An event that is unforgetable
The wrong train of my life …
The wrong train of my life …
In everyone’s life there is an event that motivates them towards good or bad things or somehow changes their life. Something happened with me aswell in the past. Before telling you people about this, I just want to say that, it is not a story of a king and a queen, this is the story of my life and I am going to share with you.
The event happened in Dec 2001. My friend Varun and me had been waiting for the train for an 1 hour at Basti (It is a city in Uttar Pradesh) railway station. I was in 11th standard. Varun and I were room partners in the G.I.C hostel. He was one of my closest friends. He still is, but now we meet occasionally because we are far away from each other.
The event which I am going to share here is funny but some where it changed me. During 2001, I was one of the most careless person in my group. I was very casual about everything in life.
Well let’s come back to the story. So, the train which we were waiting for, since 1 hour had been cancelled for that day only. But this was only known to the station staff, and we did not know abt the change. The train was Satyagrah express. Everyday the train used to arrived at 3 p.m. at Basti railway station except that day. The mistake that we did was not to confirm anything from the enquiry counter. When we reached the station it was about 6 p.m. Actually, we were going back home without any plans due to suspension from the hostel and classes. So we arrived at the platform at 6 pm and we found from the enquiry board that the train was delayed by 3 hours. We thought that it would be good for us, but we were not aware about the trouble that we were about to face. On the time scheduled for satyagrah, another train entered platform no. 2, I said to Varun “hey Varun there comes our train”. And we both boarded the train. We both were not aware that Satyagrah express had been cancelled. But there was nothing we could have done at that time. Well the train left the platform after 5 minutes. I asked Varun- hey! don’t you think the trains compartment are a little different from that of Satyagrah express, he replied “yes I have the same feeling”. And we decide to ask somebody about the same. There was an old man seated behind us. I asked Varun to enquire. Varun was a shy kind of boy, he was hesitant, after all somebody had to take the initiative to talk, so I did. I just went to him and asked- “uncle what is the name of the train, Is it Satyagrah express?’ The old man replied- “son, I think u have done a mistake. The train which you are asking to me about has gone”. I said ‘OH! No uncle, the train was late today by 3 hours’? The old man just looked at me and said very politely,
“You are wrong, I think by mistake you have boarded the wrong train. This is the winter special train”. As he said that, I froze for a moment and replied “but how it could be possible especially with me”? There was a problem with me, I always thought that I knew more about trains than others. But here I failed. My overconfidence created a big trouble for us that evening. I told Varun, “the train is different and to add to the trouble, it is not going to stop at our station”. We both were teasing each other about the mistake we had done. So we people decided to pull the chain and we did, but it happened so that the train stopped, but in a jungle. We started to blame each other. Well at 7:30 the train stopped at a small station due to a signal problem, here something happened in our favor. We got off the train on that station and I saw that there were a lot of other passengers aswell ho boarded the same train due to misinformation. Now we decided to go to the enquiry counter, we went there and asked the station master about the next train. He told us that the next train was after 2 hours. After 2 hours we finally boarded our train and reached home by 2 am.
The event happened in Dec 2001. My friend Varun and me had been waiting for the train for an 1 hour at Basti (It is a city in Uttar Pradesh) railway station. I was in 11th standard. Varun and I were room partners in the G.I.C hostel. He was one of my closest friends. He still is, but now we meet occasionally because we are far away from each other.
The event which I am going to share here is funny but some where it changed me. During 2001, I was one of the most careless person in my group. I was very casual about everything in life.
Well let’s come back to the story. So, the train which we were waiting for, since 1 hour had been cancelled for that day only. But this was only known to the station staff, and we did not know abt the change. The train was Satyagrah express. Everyday the train used to arrived at 3 p.m. at Basti railway station except that day. The mistake that we did was not to confirm anything from the enquiry counter. When we reached the station it was about 6 p.m. Actually, we were going back home without any plans due to suspension from the hostel and classes. So we arrived at the platform at 6 pm and we found from the enquiry board that the train was delayed by 3 hours. We thought that it would be good for us, but we were not aware about the trouble that we were about to face. On the time scheduled for satyagrah, another train entered platform no. 2, I said to Varun “hey Varun there comes our train”. And we both boarded the train. We both were not aware that Satyagrah express had been cancelled. But there was nothing we could have done at that time. Well the train left the platform after 5 minutes. I asked Varun- hey! don’t you think the trains compartment are a little different from that of Satyagrah express, he replied “yes I have the same feeling”. And we decide to ask somebody about the same. There was an old man seated behind us. I asked Varun to enquire. Varun was a shy kind of boy, he was hesitant, after all somebody had to take the initiative to talk, so I did. I just went to him and asked- “uncle what is the name of the train, Is it Satyagrah express?’ The old man replied- “son, I think u have done a mistake. The train which you are asking to me about has gone”. I said ‘OH! No uncle, the train was late today by 3 hours’? The old man just looked at me and said very politely,
“You are wrong, I think by mistake you have boarded the wrong train. This is the winter special train”. As he said that, I froze for a moment and replied “but how it could be possible especially with me”? There was a problem with me, I always thought that I knew more about trains than others. But here I failed. My overconfidence created a big trouble for us that evening. I told Varun, “the train is different and to add to the trouble, it is not going to stop at our station”. We both were teasing each other about the mistake we had done. So we people decided to pull the chain and we did, but it happened so that the train stopped, but in a jungle. We started to blame each other. Well at 7:30 the train stopped at a small station due to a signal problem, here something happened in our favor. We got off the train on that station and I saw that there were a lot of other passengers aswell ho boarded the same train due to misinformation. Now we decided to go to the enquiry counter, we went there and asked the station master about the next train. He told us that the next train was after 2 hours. After 2 hours we finally boarded our train and reached home by 2 am.
So, here it was an experience of my life which I realized after few years. In fact the mistake taught me a lot. It taught me that we have a destination and somehow we all get it. But what matters is the time that will never come back. From that day of my life I found out that I can reach my home anyhow but it should be without wasting any time. We had lost 4 hours during the journey. And those 4 hours were full of struggle. When I related those hours with my life I realised that, I have lost 4 years of my life, due to lack of knowledge, vision, and hard work.
I realized that I had done a lot of mistakes because of the following reasons -
Incomplete Knowledge
Over confidence
Lack of vision.
If you have knowledge it’s great, but the knowledge should be complete. This is the first thing which I have implemented on me.
So it was this incident that taught me about the major thing lacking in me and my weaknesses. Now I have understood the value of time, I know we have a very short life of maximum ‘36500’ days. So let’s follow a pathway in life that helps us reach reach where we want to go. Follow our dreams and do everything that we can do make it come true. I know that, I can not bring back the time that I have lost, but I can do better in upcoming years.
So it’s time to make your dreams come true with all the Knowledge, Confidence and a clear vision.
