Yeah the title is some what copied but not the content. This has been quite long coming from my side. What Trivandrum has done to me no body will ever understand. Though I often first in saying that this place has no life, I had none so quiet before .In some ways it robbed me of other explorations I could have made ,if I weren’t here. True this place does not have enough to feed the interest of a city dweller but I was never one. True this place poses lots of problems but which place does not.
On the valentines day of 2005 I was made to fall in love with Trivandrum. I packed my bags and boarded Sabari express that headed to Trivandrum with an expectancy that would have easily eluded a to-be-father’s about the gender of his breed. The clerk at office had nailed me by getting me a sleeper class compartment I swear it was my first 32hours straight journey and was not aware of the problems the journey would pose.
Incident one:
The morning of 15 Feb. saw us enter the “God’s OWN COUNTRY”. Some of my other lucky colleagues had got a three tier A/C booking and I along with one other friend Vijay joined them for a breakfast hoping for the TC to arrive to get an extra fare ticket to TVM. The TC did arrive after an hour but to my astonishment asked to have a private conversation with me. There in the corridor we had an argument where the TC started accusing that we had intentionally stayed in the compartment and were cheating on the railway department. Being used to the attention and respect the organization name generates ,I showed him the company stamp on the ticket and explained him that we had come over for break –fast and the other people in the compartment were our colleagues. The next question hit me as hard as a gunshot ,the moron had never heard about the company name(or was I a moron).He then proceeded and asked me to tell the names of the 20 odd people traveling with me and prove that they were my colleagues, I could have done that but the problem was now I was “myself” and shot came the answer asking him whether he knew the names of people working in southern railways and if he cannot give me the names how could I believe he was an TC.The result was that it took 3000 rupees and a great deal of persuasion to keep him from hitting me or throwing me in to jail.
The fine left us high and dry and we entered Trivandrum with about 500 rupees in my bank account and an entire month before a positive hope of enriching my account.
It was about 7:30 in the evening when we reached our designated hotel and wondered whether if it was a bundh day we had come on, the shops has closed down their iron curtains and people had gone to sleep. It was not until five more days in the place we came down from our utopia to the normal world and it started to hurt bad ,and really bad. Finally by the end of the week we had gotten ourselves a room to stay.
We were sitting on bench in Hyderabad nibbling at our nails for two months till that period and the promise of some work seemed like a oasis in the desert I was in then. but it was not to happen, the pipeline in which projects were in for this place seemed to be quite a long one and we were to do the same thing as we did in Hyderabad if not more furiously this time. Those were days when the chime of six on clock for us was somehow like a death bell. A long walk towards kazhakuttam would follow. The road connecting office to room was a national highway devoid of any street light or is it a highway light and stories about robberies were always in air. Every day was an adventure and hunt for food was something like a hunt for Robinhood.With absolutely nothing to do at office and home life was becoming a virtual hell adding to these vows were policemen who would often get down to have a lecture about Kerala’s culture and how we were spoiling it.
We were forbidden warriors fighting a losing battle and in a desperate condition and this made us the group of 10 people a close knit unit. We started going around Trivandrum quite frequently .It was during one of these tours we landed in a place called Padmanabhapuram Palace
To be continued ……….
On the valentines day of 2005 I was made to fall in love with Trivandrum. I packed my bags and boarded Sabari express that headed to Trivandrum with an expectancy that would have easily eluded a to-be-father’s about the gender of his breed. The clerk at office had nailed me by getting me a sleeper class compartment I swear it was my first 32hours straight journey and was not aware of the problems the journey would pose.
Incident one:
The morning of 15 Feb. saw us enter the “God’s OWN COUNTRY”. Some of my other lucky colleagues had got a three tier A/C booking and I along with one other friend Vijay joined them for a breakfast hoping for the TC to arrive to get an extra fare ticket to TVM. The TC did arrive after an hour but to my astonishment asked to have a private conversation with me. There in the corridor we had an argument where the TC started accusing that we had intentionally stayed in the compartment and were cheating on the railway department. Being used to the attention and respect the organization name generates ,I showed him the company stamp on the ticket and explained him that we had come over for break –fast and the other people in the compartment were our colleagues. The next question hit me as hard as a gunshot ,the moron had never heard about the company name(or was I a moron).He then proceeded and asked me to tell the names of the 20 odd people traveling with me and prove that they were my colleagues, I could have done that but the problem was now I was “myself” and shot came the answer asking him whether he knew the names of people working in southern railways and if he cannot give me the names how could I believe he was an TC.The result was that it took 3000 rupees and a great deal of persuasion to keep him from hitting me or throwing me in to jail.
The fine left us high and dry and we entered Trivandrum with about 500 rupees in my bank account and an entire month before a positive hope of enriching my account.
It was about 7:30 in the evening when we reached our designated hotel and wondered whether if it was a bundh day we had come on, the shops has closed down their iron curtains and people had gone to sleep. It was not until five more days in the place we came down from our utopia to the normal world and it started to hurt bad ,and really bad. Finally by the end of the week we had gotten ourselves a room to stay.
We were sitting on bench in Hyderabad nibbling at our nails for two months till that period and the promise of some work seemed like a oasis in the desert I was in then. but it was not to happen, the pipeline in which projects were in for this place seemed to be quite a long one and we were to do the same thing as we did in Hyderabad if not more furiously this time. Those were days when the chime of six on clock for us was somehow like a death bell. A long walk towards kazhakuttam would follow. The road connecting office to room was a national highway devoid of any street light or is it a highway light and stories about robberies were always in air. Every day was an adventure and hunt for food was something like a hunt for Robinhood.With absolutely nothing to do at office and home life was becoming a virtual hell adding to these vows were policemen who would often get down to have a lecture about Kerala’s culture and how we were spoiling it.
We were forbidden warriors fighting a losing battle and in a desperate condition and this made us the group of 10 people a close knit unit. We started going around Trivandrum quite frequently .It was during one of these tours we landed in a place called Padmanabhapuram Palace
To be continued ……….
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