Trip No. 7- 'March'ing On Towards 'Own Goal'

If ever our Department had a travel scheme which said that for every six trips I make by train in the state, I could make one trip to a destination of my choice outside the state by plane, this trip would have been it. But unfortunately (but not unexpectedly) I made my seventh trip by train, this time to- One Goal or Ongole. It was just a day’s trip and unlike the other trips, I went alone. The task was to supervise a training session for newly recruited officers which meant that I would be holed up indoors for the whole day. After days of going around the country side this came as a relief. But I had not made any plans in advance hence missed doing something really interesting.

On Wednesday last I took the ‘Simhapuri Express’ that would leave me at Ongole early in the morning. I was up early and looked out of the train window. It was a beautiful sight outside. A fine blanket of mist hung above the vegetation in that magic hour of dawn. It would be a while before the sun would come up and dissolve the mist. Everything looked wonderful but before I could take out my camera the train reached Ongole.

Again, for a change there was no reception party at the station except for the jeep driver who turned out to be an interesting character. After putting my bags in the hotel I took a walk around looking for a place to have tea. I found a hotel where there was a table and a few chairs laid outside. There were the day’s newspapers on the table so I settled in one of the chairs and had my tea, alternating between watching the traffic go by and reading the headlines.

The thing about small, sleepy towns is that every one seems relaxed and in no particular hurry to get anywhere. Ongole was one such sleepy town that I found quite attractive. My hotel was on the Trunk Road so I spent a better part of the morning watching the traffic. After breakfast, the jeep driver appeared again and took me to the training place. Much later, while I was having lunch I remembered that Ongole was famous for its sturdy breed of Ongole bullocks. I suddenly had the desire to see one somehow. When I expressed my desire to my hosts they said it wasn’t a problem as there was a breeding station nearby and that they would take me there at the end of the training session. So I waited anxiously for the training to come to an end. There are some people who love the sound of their own voices so there were a couple of the trainers who droned on boring everyone to death.

By the time the training session ended the breeding station was closed for the day I was told. I missed the chance to take pictures of the famed bullocks. It was my fault for not having done my research in advance. Then, much later, the jeep driver told me the sea was only twenty kilometers from Ongole. This, he told me when it was already evening and too late to go to the sea. I told the jeep driver, Sardar that I wanted to see the main streets in Ongole. When I asked him to join me for dinner he told me that it was Thursday and that he was on a fast. He was a Muslim but also worshipped Sai Baba!

Anyway, I had dinner at a clean place called ‘Arya Bhavan’ and wandered around the main streets. I saw a couple of joints offering ‘Hyderabad Biryani’ and felt that one would have to be nuts to have biryani anywhere other than Hyderabad. I saw a pen store and asked if they had any fountain pens. The guy took out half a dozen ‘Prasad’ brand of pens. I had the same model of pens with me so I did not buy any. But I now realize I should have picked up at least one pen to remember Ongole by since I had neither taken any pictures nor had been to any place worth seeing.