The Excursion

It was the end of second year in college that we decided to arrange an excursion to get some practical experience.Two years of grueling theory classes had made us bored.It was a friend who arranged the trip to Patratu, a thermal power plant in the vicinity of Ranchi in Jharkhand.
The thought of living with friends for a whole month excited us.No one in our motley group had lived with friends for this long a time.On the designated day we boarded the train to our destination.It seemed as if a group of school kids were on a picnic.Each of us had bought in a small potli of eatables.A one night journey took us to Ranchi from where we hired a jeep to Patratu.
The jeep snaked its way through two hills giving us breath taking view of the thermal plant and the surrounding population.It was a pity no one had their cameras ready.The pristine air with the raw smell of earth wafted around us and soon we found ourselves humming to the tunes of 'Mere Desh ko dharti' from the famous movie,Upkar.In a matter of three hours we reached our boarding in the plant site.
The first day was spend trying to clean up the flat which we were given to stay for a month.A hard day's work left the rooms spanking.We ate an early dinner and retired for the night.The next day bought with it the excitement of visiting a real power plant which till now,we had seen only in text books.The plant was a fifteen minute walk from our aboard.
As we entered through the huge gates of the Patratu Thermal Power Plant, we looked in awe at the huge chimneys bellowing out smoke into the clear sky.We met the director who assigned us a teacher who would teach us the working of the plant.He took us to a big classroom and started sketching text book drawings on the blackboard.This reminded us of our college from where we had come here for a break from the mundane classes.The next day,however,we were the spared the monotony of the lecture when one us rose up and said that we wanted to see the 'real thing'.The teacher got the cue that we were least interested in his text book service and immediately handed us to a rather aged man who he said was the oldest member working in the plant.
The next few days were spend trying to correlate what we read in books and what we were actually seeing.We soon found them to be very different.A hard day's work at the power plant followed by an early dinner left us with little time to do anything else.Very soon we became tired of this and rushed through the rest of the training,finishing it ten days before schedule.
Now that we had ten days to spare we started looking for new avenues to entertain ourselves.To our amazement we found that there was not single movie theatre in the town.
The quaint town was dotted with hills and hillocks.One of our friends mooted the idea of climbing the tallest hill.Though many of us was opposed to the idea,he managed to coax three of us including me.The climb was nice and smooth till the first few metres but it soon turned to mounds of rocks with spiny plants.All of us got cuts and bruises all over our hands and legs.The climb became tougher every step.Finally we managed to get to the top which offered a panoramic view of the town.On our way down we lost our way and reached another village on the other side of the hill.Luckily, we had our mobile phones with us and so we informed our other friends that we will be late and told them not to worry.
We spend the rest of the days lazying around the house and meeting people around us.All of them were very interested on what we were doing there.10 days later we were on the train heading back to our sweet homes,loaded with memories.