DOWN MEMORY LANE
A HOLIDAY THAT WAS ALMOST A HORROR DAY
I was on a LEAVE TRAVEL FACILITY trip Howrah-NDLS-Amritsar--NDLS-Mumbai-Lonavla-Panchgani-Pune-Mumbai-Goa-Mumbai-Howrah route courtesy my then employers SBI. BHARAT DARSHAN ? I was accompanied by my parents, wife and 2 children. We reached Delhi 2 hours late (due to fog) on the first leg of the trip on 22nd Dec 1998 by 12301 Rajdhani.
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was a long cherished dream of my late parents to visit the GOLDEN TEMPLE at Amritsar, I had booked tickets for the 6 of us BY 12029 SWARNA SHATABDI to Amritsar on 23rd Dec. However the departure of the train was delayed due to dense fog and it finally left NDLS, 4 and half hours late, at 11am, after the fog had lifted. The train got delayed further en route and I had arranged for our accommodation overnight at Chandigarh. There was no way we could visit the temple at Amritsar and return to Chandigarh by night. Hence we curtailed our trip at Ambala at 4 pm and proceeded to Chandigarh by bus. We reached Chandigarh at 5 pm and hired 3 cycle rickshaws to take us to the SBI Guest House at Sector 44A. While my wife and I were in one rickshaw, my parents had boarded another and my son & daughter aged 11 and 15 in a third. The luggage was equally divided amongst us.
My rickshaw was leading the pack and only that driver knew where to take us. But within 15 mns the entire area was enveloped in a THICK CURTAIN OF FOG and the 3 rickshaws got separated from one another. 5.30 pm and we were lost in those bitterly cold surroundings of almost ZERO VISIBILITY. My wife started crying fearing that we had lost the children and my parents for ever. I had to console her. Meanwhile my father consoled my mom and asked the driver of his rickshaw to stay put instead of proceeding further. He told him that " My son will search us out and take us to safety." Incidentally my father had served in the INA under the late Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and was a brave and unruffled man. My daughter also asked the driver of her rickshaw to stop and she consoled her younger brother and they together kept shouting " BABA BABA" hoping I would hear their voices.
After about 15 mns of GREAT TENSION during which my poor wife died a MILLION DEATHS, I managed to locate my children after asking my rickshaw pilot to go back the way he had come. In less than 5 mnts after that I also found my parents and the family was REUNITED like in the Bollywood movies. Both my wife and mother wanted me to abandon the entire trip and get back home to Kolkata but my father would have none of it. He advised that we should not press the PANIC BUTTONS and should now ENJOY THE HOLIDAY since the NIGHTMARE was over.
I agreed with dad and the next day we did a good deal of local sight seeing at Chandigarh before boarding the Paschim Express at 5 pm for NDLS (again delayed due to fog). Reached NDLS at 9.45 pm on 24th December.
We were booked on the 12952 Rajdhani to Mumbai on 25th Dec and yes we did ultimately board that train but it was on 26TH December at 5.45 am, more than 12 hours late, on a BITINGLY COLD WINTER MORNING. We reached Mumbai at 1 am on the morning of the 27th December.
It was an eventful and adventurous trip and the only regret was that I could not then fulfill my parents' ambition of visiting the SWARNA MANDIR. However, God willing, I managed to take them along with my wife and kids in 2004 not only to Amritsar but right up to the WAGAH BORDER, much to the delight of my dad, who was an ex-serviceman in Netaji's INA. He was then 85 years old and passed away 4 years later.