Trip to Tambaram- (Part 1)

“Dude! We should better get going or else we’ll be pretty late.” said Rohan my classmate. He was taking me to his house for the first time. We were sitting in the press club office of my college, discussing about the technical details of the next issue of the newspaper we were going to publish.

“Hey Jack! I’ve got to go dude. I’ve pasted the file on beni’s laptop. Will see you tomorrow.” I told my friend Jackson.

“Sure. But do be there tomorrow ok? We still need to work on a lot of things.” said Jackson. 

Railway station pic taken by me. :)

After assuring him that I would be there the next day, Rohan and I proceeded to our college railway station. Rohan stayed in Tambaram which was a suburb of Chennai, situated 24km south of the city. The most convenient way to reach there was by the local train. At the ticket counter I took out my wallet to pay for the ticket. And to my horror I realised I had only twenty bucks sitting prettily inside! I had forgotten to refill my wallet that morning.  “Anyways”, I thought, “i’ll pick up some cash from the ATM.” I gave those 20 bucks to the lady at the ticket counter, bought for a two way ticket to Tambaram, and received 5rs back as change. It was then that my friend brought the discrepancy to my notice.

“Hey! The ticket costs only 14 bucks. That lady should have returned you 6rs change!” said Rohan.

“Never mind.” I replied. As there were a lot of people waiting in the queue, I didn’t want to stand there and haggle with lady at the counter. We stepped down to the platform and waited for the train.

“Let’s go to the other end of the platform and wait there.” suggested Rohan. “The coach which’ll come there will stop exactly where the exit of Tambaram station begins. So we won’t have to walk much.”

Following his advice, we went to the other end and sat at an empty chair. Soon the train arrived and our journey to Tambaram began. As the train was quite crowded, we searched for a comfortable spot to stand and began chatting. From the mundane day to day activities to interesting anecdotes of our college, we discussed about whatever we felt like discussing to pass time. As usual I was cribbing about Chennai weather. “It’s just freaking hot here! And the high level of humidity just makes it worse! L” I said.

“Yes seriously!” agreed Rohan. “But what can we do? We’ll just have to put up with it I guess! L”

‘Quite true’, I thought. We may not be surrounded by comforts at every point in life. Life is not a bed of roses. It is a struggle. It’s about the survival of the fittest. We have to adapt and adjust to the situations which come our way. We cannot always keep complaining about what we don’t have or about situations which are not in our favour. As one of my favourite quote goes, ‘It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.’ Unfavourable situations or circumstances could always be lurking around the corner. They may pop-up unexpectedly from somewhere and leave a sour taste in our mouth. But it is up to us to redeem ourselves. We should try to find a solution to our problems and try to overcome them in every way possible. We should never loose hope. For as the saying goes, ‘Every dark cloud has a silver lining.’ All we need to do is to find that ray of light and grab hold of it! Every problem has a solution. All we need to do is to figure it out and put in our whole hearted sincere effort.

As far as I was concerned, I had already adjusted to Chennai climate. But somehow I enjoyed complaining about it as I found a lot of people who shared my sentiments! :p Isn’t it nice to have someone to confine our dislikes and find them agreeing with us? Makes us feel lighter! :p

Anyways, we reached the station happily and didn’t even realise how that period of one hour sped by! That’s another aspect of life. Time always seems to fly by when we are having a nice time! In the fun-filled company of friends the hands of the clock always seem to move faster! But at times (especially during boring lectures L) it feels as if its crawling slower than a snail! L

Our coach stopped exactly at the exit of the station just as Rohan had predicted. “That’s the advantage of having knowledgeable friends around I guess!” ;) I thought.

And thus our journey continued.......

(To be continued)