A pleasant surprise early in the morning. The train reached the Kochuveli station, our destination, 25 minutes ahead of time - instead of 6.35 am it arrived at 6.10 am.
Thanks to the transportation requirements of the British Empire, they set up a wonderful railway network in India. It's one of the largest in the world. And running it is a mind-boggling operation.
Trains especially long-distance ones were known to run late. But in the last few years, they have been keeping time, possibly because of advances in technology. But reaching the destination this early was quite a surprise.
That reminds me what a friend once told me about airline timings. I was told, I am not sure if it's true, that the airlines add a few minutes to the expected arrival time at the destination, so that passengers are impressed that they reached their destination ahead of time. Also, just in case there is any unforeseen delay on the part of the airline, passengers won't scream at the airline for wasting their time; because the flight would have still landed on time!
The first engagement of the day was meeting an uncle of mine. He runs a school for autistic children in Thiruvananthapuram, and we met him there this morning.
Now there is a lot of advancement in the way differently-abled children are looked after. I was quite impressed with the thought that has gone behind the way the school has been designed and the various facilities for children. It was such a pleasant sight to see children play with different types of toys, which are designed specially for them.
We then went to meet a cousin of mine and her family. It's nearly two years since we met them last.
Then in the evening, we headed to the Thiruvananthapuram office of the media organisation I work for. I have a good friend there - we were colleagues in another media organisation as well, at the beginning of our careers some 30 years ago. So we ended up chatting about our other friends and some memorable days of yore.
A big surprise was that a colleague of mine here had worked with my wife, again long back at the beginning of their careers some 30 years ago!
Media circle is a small world... You talk to someone and it turns out that he knows a good friend of yours, or he has worked with someone you know.
Though we all could have chatted for hours, we didn't want to cut into their work hours. My and I then went for some shopping, had dinner and headed back home.
It was a day well spent, catching up with relatives and friends.