The trip and the scare

Finally, a team outing! Lets rock…..Yercaud .. It was supposed to be a one day outing giving us time only for team activities and not much for sight seeing.

The probability that any team outing would begin on time is very low, so in accordance to that theory 16 people ended up waiting for two for 45 minutes. So the journey which was scheduled to start at 9 pm started at 9:50 pm instead. The driver wasn’t too happy about being held up late but I wasn’t least bothered about him. He spent the entire 40 minutes sleeping at the wheel. Ahh .. such a thoughtful driver he was getting sleep whenever he can.. how naïve I was not to have noticed such ominous hints!! We raced across Kerala.. while the driver was busy maneuvering the mini bus on the highway, we started playing the normal timepass games – dumsy and anthaakshari.. it went on for almost three hours after which people lost interest and the game faded away into oblivion. Palakkad – one hour left from Kerala – Tamilnadu border and the “valayar checkpost”. The drivers orders for me were to provide him with a passenger list with age and sex. I wrote it down in a piece of paper and gave it to him. “not this kind of paper!! Give it in a proper paper” was his response. I had half a mind of telling him to go to hell but he had a point, who would accept a list written on a small notepad. So I gave him a new list with a carbon copy sometime later. The driver examined it, he seemed to be satisfied with it .. the verdict –accepted .. hurray !! Valayar checkpost – he ordered Rs 450 – said 400 was for the kerala check post and 50 for the tamilnadu checkpost. The senior most person on the bus was in dreamland so I gave him the money myself (sometime back she had paid for the diesel charges).

I went with the driver to the checkpost and saw that he did what he said i.e give 400 at the checkpost – he did.. so I came back, the driver came back sipping water from his water bottle. Said something in Malayalam about “pani” I remembered “pani” in tamil being cold or mist, so I nodded back to him “yes there is pani”. Into tamilnadu, the roads were a bit better, being toll roads. Ahh finally all my work is done, I thought why not get some sleep, it was already 2 am. Sat down, relaxed in my seat when two or three other night owls around me indicated the driver’s weird style of driving. I hadn’t seen anything particular till now, but anyway I too looked at the road, oh my god, we were going in long ‘S’ shaped curves on a straight road. Still trying to be optimistic I went closer to the wind shield and checked out if the roads were bad and whether our good driver was trying to avoid potholes. But the roads were immaculate no even a single bump in sight, so something was wrong with the driver! Then we got the confirmation from the man himself. …..

Traveling at 90 km/hr he went straight for a stationary lorry in the middle of the road waiting for a right turn. We wondered why? The drivers face looked calm and relaxed. A bit too calm and relaxed .. as if .. as if in deep sleep .. our good old driver was getting nap while traveling at 90 km/hr ..!!!! he got up in a moment realized that the lorry was not moving but stationary and at the current speed, the bus would have to jump over the lorry to avoid an accident, so he braked with all his might. The huge sound of brakes screeching awoke every single soul on the bus except one! But the momentum built in the bus was so much that it was impossible to stop within the short distance, so he swerved to the left out of the highway into the mud beside the road, came to halt in front of the lorry and to the amazement of all started shouting at the lorry driver in hindi.

The realization fell like a bombshell. Our driver fell asleep on the wheel!! with no other feasible option in hand, we asked him to complete his short nap. He stopped the bus, took out his make shift bed and was asleep in a jiffy. Great! .. we were in the middle of no where somewhere in a small town called avinashi with driver who is asleep. After 45 boring minutes we decided it was enough time for the driver to freshen up and woke him up. But we were mistaken, this time it was even more dangerous. One more narrow escape. Same 90 km//hr, again one more lorry, but this time he was trying to overtake one, somehow fell asleep in process, got back awake realized his mistake braked and swerved left hard. This time not many knew it happened. This was it, it became too dangerous for him to continue like this. We(they were three of us awake at that time) asked him to stop the bus near a tea shop. Had tea ourselves, bought him tea and gave him the options he had .. one .. let one of us who knew to drive cars to drive the bus while he the driver slept .. get a hold of himself and drive properly .. he took the second one. We wanted to know what was the reason for him feeling so sleepy. He said he wasn’t feeling well the day before. Then it dawned on us that he may be on medication. Yes he was .. he said he had paracetamol and benadryl the night before coming starting the bus.

who in his proper mind would take paracetamol and benadryl before driving!!

So with no other choice and already being late by one and half hours, we started again. This time all three of us, were constantly chatting with him trying to keep him awake. Our chat went on n on for three full hours from 3:30 till 6:30 am until our questions dried up. We had got his full biography in our hand then. He was 33-34 yrs old, 15 yrs experienced, initially was a lorry/bus driver only now a mini bus driver ..long distance wasn’t new to him .. he had gone till pune .. Volvo buses cost 60 lakhs .. and gave mileage of only 2km/lt .. he had two kids one in 1^st std and other in 4^th std .. his name was sudarsan.. yes the highway was part of a golden quadrilateral project .. joining jammu with kanyakumari .. and roads from krishnagiri to Bangalore were far better than this .. there were lot of bad driving on highways (he forgot his name though) .. it went on like this for full three hours .. we three having lost our sleep already didn’t mind much ..

