Answered Prayers

In every office there are innocent people who don’t know the ways of the world but who sometimes end up looking after important work. More than two years ago when I had first reported to work at my Head Quarter (HQ) posting in the city I met one such person. Like me he too had joined at the HQ for the first time so we became sort of friends, going out for tea occasionally and exchanging gossip. We kept in touch after I was promoted and transferred out of the city. My interest in keeping up the friendship was a selfish one. He was now looking after a section that was responsible for sending people on out of state trainings. The file began with him so he was an important contact to have at the HQ. At last he was turning out to be of some use.

Last year, after months of pestering he finally proposed my name for a spell of training at Bangalore. Unfortunately I was not able to make it due to the floods at Kurnool that cut off all train and bus links on that route. Now, after some last minute suspense in the previous week he called me up and asked me if I wanted to go to Shimla for a training. Wanted to? I told him I was dying to get somewhere out of state even if was for just a couple of days. Such was my desperation after joining at Suryapet.

When I got the call about the Shimla trip I felt that someone up there must have finally got wind of my regular rants about finding copies of Conde Nast Traveler and reading about exotic places but being unable to go anywhere to have similar experiences. At last I’m being sent on a trip to a place I have never been. Actually, it isn’t Shimla that I am going to but to Mashobra which I have discovered on the net is quite a place. Normally it should have made me glad beyond words but it isn’t. Instead I feel an unknown anxiety about the trip that is going to last at least ten days. The training is for a week, Monday to Saturday but adding the time to travel I will be gone for two weeks. I cannot bear the thought of not seeing my kid for two weeks. I have been away for three months at Andaman without seeing the kid but this time it is different.

So, next month I will be proceeding (that’s bureaucratese for ‘going’) to Shimla. The only problem staring at me is how to get hold of a camera?