Idle musings

CHENNAI     Last weekend, my wife and I visited Chennai.     Her brother is doing his doctorate in IIT and he booked a guest house for us. We left on the night of 4-Jul. Our tickets were booked for a train at 11:30 in the night. When we reached the station, it was not even 10:00 p.m. yet. Suma suggested that we could check if tickets for an earlier train were available. This was a master stroke ! There were ample number of tickets and we got the middle berths.     For both of us, it was a long time since we travelled in sleeper class. She had last visited Mantralaya travelling in a train while my previous trip was even earlier. In fact it was more than 18 years ago when my parents and I moved from Mumbai to Bangalore ! Not much has changed in 2nd class 3 tier coaches since then though ! There were the cushioned seats, the blue light, the emergency chain with the warning that it must not be pulled (therefore when I was younger it made me wond...