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!!