Young adventurers

People do not realise that their everyday life is an adventure. A fisherman does not realise that his life is full of adventures. But when we, lay men, hear that he spends days on end in the high seas, braving the wind, the storm, we feel 'how adventurous!' A miner perils his life everyday but he may not realise it.

Are we very different? I get a bus/auto to Bally Ghat everyday, hang from an overcrowded train, get off at Ultodanga, hang from an over-crowded bus to get to Beliaghata. The return journey is no more sweeter.

The journey of adventure reached its zenith yesterday. I boarded a bus from Beliaghata at 5:14. There was no way I could catch the 5:17 train from Sealdah. I hoped to catch the 5:30 Naihati local to Dum Dum from where I could get the 5:53 train to Bally Ghat. I reached Sealdah at 5:32. I could see the tail lights of the departing train blinking in the distance.

Then there were two options. I could get the 5:36 galloping Krishnanagar City local to Dum Dum and still hope to catch the 5:53 train, or wait for the next train from Sealdah which left at 6:10. I chose the former. The 5:36 train left at 5:39. I reached Dum Dum at 5:55. I could see the tail lights of the departing 5:53 train blinking in the distance.

I chose to go to Chiria More from where I could get a bus to Belur Math. I reached Chiria More in no time. But when I was still to cross the road, a Belur Math SBSTC bus whizzed past along the other side of the road. The next bus arrived in 10 minutes (the only lucky part in this story). And when the bus was cruising along Vivekananda Setu, guess what happened. The 6:10 train from Sealdah came charging along the bridge, overtook the bus and disappeared. The only consolation was I was in the same bus that I would have boarded had I alighted from the 6:10 local at Bally Ghat.