Kurdha Road Junction (standard:travel stories, 1028 words)
Author: Juggernaut	Added: Apr 20 2011	Views/Reads: 3195/2010	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A story of traveling back to campus for start of a new semester.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

slowly as if she wants to keep the smoke in her lung a little longer. 

“While attending agricultural college near Guntur, I once took a tour of
tobacco fields near the ‘Golden Tobacco Company,” Juggernaut tried to 
make a connection. 

“Do you have plans for the future after getting your degree?” asked Mrs.
Thomas in a casual manner still inhaling and exhaling smoke while the 
travelers around watching her without blinking.  After all, not often 
women smoke publicly, only in movies the bad women characters smoke to 
show their villainous nature. 

“I am hoping to go abroad to pursue further in my field,” Juggernaut
appeared to impress her. 

“That's good, I applied some years ago to immigrate to England,” “We the
Anglo-Indians have a special arrangement with the British Government to 
get special permit to settle in England, but the process is taking a 
long time,” Mrs. Thomas looked frustrated. 

While the conversation with Mrs. Thomas and smoking cigarette helped to
break the boredom, Juggernaut noticed that the train was slowing down 
and pulling into huge railway yard with endless tracks and locomotive 
engines in slow motion pulling trains in different directions. The 
railway station was Kurdha Road Junction, a cross roads for changing 
trains to go different places, a brightly lit railway station with 
several platforms and train tracks that are connected with over-bridge 
passes.  The station was crowded with passengers and porters in red 
uniform carrying baggage on their head packed in layers one over the 
other. 

For Juggernaut, sinking feeling sets in on arriving at Kurdha Road
Junction; it is only 25 miles to the final destination, a point of no 
return for the next four months of misery from terrible conditions at 
the hostel and hostility from some classmates. Juggernaut got off the 
train to walk on the platform to relax his strained muscles from 
sitting in the train.  Here, the train crew changes. Workers connect 
water hoses to re-fill the in-built water tanks on top of the rail cars 
for travelers' use. The train halts at the station for a good 30 
minutes to complete the transfers. Meanwhile the passengers get-off the 
train to the platform to walk around and make purchases from the 
vendors hawking loudly refreshments, news papers and other sundry 
items. Mrs. Thomas was still smoking cigarette sitting next to the 
window and looking outwards towards the platform.  The train guard 
whistled loud and waived a green flag to signal the engine driver to 
start, Juggernaut got into the train, as the train started slowly 
pulling out of Kurdha Road Junction. After four months, he will be 
travelling through Kurdha Road Junction again, but on way back home, a 
jolly good feeling. Somehow the name Kurdha Road Junction bring back 
memories of melancholy. 


Tweet