Dr P V SATYA RAMESH

Drama Others

4.9  

Dr P V SATYA RAMESH

Drama Others

Race Against Time

Race Against Time

3 mins
645


I once had to travel from Bangalore to Baroda. Since I did not get a direct ticket, I bought a ticket from Bangalore to Mumbai and then from Mumbai to Baroda. On a Sunday, at 8:00 p.m, I boarded the Udyan Express to Mumbai from Bangalore. After a comfortable 24-hour journey I got off at Dadar on Monday. I didn’t continue up to Mumbai because I knew that my next train from Mumbai to Baroda stopped at Dadar and that I could board the train from Dadar. I waited from 8:00 p.m to 11:00 p.m.


Around 11:10 p.m. sometime before my train was due to arrive I checked with the railway authorities on which platform the train would arrive. The clerk’s reply struck me like a thunderbolt. The train I intended to board at Dadar did not stop at Dadar at all! This train I was supposed to be on would leave Mumbai at 11:20 pm. It would have been next to impossible for me to reach Mumbai Central in 10 minutes even if I took a taxi, because despite the hour the flow of traffic was heavy.


For a moment I did not know what to do? But I decided not to give up because 10 minutes can make a lot of difference in one’s life. I knew that most trains that passed through Maharashtra had a halt in Borivili.


Therefore, I decided to travel forward to Borivili instead of trying to get back to Mumbai. I got into a local train without any knowledge of its destination. From a fellow passenger, I came to know that the train would not pass from Borivili. I had to get off at Bandra Terminus. The time by now was 11:20 p.m. My train would have departed from Mumbai. I rushed to the station master to find out whether the Baroda Express had a halt at Bandra. To my dismay, he said no and he asked me to wait for a local train to Borivili which was to arrive in five minutes. But I couldn’t waste time waiting as the local train and the Baroda Express were heading in the same direction and I knew the Express would surely overtake the local train. Immediately, I hired a taxi to Borivili. I asked the driver to drive really fast. In Mumbai’s heavy traffic, the driver drove as fast as he could and I reached Borivili by 12:00 midnight. Just as I was entering the station I heard the announcement that the Baroda Express was to arrive in a few minutes. I heaved a sigh of relief. I reached Baroda safely early in the morning at

6:00 am on Tuesday.


This experience in my life taught me many valuable things.


1. Never take things for granted. Check twice before you arrive at a decision.

2. You are never a loser until you quit trying.

3. Mistakes are painful when they happen. But years later a collection of mistakes called experience leads us to success. Life’s lessons do not have a curriculum; there are no textbooks available to prepare and the examination schedule is not declared in advance. One has to learn a lot in one’s life through one’s own experiences and from the experiences of others.



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