Never a dull moment

What is a trip and what is a journey ? Does going back home by train make a journey ? Does "experimental" travel on a narrow gauge train from a non descript place qualify as trip ? Let me leave that judgement to my friends. When I travel alone undertake personal travel, I travel sleeper class ( the three tier sleeper of yesteryears ). I am in the train right now about an hour away from Delhi having boarded the train last evening ( Thursday ) from Nagpur. Nagpur, being a in between station on the Delhi Chennai , Kolkata Mumbai routes with no express trains commencing fro m here to Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata etc, fact remains it is easier to get confirmed sleeper class tickets than being on tender hooks till last minutes with wait listed "vaathaanukoolith sreni" tickets. I was planning to proceed to Delhi on 05/09 evening and that was my intent as well. I had booked the ticket some days in advance. I had applied for couple of days off. As a matter of precaution

An article in BBC News on line saying coconut is a wonder fruit  has brought up a lump in my throat. As kids, we used to love watching coconut climbers doing their job. I would say they were the early Nadian Comanecans.The global public had to wait till 1976 Montreal Olympics, to get an acrobat exhibit the coordination and aesthetic beauty of coconut tree climbing in the form of Nadia Comaneci. We tried to emulate the free style method of the climbers but ended up with bruise marks on our chests, calf muscles and inner thighs. The higher our freehand climb took us, deeper were the bruises as we used to "give up" in exhaustion and hug the tree dearly to slow down the  fall. The payment for the climbers was partly cash and partly in kind - it was related to the number of trees climbed and not related the yield. So in summer months, the cost per tree comes down as the yield is much more. In the lean months, it was a tug of war between grandma and the climbers as th