So finally after 4 grueling hours with this nutshell of a driver from 3:30 am we reached yercaud at 7:45 am. Happy to be alive I got down and as a first task asked our beloved driver to get some sleep. He obliged by sleeping from morn till dusk, when I woke him again for our return journey. The tour in itself wasn’t as exciting as our journey was, the return being equally exciting and thrilling. Only this time we knew what to expect. Thanks to our drivers heroics we learnt very important lesson that day – it is better to be insomniac as you have a chance to save yourself!!

Black !

Today was a boring day at work. Everything around me looked dark, sad, and lifeless.

The fake GI-Joe toy is looking at me with a sad expression. The giraffe seems to have shrunk in its grief. The mirror in the clock has lost its shine. I suddenly realized that my pc is black in colour. I have a black bag, am wearing black trousers today, have a black chair….. the list goes on…

On some other happy bright day all of these may have looked different. The GI Joe toy may actually be looking happy, the pc is black so that it is easier to maintain ..the colour black would have had some meaning other than grief and pain… I am wearing black because my other clothes are yet to be washed. But today um hmm .. today is dull boring day .. so anything grey appears black :-) ..

To brighten my day I am going to watch finding nemo tonight with all its bright colours and the happy ending….

Why did they leave me

The giraffe looks down at me. I too look down at it, I am not going to ‘look up to’ a giraffe – no way. I take it he liked me very much, but I am not for this kind of friendship. My life began here. The only thing I know about this place is this room or whatever. It has vertical bars of some material. Five years back it was huge, then as time progressed it has decreased in size, now it is barely enough for me. I don’t why I am here, I keep asking the guy who feeds me, but he just moves away whenever I go closer. Every day when the red ball of light is about rising there in the distance, this guy opens the bars, it opens only for him, I tried many times, it does not open for me. Maybe it recognizes him like a mother would recognize its son. Maybe it is his mother. So when he opens the bars I go out. I have a wonderful time outside, I try to make friends with everyone. Many people come and stand near the wall, I invite them all, I call them, but they never come

:-( , they just stand there, some of them have a black thing in their hand and light comes out of them, I asked them to lend it to me, but they ignore me all together. These humans are bad, here I am inviting them, call out to them, asking them for help, and all they do is ignore me. The only one who is ready to talk to me is the giraffe in the adjacent place. Whenever I am outside he comes near my wall and shows his tongue to me. I too show my tongue in response. Then when the light ball is about to fall off on the other side the man once again opens the bars, he keeps some food inside thinking that I will go in because of the food, again stupid human, I go in because the light ball is gone, there wont be any light here, I can see even without the light but the humans go away, my friend giraffe also goes to sleep, so I too go inside, the human is happy that I have gone inside and he closes it, again with some magic, his mother recognizes him.

Then one day a new human comes near my place, he is dressed neatly, he is fairer than the other usual human, but he has a strange object in his hand. I am not sure what that object is, he brought the object to his face, he clutched it in a weird manner and then a big sound came and I felt a sharp pain near my back, I looked around. It was brightly coloured thing which was pinching me, I reached out to remove it, I could not. Then I started feeling sleepy, it was weird I normally don’t sleep till it is dark, I couldn’t resist the sleepiness, I turned and asked the human what it was, once again the big sound and sharp pain, I decided it was the ill omen of the new human that whenever I looked at him I felt this sharp pain. I decided not to do it anymore and went to sleep. I don’t remember how long I slept, but when I woke up I was no longer in the same place, this place was different, this wasn’t the usual place, there was no sign of the wall or the human who gave me food. There were tree all around, I looked around, I saw the human with the strange object, I turned quickly to avoid that sharp pain, it worked I had no pain, I looked at some other people who were there, they saw me, got into their vehicle and it moved away. “Wait!! Wait !!..where are you guys going, where is my food, I am hungry .. aahh … they left me here in this strange place, what would I do here, I have no food, I don’t even know what it was it tasted good, how will I get it here, may be some human will come here and give it to me. I will wait till then.

It no longer is fun

Growing up is becoming less adventurous, having to deal with more constraints, rules, customs, society basically it is making yourself a boring creature to be with, with you being incapable of doing something crazy or out of the box or doing something for fun. Whatever you do even if it is new and exciting for you it is no longer done for the want of it, it is all done with only thing in mind- money- and if it is not so, it may be that the thing needs so much of money that you drop it all together. Cycling used to be fun a few years back, now is it fun? No, you do it because you want an exercise and in few cases to save some money spent on petrol. You don’t ride around your flat in cycle all day even if you like to becos you’ll think people would brand you crazy or the rowdy types. Do you jump into the gutter to retrieve a ball when playing cricket? No! You ask some small kid to do it for you.

