Bus Journey Strikes Back

This is another one of my banter about the bad bus journey that I had in the recent past.

After having attended my friend's wedding and then my sister in Cochin, I was all set to return to Bangalore by the 730 bus on Monday. By 430 it had started raining cats and dogs, and I had to make sure that I left home at least by 530 and reached the depot by 715. I settled myself comfortably and was expecting the bus to leave the station by 730, but that did not happen.

Some guy had not reached yet and his friend was pleading to the authority to wait a little longer. And the authority acceded to the pleads and waited for 15 min before starting slowly. Every two minutes the friends had a conversation and it was quite clear that he would not make it to the bus any time soon. Bus finally left little after 745 and was moving a snail pace. I wanted the bus to take off at the earliest as I knew the kind of traffic that we would face later on. Each time the conductor told the guy that we cant wait no more, the friend would tell them that he is almost right behind him and finally at 8 the guy caught up with us in Kaloor.

Kudos to the friend who made it happen, and boohoo to the guy who made us wait all this while. Anyways, do not want to abuse him in this forum.

Next comes my great seat mate. After having left cochin, and then dinner at Karrukutty, time had caught up with us and it read 9 in my watch. Not a bad pace at all if you ask me. But what I did not want to anticipate was the block up ahead. It tool us another hour to manouver through the next 10 kms, can you believe it?? Finally left Chalakkudy by around 10:30, by which time sleep was catching up on me, but I was definitely not in any sort of luck.

My seat mate started snoring, and boy was it loud, weird, funny and irritating. It went on and on for over two hours, disturbing my sleep and my patience and I finally woke him up. Told him that it was too much to take and that he should try and close his mouth to reduce the snoring. He found it funny, chuckled and as luck may have it, this time around he let me sleep in peace.

And so to say, I hated that trip back to Bangalore. I finally reached Bangalore at 8 as against 6, tired, sleepy and with loads of body ache. And I had to go to office that day.

But hey, better luck next time to me.

bengaluru,....only kannada audhu

I was in Bangalore the other day for a land registration formality. Though it ought to have been a serious affair, it turned out to be really funny. For starters, unlike what everyone assumes, english is not a language that people are familiar with in bengaluru. Nor are they familiar with hindi, and tamil is like anathema for them thanks to the Cauvery situation. To make the situation worse, the above mentioned languages are the only ones that my mom, my uncle who accompanied us for the registration, and i knew. We had to go through our agent to get all the forms filled ad the deed signed, and as luck would have it our agent was a kannadika, in short he spoke only kannada.

My uncle and i tried our level best to communicate with him in all the languages we knew, and also with the aid of drawings in the air, but to no effect. For everything that we said the answer or reply was the same, "audhu" meaning yes, irrespective of whether they understood us or we understood them. Finally after much difficulty, the formalities were almost over and all we had to do was sign the papers at all the required spaces. But how is one to know which are the required spaces if he's to see the myriad of forms for the 1st time. So again we had to trust the agent, who pointed us to many different spaces to put down our signature and that is when i realised even he did not know the exact spaces. He had even asked us to sign at the Sub-registrar's column. I was lucky enough to notice it and avoid putting my mark there. Finally after 2hours of charade, we finally belled the procedures and came back home.

It was only later that i came to know about the plight of many non-kannada speaking people who had to confront with audhu at all the unlikely places. Besides i also came to know that on asking directions to any place, the standard well versed answer would be straighto, dead endo, righto (go straight and take right on reaching dead end), irrespective of where the real place is.

All i can say is may god save all those souls which take refuge in Bengaluru,.....long live kannada,....

the amazing journeys

i have been travelling an awful lot lately,especially from my work place to my hometown , and the distance i have to cover is well over 400kms. one may start thinking that 400kms is not that big a distance, with the ubiquitous low fare air travel or even the comfortable ac train compartments, but i take neither. i prefer the bus. dont worry, i am not talking about the kerala state government owned buses, which i certainly respect a lot (thanks to its age and condition and of course due to the probability of not reaching the destination in time). i am talking about the upcoming air bus and volvos which has got its service from almost every city to any other city. though the fares are almost 150% of the fares in trains, i, like many other working guys and gals, prefer it. not because it has got top of the world facility or comfort, but it just grows on you.

most of the time it's just a day prior to the journey that we decide to go home and that certainly is not the best time to go book a train ticket unless you like to stand the whole 10hours which makes up your journey. all we have to do is just take out our darling cells out of the pocket, check for the travel agent number and say our destination and date and wait back. the ticket would arrive at our door-steps. and for all those who think that there are more advantages, am really sorry for being a spoil sport, there isn't any. this ticket business is the only flip side to a bus journey.

among other things, we may not be boarding at the depot after all, and hence may end up waiting at the stop for more than an hour at times(there maybe some mishap at the origin station, like a guy may board the bus half hour late, or the driver may take his own time to finish of his beedi or Cigarette and may have to buy himself his pan at the last minute). we can be stern on the late comers, but i don't mind the drivers taking their time, for our life is in his hands and he has to gear himself for the long drive ahead, that too in the middle of the night. you may think am crazy, but trust me, my motto is "the more cigarette and pan a driver has, the safer it is to travel with him." staying awake through out a night is one thing and driving a giant at night is another, so hats off to you mate for what ever it is that you do to stay awake and take us to our destination. as for the sitting facility in the bus, i usually prefer the semi sleeper. not because i do not sleep, but because i am a little too tall for the beds in the sleeper buses. do not ever assume that tall people can sleep better in semi-sleeper, that too aint possible, but hey at least there would be a movie in semi-sleeper. and by movie i do not mean the latest hit or anything, it would be some good old mushy movie which i believe everyone in the bus would have seen an umpteen number of times. yet we try to sit gazing at the screen in the hope that we fall asleep during the movie and not care about anything else.

before i proceed, let me make it clear that even though the bus journey may sound so very attractive, people with weak bladders, please for your own sake, do not board a bus. how girls manage it is still beyond me. i myself make sure that there isn't a drop of liquid waiting to be thrown out before i board a bus (the surrounding is immaterial, when you have to go, you have to go isn't it not). now then, the real trouble starts when you fall asleep, you cant toss and turn in that small space given to you, so what do you do???the good old cuddling thing, irrespective of which stranger is sitting next to you, you go about cuddling with him/her. unlike our general perception, the person next seat wouldn't mind all the attention you are giving to them, and both of you can revel in the intimacy that you share. the highlight of the journey of course is the mid way stop, when guys with the weak bladder can run out and gush out. for others it's either tea time or for guys like me it's cigarette time and for the drivers it's more of energy building time(maybe a sip of that amazing drink they carry around, for another pinch of pan, or what not).

it's easy for people getting down at the last stop, but for the ones getting down in between there would only be one thought in their mind "are we there yet, are we there yet??". they loose their night's sleep pondering into the thought and when the stop finally arrives, they fall asleep only to be woken up by the guy who gives driver a company. i have once stayed awake for over an hour thinking am approaching my stop only to find out it did not, once i even took my luggage from the shelf thinking i reached my hometown only to realise that it' s still 3hours away. finally we reach our destination and what do we realise?? the journey was just about perfect......

what ever said and done,....the bus service rocks,.....