Kalka to Shimla-> A ‘Warm’ welcome :-)

Kalka to Shimla-> A ‘Warm’ welcome :-)

The Journey from Kalka to Shimla was in a narrow gauge train(called the toy train). The train was really luxurious and had amazingly comfortable seating arrangements far beyond what one can generally expect from Indian Railways. Three cheers to Lallu !!!

The journey involved crossing 103 tunnels and 70 odd bridges--> a feast for neone like me fascinated by trains negotiating great heights. (These r correct figures, not random numbers used with the intention of making this seem funny). Though v all found it hard to resist getting to the entrance to see the breathtaking scenery outside and enjoy the sharp icy winds that were blowing; the food served and the previous night’s voyage made us all very sleepy. Still v managed two three snaps outside the train much against the wishes of the coach attendant. Then started HAIL.
For sumone like me from Chennai, where rain itself is a big deal, HAIL is too much to even comprehend and enjoy. My mind was like a monkey, rather like a mouse pointer opening various windows of thoughts like ‘Is all this really true?’, ‘How does hail occur?’, ‘What ll it b like if it hails in Chennai’, ‘How ll it b if the train derails here’ etc etc…

V managed a few snaps again and slept off inanely forgetting that this journey of 5 hrs was not a normal journey and every bit of this had to b properly enjoyed.

15 mins b4 Shimla, there comes a station called Summer Hill. There suddenly we were woken up by deafening squeals of co passengers and what followed was more like a dream. The train was in this station and all that v could see outside was something I had not seen before. SNOW:-)
If only I had the skills of Samuel Taylor Coleridge I would ve written sumthing like … ‘Snow Snow everywhere, not a……………’ in this blog.


Believe me stepping into snow for the first time in ur life is something u ll not forget. Standing at the entrance I took a moment to actually let what I was seeing sink in. In front of me were railway tracks fully covered with sparkling white silvery shining snow. It was a sight that I captured only for a moment before I myself got down and started playing but that moment is frozen in my memory. Excitement hitting levels that I ve seldom been in, enthusiasm hitting levels that makes it hard to stay sane, energy hitting levels that seemed to ve been obtained from annihilating and not digesting food, squeals hitting decibel levels that can turn people nearby deaf, what I saw in front of me seemed to b a whole new universe, a whole new dimension, a whole new realm…… the realm of SNOW….
In a moment I came back to my senses and heard my friends shouting at me for staying at the entrance like a buffalo not wanting to wash itself in water(err… Yak ll suit the situation better :-) ) and I immediately jumped out. V played for full 5 mins with snow like crazy little kids forgetting everything about ourselves. The child in each one of us dominated us. Being a bit of a nerd that I m, after picking up snow I was tryin to examine how it was so granular and coarse and thumppppppppppp !!! in between I was hit by a snow ball. V hurriedly took a lot of snaps here and there and I ll call what I experienced unadulterated pleasure. The train left and snow was adding beauty to the scene outside. Every peak I saw had a white crown, every tree I saw had white leaves, every flower I saw had white petals. It is needless to say how cold it was for us, that too half of our protective clothing at that time was not purchased cos v dint expect snow in Shimla. Still none of us were affected by these powerful debilitating chill winds. As a proof to murphy’s law my camera lost charge exactly at this moment when there were so many moments to freeze and I wasted a lot of time as if I was Ravi K Chandran on deciding what snap to take first though I knew I would start clicking like crazy trying to preserve everything I saw. Those 900 seconds, those lightning fast moments where time simply seemed to deny us the opportunity of enjoying what I would alone ve relished for 9000 seconds literally vapourised every bit of pain v had gone thro’ the prev night.
NOT JUST MEANING, EVEN PLEASURE REVEALS ITSELF ONLY IN FLASHES. :-D

And for a change v ABBians felt v got LUCKY :-)