While growing up did give us a lot of options we never had previously, it has taken away all we had for 15 – 18 years. We no longer have that freedom or security. Can we now ring someones door bell and scamper from there. Or can we release air from next door uncle’s motorcycle for ‘revenge’. Nope :-( none of it is possible. I once shouted at one uncle “poda sotta thala *%$%$%” and few weeks later I asked him how he was, he had forgotten all of it or atleast he had forgiven me. I was not a 4 year old then, I was in ninth standard and still nothing. If he had come home with complaints I had a huge truck load of complaints against him, so my case was strong. At that time I thought he was afraid of complaining, come to think of it I think he was. Now who would go in public and say that he was bad-mouthed at by a teenager in front of 10 kids, or that the same kid threw an atom bomb into his bedroom through the window, when he himself had a worrisome kid who caused an old man his eye sight.

I am missing all that, hope I had that freedom now, I would have given my opinion to a lot of people.

Across the coromandel coast

Beep beep beep .. the sound of alarm started ‘the day’, the day when I would embark on a 1670 km train journey cutting through 4 states running along the coromandel coast …

The train is late – half an hour late - the other train coming from the Trivandrum the special train has come early. Passengers from the just arrived Tamilnadu express walk past in their winter attire – funny, winter attire at 10:15 am in Chennai. A monotonous voice announced the arrival of the train. S6 – 4 LB, a middle aged lady with a 2 year old baby sat in my seat, I took the nearby middle seat, along came mister one hand jones with his right hand in plaster, poor guy had a fracture. One hand jones immediately starting listening to music with his brand new Ipod nano. Not to be left behind, I too took out my own version of Ipod. An uneventful one hour passed with no signs of the TTE. “Saar, I have four ticketsu saar, all four confirmed but two tickets are in S3, there are three ladies saar only me gents, can you take the S3 seat saar”. I pounced on the opportunity and took leave of one hand jones and aunty with baby. S3 -13 someone is sitting in my seat and having full meals, he looked like a Andhrite – “sir, ee seat naadhi, after u have ur meals will u please vacate it” It took 40 minutes for him to finish his lunch, then his wife started having her lunch, not to mention their family friend. So I waited in a nearby seat.

One hour later I got my own seat. Gudur, Nellore, bitragunta, ongole – the train goes on. The only stop being at Ongole for 3 minutes. The 6 month old baby is looking at me as I dropped from Mars. I looked back at her as if she was from Jupiter. Then she slept off.

After having my own lunch of two cakes and one banana, I waited for something interesting to happen. When nothing did, I started to enjoy the beauty outside, agricultural land everywhere, the fertile Nellore delta is ideal for rice cultivation and Nellore is well known. The train passed over the River penna or pennar and then numerous unnamed canals. After seven grueling hours the train stops in the middle of a bridge over Krishna river. The entire train is standing on the bridge seventy to hundred feet above the water surface, stupid people who would install a signal which would stop a train in the middle of a huge bridge? After a chilling 15 minutes the trains starts of again only to stop in Vijayawada – one of the places I have spent many days in my childhood. I get down to get some fresh air and snacks. Half an hour later we move off. 120 minutes later the river I like the most, the bridge I fear the most, by far the longest bridge I have ever seen, I didn’t have a odometer but I bet that bridge was atleast 2 – 2.5 km long, fifteen long minutes to cross that bridge – GODAVARI , such a huge river, I was told that the Godavari is the only river in Andhra which does not have Dam because of its huge size and unavailability of a proper location for a Dam. If traveling over the river in December was so frightening, I can’t imagine traveling in Monsoon when the floods are up. The family with the baby from Jupiter get down at Rajamundhry, in comes Mr. Panparag eating somberi and his friends. Eight in the night and he wanted to sleep, idiot, I had no option, mine was middle berth, so I lay down on berth cursing him till 11 after which I fell asleep. Got up at 8 in the morning and Mr Panparag someberi is still asleep. Result- I went back to sleep, he was waken up by a group of friendly eunuchs, they tried to wake me up too, but um hmm not me :-) as they say “it is easier to wake someone who is asleep not someone who is faking it – as was the case with me that day”. So for the first time I escaped and had a very good feeling seeing Mr Somberi give off Rs 10 . ha ha ha .. he deserved it spitting pan parag all over the place. To top it all he was adjusting his hair style every 5 minutes, to me even vi***’s hair looked neat that day.

No one informed me of the great Mahanadi, I never expected it to be so big, no wonder they named it that way. Smaller only in comparison to the Godavari, the Mahanadi was beautiful. While the Godavari takes your breath away with its huge size, the Mahanadi calms you with its beauty. In the early 8’o clock foggy morning the river looked godly. After Mahanadi we passed over numerous rivers mostly I believe were tributaries or distributaries of the great river. Orissa looked beautiful. It was not ‘one tree’ and water which made it look so, it was the variety one could see. So many different types of plants and trees and not to forget the different crops which were being cultivated. I could make out Sunflowers, some other small yellow flowers which grew in bunches, peanut crops and other crops which I couldn’t name and so many different varieties of trees –not ‘only coconut trees and rubber trees’.

Finally at 11:40 am I got down. The longest platform in the world – KHARAGPUR, 1.072 km long. Other than holding the title of having the longest platform and having its very own IIT, there is nothing else of interest in Kharagpur. One hour journey in a local train to Mecheda, and from there one more hour by road. At last after 26 – 28 hours from the time I got into the 17-D bus to take me to Chennai Central, I am in Haldia, my destination.