Suddenly there was a lot of commotion. I opened my eyes and Pani is laughing in front of me. He insisted that I take out my bag as we are getting down the train. I looked out of the window only to find out that the train stopped in the middle of nowhere. Last thing I remember was that the train was somewhere in Faridabad.
“What happened? Why are we getting down here?” I asked Pani.
“The train stopped in the outskirts of Delhi. There is some problem it seems. It won’t move for another hour or two. We will hike from here to the nearest road and then we will take a bus/auto to Mehra’s house”
‘Duh! What a great way to start a vacation’ I said to myself.
A 15 mins of unintended weightlifting and hiking through stinking tracks and suburbia we were on a road. Mehra suggested that we take a bus up to Connaught Place. This time around it was a 90 mins of early morning Delhi darshan. After negotiating with most dreaded species on the earth – Delhi autowallahs we were in Mehra’s house at about 11 AM.
After breakfast, Dejo insisted that we visit the local market in Karol Bagh and buy the necessary first aid and winter clothes. Even I wanted to buy a CF memory card for my Canon A75. Mehra informed us that the local Gafar market is very famous for cheap electronic goods.
We bought gloves, socks, caps, cosmetics (sunscreen lotion – for we heard that Leh will be very hot in August, cold cream – for protecting our body in the nights). I got a very good deal for 512 MB CF card in Gafar market at Rs. 1800.
Lunch at Mehra’s house is the best to happen to all of us after several days of exams and one tiresome journey. All of us thought it would be our last bit of indulgence for the next 10 days to come. Of course our stays in Srinagar, Kargil, Khalsi proved that wrong.
At about 8:20 PM Mehra’s dad dropped us at New Delhi railway station. There was no mention of ‘Jat express’ in the boards/CC TV in the reception area. After enquiry we found out the platform number and rushed there. By 10 in the night our train is fast dividing the darkness in to known and unknown.
Coming up: Travel to Jammu and then to Srinagar
