I have been travelling like never before. Soon after my Mumbai trip on official work, I am on a brief personal visit to Thiruvananthapuram. Right now I am on my way back to Bangalore in Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation’s Airavat bus. I had booked the ticket online at the KSRTC website: http://ksrtc.in

RAINWASHED GREENERY

The lush green landscape is the best indication that you have entered Kerala. The state has been getting good rains. Lakes are full. Fields are waterlogged, and green is greener. So soothing. So refreshing.

TRAIN REACHES EARLY

My friend in Trivandrum, who was to pick me up, asked me to give him a call when the train reaches Kollam. And when I called him he was surprised.

”It’s only 10 and you are already in Kollam? Are you sure? Because you said the train reaches Thiruvananthapuram at 12 noon,” he told me.

I was in 6321 Trivandrum Express, a special weekly train. It had stopped for more than half an hour at Ambalappuzha station for letting Shatabdi Express cross. So I was under the impression that the train was running late.

My friend said it takes only one to one and a half hours from Kollam to Trivandrum so at this rate the train would reach at least half an hour early.

And it did, reaching at 11.15 am. Since I called up my friend at Kollam itself he had ample time to come early to the station. Many other passengers were equally surprised that the train arrived ahead of time. At least some would have had to wait for their friends or relatives to pick them up.

While walking up the staircase in the railway station I wondered: Malls have escalators, but how many railway stations have them?

STATIC CITY

Trivandrum, now Thiruvananthapuram, has hardly changed. Roads are getting widened. Nothing more. Some swanky shops, hotels and hospitals have come up. But on the ground nothing much has changed.

I was told this is the best time to widen roads, because the very people who would raise banners of protest — the communists — are in power! ”A Congress government would not have been able to widen roads like this,” I’m told by my friend. I doubt if it’s wholly true. Anyway an interesting perspective on how we are progressing.

A lot of hopes are resting on Shashi Tharoor, the MP from Thiruvananthapuram, who won by a surprisingly huge margin of around a lakh. He is seen as a fresh, uncorrupted, non-politician lawmaker.