of a person (do I look like one?) but this was a few hundred years back when I was gawky teenager and did not have a voice of my own (I was not born in the United States, was I?) and had no option but to tag my parents for their parents’ pilgrimage (thinking about it, everything apart from 'teenager' remains!)

The train that we were supposed to take comes from Howrah… we were supposed to board at Wardha which is AFTER Nagpur on the train’s route… We realized beforehand that this was going to be trouble – the train would get jam-packed at Nagpur… we discussed various options including dropping the trip but the good son that my father is (you see, its all in the genes - this ‘good son’ thing runs in the family), he was determined… So, we decided to board the train BEFORE Nagpur to pre-empt jam-packing… which also meant that the 12 hours journey became some 24+ hours journey…

We took the morning passenger train to Kamptee, a station few kilometers ahead of Nagpur… there were a few hours left for our train to arrive… I took my father’s permission to go and watch a movie in a nearby theatre… The theatre was infested with some kind of bugs which kept biting but in those days wataching a Hindi movie was the greatest thing I could wish for... the bugs were ignorable in the larger scheme of things... soon the movie started and I went into a trance... I was in deep trance watching the movie when the hero shouted at the villain “Uday… …”… I was a little shaken – was I day dreaming? The villain’s name wasn’t Uday till now!! The hero shouted again “Uday… …” … The voice sounded a little different this time… I was out of the trance by now - It was my father’s voice!

There must be something wrong… I rushed out… My father was indeed looking for me.
As it happens, Murphy’s law had kicked in… the daunting task of coming all the way to Kamptee was useless… why?? Because we came to know that, though the train comes from Howrah, our coach gets connected to the train at Nagpur only…

Did we give up? No…
We took an earlier train to Nagpur… The idea was this – Go to the yard and get into the coach there itself… Now that’s not an easy task but then what’s the use being a railways employee, eh?
So, the 3 generations reached Nagpur and went to the yard… guess what? Dr Ambedkar’s followers had beaten us to the yard – the coach was already jam-packed with layers of creatures who I guess must have been human beings before they were all packed into the coach like boxes… we did not dare enter…

So, did we give up? No…
We marched to the railway station… being the good son he is, my father bought (yes, bought… he had to, though he was a railways employee) tickets for 2-AC which was somehow untouched by the followers… That was my first ride in 2-AC…

At the end of it all, the only thing I could think of was “Dr Ambedkar, why Nagpur?”

I take care not to be in the 100km radius of Nagpur during Dussera but it does not matter much… my trips are jinxed anyway…
and my dear friend Manas, I don’t think I am ever going to get used to of train journeys (read misfortune)