Renewed beginnings
It all started one January afternoon when my soon-to-be-16 daughter came back from school with a thought. “I want to go somewhere with you; just you and me. No one else. I don’t care about the place, I don’t care about the number of days.”
That set a chain of thought process… my girl wants to spend time with me alone; travelling with me! I was heavily flattered, first and foremost. The Pandemic for us happened just when we were sprouting wings; coming of age. Right on the threshold of youth, when teens would vent their pent-up energy in the school, on the playground and in their classrooms with their friends; develop their first crushes and discuss that with physically-present friends. All of which was mostly spent in their room; with us parents very busy working for home and working from home.
I can easily say, by the second year of online schooling, our relationships with the kids weren’t exactly perfect, with no motivation left in the kids to get off the bed many a days, forget having a decent conversation at the dinner table and me short of banging my head against the wall wanting to re-create the first 6 months of lockdown where we would spend loads of time together watching crime series or playing board games. My perfect world.
Skirmishes began, shouting matches with the son began. Planning getaways weren’t fun anymore; were more of a chore, box ticked. Mostly because it meant we would be the same 4 people in different setting, probably with a different set of people, probably not.
Looking back, I don’t know how we got this far; but this far we did come.
Which brings us to why I was flattered! I guess, there was something right still done in those terrible years that my daughter would want to spend time travelling just with me. And my son insisting he was happy to see us go and spend time by himself during the day and with his dad in the evenings.
So the planning began! First, had to choose a location. I came up with all sorts of ideas — Rishikesh, Dharamshala, Jaipur, Agra, Pondicherry, Andamans… and vetoed all of them because these are the places my husband and I have been wanting to do either as a family or as a couple. I wasn’t keen on going abroad or to a ‘weekend getaway’ that was drivable distance. Hence, Goa!
Now Goa is a destination we all enjoy. It is our go-to holiday spot as we are a very much sun and sand and sea loving family. There’s not much planning required, not much packing required and any decent, beach resort is good enough. Yet, this trip felt different; felt like an adventure coming. I wanted to make it more than just a mother-daughter trip. This felt like new experience, new learnings type of trip!
Hence, Jan Shatabdi. Hence the obsession with booking the Vista-dome coach.
First thing I learnt about booking for the train ticket was that even a month and half it is difficult to book a ticket via the IRCTC website. Second thing was that our regular travel agent, the one who usually does flight tickets and wonderful hotel bookings nationally and Internationally, couldn’t manage to secure our train booking either. I had to get a specifically train booking agent for this. The third thing, something I re-learnt, was that the train travel has it’s own pros and cons as compared to the flight.
For instance, we didn’t need to worry about how and in what we pack our chargers and cosmetics. We didn’t need to go through security check where we would have to half-empty our carry-on and re-pack it. And we could carry our favourite munchies, my coffee thermos and water with us from home, and not spend a bomb on those basics, that are also sold on the train if required. On the other hand, air travel over years had ill-prepared me towards the fact that my luggage would be needed to kept away from me, yet not be accounted for by anybody in case it goes missing. And I did not have a chain and lock to secure it; making me a bit restless throughout.
Another thing that I had almost forgotten, and my daughter had not experienced was using the washroom (western commode with toilet paper, in case you want to know) in a fast-moving, jolting-swaying, jickety-rackety situation. That needed some great core-stability and physically-centered deft maneuvering to avoid touching anything around; something I still needed to master… and quite failed, making me miss carrying a sanitizing body spray…. No, flowy clothes and open sandals next time, a note to myself — jeans, t-shirt and sneakers are best for train travel.
That aside, the journey itself was a pleasant one. The Vista-dome coach is fully air-conditioned. The seats comfortable, and, hold your breath, rotate 360 degrees! So, once we left Mumbai and her outskirts for more lush landscapes, we turned our seats to 90 degrees to be able to look outside those TV sized windows. It was beautiful to say the least and I am assuming that going that route during monsoons will be simply breathtaking!
The 8-hour long journey got done easily between enjoying the scenery, reading and chatting. For those who want, the charging points at every seat make it easy to use electronic devices for work or entertaining children.
Thivim was our station for embarking; it’s the penultimate station and almost half of the train empties there. Got a little nervous there for a moment; two small suitcases and a first-timer accompanying me, and embarking a train in India has always been a bit of an extreme sport with the distance between the train and the platform varying at every station and crowd rushing out usually, but it was unfounded. Although Thivim station or even Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus for that matter, is no T2 airport, getting off was fairly easy and uneventful; not just for me, but all the fellow-passengers. We had to now cross to the other side of the tracks via the overhead bridge, walking and that was easy for us, simply pulling our bags behind us to our waiting cabbie.
Goa has different offerings for different people — some want to chill, some want to party. And some others, like us, want to eat local seafood and cuisine. And that’s how we started our holiday; stopping by at a local, very, very humble fish serving place for lunch as it was almost 2 pm and we had avoided eating anything on the train, eagerly looking forward to the fish lunch.
Satiated, we headed to the hotel, checked in and set off to the beach. Because, that’s another thing that Goa means to us — sand, salt water and Sun — and lots of lazing on deck-chairs with some cocktails/mocktails thrown in. Which was on repeat for the next 4 days. Maybe, a couple of flea-market visits added here. Idyllic and how!
Goa is not an over-rated place. I have been there umpteen times — family, with a large group of friends, with kids, without kids; just as a couple… this was the first time, the only time I managed to do exactly what Goa has always represented — freedom, especially from expectations of what a holiday with ‘to-dos’ and ‘must-dos’. For both of us, especially my daughter, this was an initiation into, what I hope will be a lifetime of, travelling to various places without an agenda and live like locals. Alone or otherwise.
I am hoping that this trip, full of many firsts, becomes the foundation stone of confidence building for her, a beginning of many adventures that life holds. It was definitely a renewed beginning for me; giving me a glimpse of an exciting journey into my twilight years.
