7:10 to Liverpool Street

When you are in Britain, the last Sunday of October is a time of great joy. It is when you can wake up at 7 o clock, laugh that hysterical laughter just reserved for very moments such as these, pump your fist a few times; roll the clock back to 6 o clock and go back to sleep. What joy. So it came as an absolute shock to me when I realized that I had a Liverpool Street bound train ticket booked for that very same fateful Sunday. ‘Can I have the earliest possible ticket please’, I had asked like a dumbschmuck. And now that one extra hour of blissful hard earned sleep, that unparalleled joy of turning the clock back like you were Chronos himself was all going to be lost, thanks to an absolute purpose less journey to London.

But the guilt and the despondency were soon shrouded by a question of great profundity. What does 7 o clock on that Sunday morning resolve to. Does it mean 6 o clock or 8 o clock? And is that after or before changing the clock itself? And above all, what for heaven’s sake would British Rail follow. So I went back to the railway counter, confused soul as I was, hoping to seek an answer in the simplest possible layman terms. ‘Don’t change your watch and you should be fine’, the old man at the counter replied. And as though he was this oracle who had just dispensed the route map to the Inca treasure, smiled a wise smile and pressed whatever people at counters press for that metallic sounding voice to announce – ‘Counter number 2 please’(which roughly translates to – Nexxt) Thank you, I mumbled, stepping into a web of re-affirmed confusion.

And to every acquaintance I bumped into on Saturday I posed the very same question – ‘What time do you think the 7:10 train to Liverpool Street will leave tomorrow?’ And all of them nice people, broadly fell into three categories. The evil ones, who smiled that all knowing Buddha smile and replied – ‘Why so much confusion. Obviously, 8:10’. The even more evil ones, who digressed greatly from the actual question at hand and spoke eloquent about the subtleties of BST, GMT and why all of Europe should have one timeline (who the fuck cares?). And the most evil of them all, who made no efforts to hide their sinister smirk and on top of that gave no answer.

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But just when things were finally clearing up, CG called. I duly explained the problem to him and he very duly told me that I should be at the railway station at 5 o clock!!!! ‘Why the fuck for?’, I screamed. ‘Yes bob’, he continued, ranting away at some logic (I think he used Laplace transforms as well if I remember right) to arrive at the fact that I should be there at 5, no less (he even laughed in the middle). The world was not helping me I gathered. ‘You’re all wrong’, I told CG as I hung up. But what worried me most was the fact that however unconvincing he sounded, he had this uncanny ability to eventually end up being right.

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The majority is right, I eventually concluded. We are rolling the clock back. So seven tomorrow should be the eight of today. But since I have been genetically handed down a ‘why take a chance’ attitude, I decided I shall stick by the clock. And the old man’s wise words were also – ‘Don’t change the clock and you should be fine’.

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I got up at 6, so as to be ready for my 20 minute walk to the station by half past. Since I always misjudge the distance and mistimed the walk, I was pretty keen to get it right this time. There was enough evidence in the air that the rolling back the clock exercise was like heralding another winter. 10 to seven and I was at the station. Coke bottles, Pizza boxes all remnants of yesterday’s night life lay strewn on the station walkway. The station door itself was locked - safe and sound (I had never seen a railway station locked in my life before) and the only three folks who stood around were staring blankly at the ink blue sky as if to say we’ve got a lot of time to spare. It was after all just ten minutes to six in the new world. And the train was not due until an hour from now. One thing was for sure, the British rail follows the clock rolled back.

And then we were four of us staring into the inky blue nothingness.

Confession: The train was actually at 7 o clock, but I have made it 7:10 since it sounds more title like. Like Bollywood movies which have names like 'Ek Chalis ki last local'

(may be continued)