April 1981 - As we entered the squadron premises, we encountered our flight commander who was just returning from a sortie. His face suddenly took on a quizzical look and he shot out multiple questions at us, "Back so soon? Where is the aircraft? How did you come? Why are you in civvies?" This embarassed us no end as we had no valid answers to his genuine questions. Suraj asked him to have a glass of water in his office and we would be with him to explain our bizarre episode, even to us.
It so happened that our squadron operating the Hunter fighter aircraft was based in Hindan, Ghaziabad, and was allotted a Hunter trainer from BRD, Kanpur. Suraj, a senior Squadron Leader and self, a Flight Lieutenant, were detailed to go and collect the aircraft from the BRD, and ferry it back to the squadron. We were issued a railway warrant for the rail journey from Ghaziabad Jn to Kanpur. As it was a day journey, we did not require any booking on the train, as first class seats were generally available on the Kalka Howrah mail. We decided to depart the next morning by the said train, which arrived at Ghaziabad Jn at about 8 am, if I remember right. I was living within the Air Force Station, but Suraj was staying outside camp, and thus it was decided that we would meet on the platform at 07:30 in the morning.
A Hunter Trainer
Image Courtesy: Bharat Rakshak.com
I arrived early at the railway station, checked the information boards and found that the train was on time, and would arrive on platform 2. Armed with this knowledge I proceeded to the platform and took up my waiting position. Shortly thereafter Suraj arrived and we both got talking on issues of common interest, oblivious to the announcements on the railway PA system. After a brief while a train arrived on the platform. The appearance of the train appeared a bit odd, as it did not have any information boards on the coaches, indicating the departure and arrival stations; also, the coaches did not look like those of the Kalka Howrah Mail; red herrings tagged by the sub conscious mind, but ignored by the conscious mind. As luck would have it, the train stopped with the First class coach door directly in-front of us. We both picked up our sling bags (no place in the trainer to accommodate anything bigger), and confidently entered the coach, while still engaged in our conversation.
We entered a four berth compartment in which there were only two other passengers and took our seats. As we sat down, I heard one of them talking about Calcutta (today's Kolkata) in a mix of Bengali and English. Our sub conscious fears were now totally ignored, and we continued with our conversations. The train started and after a while passed Modinagar railway station. Now this was something that I was not prepared for, as Modinagar is North-East of Ghaziabad whereas our train should have been headed in the South-East direction to Aligarh. I expressed my concern to Suraj, who shot me down with, "Oh these days tracks are being repaired and they may have re-routed the train". This once again quietened my fears, and we continued with our conversations.
A short while later, the train started to slow down and pulled into a station - Meerut Jn. This is when we realised that something was wrong. We asked our fellow passengers as to where this train was headed, and they said, "Dehradun". It came as a big shock to us; we had boarded the wrong train. We thanked God that the TTE had still not visited our compartment to check our tickets. We quickly got off the train, made a stealthy exit out of the railway station with our warrant and check tickets intact; caught a bus to Ghaziabad, and then further to Hindan, and reached the squadron in civvies with our sling bags on our shoulders, only to encounter our flight commander, and his genuine questions. After narrating the whole bizarre episode to him, we told him that we would be departing the next day by the same train. The flight commander and other squadron officers had a good laugh at our expense, and rightly so; imagine educated urban folks making such a stupid mistake.
Would an uneducated rural person make such a mistake? No. He would ask every one around to make sure; whereas we read the information board and took up our position and thereafter were oblivious to the last minute changes made by the authorities, as we were not paying attention to the announcements on the PA system. The appearance of the train threw up a red herring, which got cleared with the passengers speaking about Calcutta as also their language of conversation. Train re-routing is also normal, and so Modinagar was also ignored. Suraj, who lived with his mother, confided in me the next day that his mother chided him for generally staying up very late into the night, and said, "yeh to hona hi tha, time pe sona shuru karo." (this had to happen, learn to sleep on time). I learnt my lessons, and my wife ensures that I never forget them ever, in this birth, at the least.
Every time I appear very sure and confident about something, my wife makes it a point to remind me of this incident.
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