DAY 1 : THE TRAIN JOURNEY

With the colourful characters introduced, it is now time to plunge into our travelogue...

After many disappointing delays owing to unrest in Darjeeling, D-day dawned with our lil bees packing their rucksacks and meticulously checking and rechecking the list of must-haves (provided, of course, by our queen, err, king bee Kris)... it is worth mentioning that quite a lot of thought and effort went into the rucksacks themselves... Kirsten’s took about three hours of combing through the lil bazaar in Guwahati (which is where the beehive is situated, in case i haven’t mentioned this earlier) for just the right size, shape, and given that it’s Kirsten in question, the perfect ‘look’...along with a lot of coaxing, cajoling and threatening (all of which add up to something Kirsten dreads and Irene has skilfully mastered- the science and methodology of effective bargaining)... and Irene had to do an exhaustive survey of the hostel to find her perfect one...(and in her case perfect turned out to mean least comfortable and most likely to not last for the entire trip, her struggles with the afore mentioned rucksack will be explained later)... with the preparations in order, the pioneering trek began with blaring trumpets and amidst wild cheering (audio effects by Irene and Kirsten)... after a sumptuous dinner at a nearby restaurant, the six-pack entered the train, only to find their seats occupied by four other men... though the men had valid tickets, it turned out that they had been upgraded to first-class... the heavy weights (Kris and Stuart) were explaining the situation to the ‘intruders’ while the feather weights were doing the same with ignoramus Kirsten... three of the men finally accepted that the ‘up’grade was, after-all, to their benefit, after some patient explaining by the TTR and other passengers (our persistent clarifications were silenced with a suspicious and scornful gaze)... with that out of the way, we sat down with a collective sigh of relief, only to realize that there was one more fellow left in our cabin... he was a dark, tiny, rotund man clutching his one bag very tight with an expression akin to a cornered rodent...he hadn’t understood one iota of what had happened until then and was still labouring under the delusion that we were trying to dupe him and steal his ticket... the TTR was called again, and since our bloke here couldn’t understand hindi very well, the entire sermon had to be repeated in broken Bengali... he still wasn’t ready to move... the exasperated TTR had by then, had enough... he told us to show him to the first class compartment and plonk him down in his seat... so Stuart and Mike walked him to the first class compartment, sat him down and, since the guard had blown his whistle, ran back to our cabin... the train started...and we were safely chaining our bags and laughing about the man who didn’t want a first class seat, when, wonder-of-wonders, there he was again... with the very same rat-like expression of fear mingled with wariness... the rodent man had returned to plague us with his mistrusting eyes making us feel like we were really encroaching his rightful seat... after around 15 uncomfortable minutes of awkward silence(interspersed by muffled giggling from, well, guys don’t giggle...), the train halted and the rodent man was firmly led back to his first class seat and cautioned that we would have to complain if he returned to annoy us...

Though it was time for lights-off, the party was too charged with adrenaline to be able to sleep... however, after repeated admonishment from Kris and threats to leave anyone who wasn’t well-rested behind, they had to relent and agree to at-least try and get some sleep...if the rat man had come back, he would have seen six blissful faces with delightful dreams of the wondrous adventures to come...