Train Journey & The Jackfruit

This was in 1981 while my younger sister and I were working in Bangalore, when I got an offer to attend an interview in Bombay, now Mumbai, in a company which manufactured coconut oil under the brand name 'Parachute'.

Bombay being a new place, my sister and myself booked tickets to attend my interview.
On the day of travel we had loads of work at office so we had barely any time to reach the station.

Though our luggage was compact, we had bought a huge ripe jackfruit which weighed at least half a ton! Jackfruits are plenty in Bangalore but were rare in good old Hyderabad and we thought it would be rarer still in Bombay! How wrong we were!!
We wanted to gift our aunt at whose house we were to land.

Cut back to the railway station. At the station, our train was about to leave and both of us were running with that half ton load in hand, afraid we will not have time to search for our compartment, we managed to board the nearest one, thinking we could get down in the next station and board the reserved compartment. It was a night journey and we were tired already.

At the next station halt, which was half hour later, we got down with the load, got into our compartment in the dark, only to find most lights switched off inside the cabins and passengers sleeping.
To our horror, we saw our reserved berths occupied with passengers who had covered themselves with blankets and pretended to be fast asleep!!
When we tapped them gently, they informed us that they were allotted these berths by the TT. We went hunting for him. He informed us of some rule which says, if passengers don't check in within half hour of journey, the TT can allot the berths to the next in waiting. Our arguments about the next halt taking half hour and our being there on time fell on deaf ears. Luckily for us there were two berths which were vacant in the same cabin.

We landed in Mumbai, thinking, our aunt and family will be happy to see our gift for them. A cousin came to pick us at the station. On our way we passed by some local markets where we found so many jackfruits piled up! So it was not a rare fruit after all. Suddenly our arms began to ache with carrying the heavy fruit up and down all the way from Bangalore.

We enjoyed the fruit but we got wiser about what size gift to choose from next time when we went visiting relatives and friends!

Cheers.

Mahalakshmi.