I had gone over to Kaustav's place to spend the evening doing what I quite enjoy — Model Railroading!
This time, it was his wonderful Wrightsville Port N-Gauge layout. There’s something strangely therapeutic about sitting around, running trains, watching them disappear into tunnels, emerge from stations and generally behaving far better than real trains ever do!
After what turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable evening of running trains, we finally said our goodbyes and headed home.
And then came the slightly less enjoyable part of the evening.
As we approached the VIP Road Flyover, we were diverted onto the old road bridge below. Nothing particularly unusual about that — Kolkata traffic has a way of sending you on unexpected sightseeing tours.
But then we saw why we had been diverted.
A section of the flyover we were supposed to be driving on had collapsed.
And just to make the scene a little more dramatic, there was a trailer truck wedged at one end, apparently having come down with the collapsed section.
We stopped and looked at it, and suddenly the thought hit us...
Had we been there a little earlier, we could have been on that very stretch of road.
A few minutes' difference. That's all.
We had spent the evening happily running little trains around a miniature world, completely oblivious to the fact that, on the way home, the real world had just thrown us a rather serious curveball.
Talk about being saved by a whisker!
That evening, the trains may have been miniature, but the reminder of how quickly things can change on the real road was very, very real.
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