At Bangalore City Junction, I was treated to that most elusive of pleasures at a railway station: a Shatabdi pulling in. I captured it on camera, waited while they changed from a diesel loco to an electric (for the journey to Chennai), caught the departure, took a look at the results and gave myself a pat for a good afternoon’s work. It’s a great thing to be on a reasonably clean station at an hour not given to rush, the weather - perfect, only a bag to slug around, and gloating at the prospect of being on a fast train that looks empty.
2683 lived up to its Super-Fast billing (often a fad) and this journey was a breeze with Ernakulam Junction showing up at the appointed hour. I was woken up by this guy who, from the side upper, had awakened umpteen times and switched on the lights to check something on his mobile. Stepped out and a bludgeon lay in wait. This was any station in Kerala during the monsoons; dingy and small, washed so continuously that water didn’t merely fill up where it wished but seemed a part of everything. Any notions of lumbering up to Vanchinad (which was the nickname for the erstwhile Travancore state owing to its boat-shape) in semi-sleep were done away with by this all-pervasive wetness at five am. After a chai which does nothing to rejuvenate one’s being or anything of that sort, I settled down and soon a smugness came over me. This, after many many journeys, was planned well in advance and I wallowed in the notion that the choice of trains had been spot on. Vanchinad would be a good follow-up to 2683.
A ride through Kerala (especially the Palakkad – Ernakulam section) in the morning is like being bastinadoed into submission. Green so rich and pristine is all you see. And water. No matter how many times I’ve been through Kerala, I’m always amazed by the display. It hasn’t palled as yet. So Ernakulam … Mulanthuruthy … Kottayam passed in a blur. After Kottayam the sun came out and Vanchinad revealed its true colours. Kottayam … Thiruvananthapuram was a snail’s crawl with too many crossings and halts at places that I could only put down to the station ahead being full. A trio kept me engrossed with their talks ranging from ‘Nadhal’ and a tie-breaker to why Vanchinad, even by its lofty standards, was being unusually late today. Most passengers in a Kerala train are well versed in matters that concern the railways. They have an intuitive understanding of trains and also, glean a lot from their fellow countrymen’s reactions. In this instance, a chap reading a newspaper (his view through the window not sufficient to make out the name of the train) looked at someone he didn’t know, took stock of his expression and told the person near him – ‘Aa nammude vannu’ (that ours … came) to which the reply was ‘mm’. That’s how it appeared to me atleast.
Eventually Thiruvananthapuram showed up about two hours late for a five hour journey. The clincher for me was the halt just outside the Central station. The last time I’d been here on a day train was ten years back or so and there had been a halt then too. Some things don’t change.
Poovar Estuary Island resort has an island with a beach and the Arabian Sea beyond, an estuary giving way to a lake and subsequently, the Poovaru (river). There is a vantage point upfront with recliners from where all of them form part of one panoramic view. The island is sandy for the most part (land reclaimed and silted) and looks over to the lake on one side, the sea on the other. There are fishing hamlets at the far end of the island amidst the backdrop of the coconut groves that abound in Kerala. There are boats that ferry people from the resort to the island and the boat-jetty is operational 24 hours if prior notice is given. Near the boat-jetty is Seaweed, the seafood restaurant. It was in shambles during our visit. There is a shop for curios, souvenirs and the like. Hammocks are hoisted up here and there en route to the resort. The restaurant serving food buffet style is the food centre and the culinary highlight of the trip for me is curry leaves drink for breakfast. The evening we checked in at Poovar we (mother, sister and I) are spectators to a great flocking and flight of crows out of a thickly forested island. Their appearance in huge numbers makes the forest seem a cauldron; their cawing is all that can be heard. Against the sky, they seem like black strips of paper flapping and flying about. In moments, they are gone.
Kochuveli. And I’d made it with time to spare. A bus from Poovar terminus (no taxis that day, Hadthaal) took me to the Thiruvananthapuram Central. A passenger to Kottayam and I was on the lone platform of Kochuveli or so I thought. A dozen or so men who’d alighted with me took off from the platform, crossed the tracks and the fields that lay beyond them. The nonchalance of it struck me and I followed suit. We came upon the washer for the trains and the one being washed was the train to Bangalore. We’d been walking for fifteen minutes and there was no sign of anything resembling a platform to come. Eventually I saw the last coach of Kochuveli – Bikaner and the platform behind it. So this station had two functional platforms with about three-fourths of a kilometre of wilderness in between. I fretted about this when the announcement blared – “Onnaam number platformilirunnu Kochuveli – Bikaner express porappadum. Idhu poya pinna Bangalore express …………”
