D 10, 31 Deccan Queen

Recently, in one of my innumerable commutes to pune, I decided to take the Deccan Queen after a long time. The irctc site booked me a window seat in D10, precisely seat no 31.When I a landed at CST, I found that D 10 is actually a unreserved bogie which has been half heartedly converted into a reserved one. It forms the better half of the luggage van! It was packed like a II. I managed to persuade the person occupying my seat to vacate it. There was an overpowering stench from the nearby toilets. D-10 is unusual in the sense that it doesnot have the 3 x3 seating characteristic of a 2S. It is a regular II coach of 4 x 1 with some thin cushion to give it some semblance of order. When I enter it is occupied by daily commuters who have given up hope on the better parts of the train. A game of cards starts off by the time we hit Dadar, whee of course the train does not stop. The view outside the window is rain drenched hills shoing a thousand shade of green. I begun get hungry near Karjat, but no relief, D10 is not vestibulated! It is the last coach so invariable it falls out of the platform where only intrepid vendors with cold vada-paos tread! I manage to grab one. The train was doing good time till it hits pimpri. The wait gets longer and longer till someone manages to dig the vital information that a trains engines have failed ahead on the line! So we finally manage to screech into Pune Jn by 2100 hrs.