Haflong is a cold place, especially in winter. At an elevation of 513 m (1,683 ft) above sea level, this hill station pretty much never gets hotter then 25 Celsius and never cooler then 4-3 Celsius. But the wind chill can be a killer, especially if you are sitting in a Railway platform in the open at 10 in the night.
My memory is fuzzy but I think I was around 7 years old. Our family was on our way to vacationing in Goa. That meant we had to go from Haflong to Guwahati. From there another train to Kolkata; the Rajdhani to Mumbai and finally a short flight to Goa.
But it all had to start somewhere and that somewhere was Lower Haflong Station. A month long vacation for the whole family meant a whole lot of luggage at that time and we had come to the station with plenty of to spare. I don’t remember if the train was late, but I remember we waited quite a long time.
It was freezing cold. My hands, ear and nose were all red..I dare say I must have looking like Rudolf the reindeer at this point. My brother had gotten pally with a few local tribal boys and was having a good time. I was trying to keep mysel
f warm by running on the platform with occasional screams from my mother to watch out.
Suddenly I heard this crackling sound, and could smell something burning. Turning around I saw a bonfire on the edge of the platform. I ran up and saw that most people had started gathering around a few burning fences topped off with dry kindling.
Soon someone found a kettle of tea to heat up over that fire, someone fished out some munchies and someone started humming a tune. We spent the rest of the time waiting for the train by plain an impromptu game of Antakshari around a bonfire sitting with strangers who became friends for that night.
My memory is fuzzy but I think I was around 7 years old. Our family was on our way to vacationing in Goa. That meant we had to go from Haflong to Guwahati. From there another train to Kolkata; the Rajdhani to Mumbai and finally a short flight to Goa.
But it all had to start somewhere and that somewhere was Lower Haflong Station. A month long vacation for the whole family meant a whole lot of luggage at that time and we had come to the station with plenty of to spare. I don’t remember if the train was late, but I remember we waited quite a long time.
It was freezing cold. My hands, ear and nose were all red..I dare say I must have looking like Rudolf the reindeer at this point. My brother had gotten pally with a few local tribal boys and was having a good time. I was trying to keep mysel
f warm by running on the platform with occasional screams from my mother to watch out.Suddenly I heard this crackling sound, and could smell something burning. Turning around I saw a bonfire on the edge of the platform. I ran up and saw that most people had started gathering around a few burning fences topped off with dry kindling.
Soon someone found a kettle of tea to heat up over that fire, someone fished out some munchies and someone started humming a tune. We spent the rest of the time waiting for the train by plain an impromptu game of Antakshari around a bonfire sitting with strangers who became friends for that night.
1 comment:
Many a times we make friends while traveling, sometimes out of boredom and sometime out of necessity. In this case the latter.But the point to be noted my friend is the camaraderie that emanates during this journey is heart warming. I recall once I was traveling back to Kolkata from Delhi and the Rajdhani was diverted through Patna as there was a Rail roko at the regular enroute destination Gaya. Anyways the train was delayed by 11 hrs, water ran out, food ran out, I was running high temperature as well and did not have a place to sleep as Dad's and my ticket was RAC and had no chance of resting so I thought!
Complete strangers just bonded that night. A perfect gentleman offered me his berth and I slept through the night and he shared a seat with another co passenger. At any possible station or wherever the train was stopping the guys would jump out and forage for either ice candy or some local speciality like ram dana laddu, so by the time we reached Howrah I was well rested and definitely over fed!
Although today I cannot recall a single name of my co passengers but am ever grateful to my friends on the go and remember them with all fondness.
Post a Comment