Villivakkam with Bharathu kutty

August 22nd, 2009.

It was a Saturday! It was a weekend. My house was a bit crowded with a lot of purohits and Madisar maami's. Yes! You guessed it right. My father was conducting a ceremony for my late grandfather(his father). It is done typically with madi acharam, agni, achadhai with food being cooked on coal and not modern day stoves etc. My house is very well known for its austerity, strictness and discipline. Andha maadhiri kudumbathula dhaan naan vandhu porandhein. If such festivals are conducted, Damien and myself are the people who are kindly requested to go out as we don't follow any madi or acharam. Though I say that I don't follow there is a good chance that tomorrow I would start following it. My inner heart says so as I am losing interest in quite a lot of things.

Introducing my friend Bharathwaj! IIT-big mandai just like my another friend Ramkarthik. Heights of conservativeness! Typical modern youth in 1980's lifestyle(got that?). He knows what is wrong and what is right! I have got loads to learn from him and his lifestyle! If my memory is right, I met him infront of T-72 Indian Army Tank at IIT-Madras on October, 2008. We decided to railfan at Villivakkam, although the original plan was to go to Kavaraipettai.

Villivakkam is one of my favourite stations where I watch trains fly past by. All trains leaving towards Bangalore, Coimbatore, Renigunta and Kerala bound trains take this route! It has got loads of freight action too. Earlier, we thought of going to Kavaraipettai, but later I decided Villivakkam should be the right place for Bharathu.

We were to meet at Kasturibai Nagar. Bharathu was coming from a marriage function directly. Bharathu inquired whether Damien has come? I said NO! We boarded an EMU and soon we started our journey towards Park Town. As usual, I am much more into non-rail topics. We were talking about present day madi, acharam, quota system in India and the standards of IIT.

Soon we reached Park Town. I insisted that subway should be used rather than crossing the road. We had directly purchased a ticket to Villivakkam with return so we walked straight to the MMC complex. As we were entering a Tiruvallur bound EMU left. So we need to wait for some 20 more minutes to board another EMU which was scheduled to start at 1320hrs. But the guy started a bit late. As a result we missed to see the Bangalore Express with WDP-4. We reached Villivakkam by 1340 or 1345hrs. Till 1400hrs there were no trains. I don't remember the train numbers nor loco numbers, but we had tremendous fun later on! All the WAP-4's, WAM-4's were cruising! I could see dust sprayed on onlookers as it blasted past us. The classic moment of the trip was when Kovai Intercity blasted past us and a huge puff of air hit our face though we were standing quite far from the tracks!

We decided to have a break! We went to the small VLR at sub-urban platform and looked at menu. Nothing was impressive. Bharathwaj suggested that we should take "more". It was awesome! Gudur means "Gudur Dosai". Villivakkam means "more" I guess. I thought that foot over bridge should be used instead of crossing tracks. I have an unwritten agreement with my father that I won't cross tracks!!! I thought twice and crossed it! I don't violate rules often... We saw some goods trains doing good speed. I felt thirsty again. So we went back to the VLR and I had another "more"(buttermilk in English?) while Bharathu had cool drinks. Then we settled down and waited for our EMU.

Surprisingly, we saw Sangamitra Express bound towards Patna in slow line, quietly followed by West Coast Express in slow line! I wondered why? As a result MAS bound EMU was 20 minutes late! We boarded an EMU at around 1545hrs and at Park Town we boarded an EMU towards KTBR. We bid goodbye at KTBR and I reached home at around 1715hrs.

-Krishna Kumar.S