Bumpy 5km for 10 bucks more!

Im blogging coz i have time in my hands and have this urge to write so dont wonder how i managed 2 posts in one day.

I was all set to leave for office today. Normal day. Went to the garage to take my bike and it was hard to drag out. Beautiful - flat tyre!. Walked down to the end of the road, found an auto, bargained and got in.

My super auto walla - i decide to call him Palani - why coz he had his auto windshield covered with Lord Muruga's pics. In a few seconds i was sure this was not gonna be a perfect ride to office. The road was empty, well close to empty. Atleast the car in front was 10 metres away which was saying a lot at that time. Well Palani decided i had all the time in the world to reach office. The auto crawled at less than 20 km/hr when the road was empty!!! He continued to crawl while cyclists overtook us. My route to office is simple. Home, Madhya Kailash Signal, IIT, Anna University, Raj bhavan, Alexander Square, SPIC, ABT and bingo i would reach.

He decided to take a shortcut to the main road. A regular shortcut only so i wasnt too surprised. He took another detour which much to my dismay was blocked! Super! Got back to the short cut and somehow reached the main road with a bus almost toppling us over. We reached Madhya Kailash signal. The signal was amber and Palani should have made up his mind whether to cross or not. Which he obviously did not coz he came to a screeching halt some feet after the stop line

Very thoughtful of him to get down and push the auto back, from 5 feet ahead of the Stop line to 2 feet ahead of the stop line. Now by Indian standards (for those returning to India with pseudo accents and pretend that elephants cross the road) even 10 feet is acceptable. The minute Palani pushed the auto back, the policeman himself called and asked the vehicles to advance by 10 feet. I tried hard not to laugh.

We advanced ahead and again the road was pretty empty and Palani was at his slowest best. The next signal saw a traffic jam. The man who so long did not dare overtake a snail, decided to poke his way through the smallest of spaces. I was shocked and also embarrassed coz i could hear a bunch of people swearing at us. Hello im the passenger not the driver!!! A ford Ikon passing by, hurled a bunch of abuses coz our man stuck himeslf so close to the car that even if he moved an inch there would have been a beautiful scar.

Crossed the signal, again the road got a bit free. Three autos overtook us, ripping ahead. Palani, full enthu decided he was a racer and started accelerating. We were probably going at about 40 which still was saying a lot. We were close to office and we had to take a turn under the bridge. What does Palani do - goes straight and forgets that my office was in the opposite direction. After literally jumping on his head, he stopped pushed the vehicle back and took the turn.

My journey was almost done. The road was being laid and was half done. So one side was sort of higher than the other. What does Palani do? One rear wheel on the higher side and one rear wheel on the lower side. Wow! Talk about sense of balance. We had almost reached - Palani did not want me to forget this ride. There was a busstop right outside the road where my office was, the bus was just moving. My great chauffeur for the day, decided he would overtake a moving bus on the right and then take a left turn!!

After some more abuses, we finally turned into the road. I had bargained for a price, i ended up paying 10 bucks extra for showing me every bump that existed on the 5 km ride to office!

Calicut

This happened sometime last July. I did not quite have the time to pen it down coz work was at its peak. We had finished some work in Calicut. And i had a flight the next morning from Calicut to Chennai. The airport is about 35 Km outside the city and my flight was at around 10.30 am.

I had planned to leave the hotel by about 8.00. Even if it took an hour i would reach by 9.00, which gave me sufficient time to get through check in and security check. I had booked a cab, completed my packing and was all set to start. I even left early, i was out of the hotel by 7.45. Perfect - or so i thought. It had been raining the previous day and had continued through the morning.

Pretty heavy rain but visibility was good. We were driving down. Got out of the city and we were on the highway. Light traffic - not something to worry about. We had done about 20 km and had taken a turn towards the airport. The little towns were starting to disappear and there was one lonely stretch only surrounded by trees very typical of Kerala. I was admiring the rain and the lush green, and thinking about how a day in such a place would be worth a thousand holidays.

Pfffffftt.. the cab stuttered, splattered and came to a grinding halt. I thought, perhaps it was coz of the rain and few minutes would get it going. Well, the vehicle just refused to start. As in, there was just no sound at all when the driver turned the key. In my broken Malayalam i tried figuring out what was happening. Rain outside, isolated area, 10 km to the airport, it was already 9.00 - totally my idea of perfection. The driver told me there was no way the cab was gonna start. If another cab had to come from Calicut it would take atleast 45 mins. Which meant, the cab would come say by 9.45 and i would reach the airport only around 10.15 - no chance was i to catch the flight.

The worst part was, there was only one flight out of Calicut in the morning. If i missed that i would have to take a flight in the evening, and that too on a totally different carrier. Super. I begged the driver to even stop a passing lorry so that i would get to the nearest town where i could possibly get an auto. Much to my dismay - not a single lorry passed that way. Arggggghhh!!!

Finally an auto passed and to my luck it was empty. Yahooooo!. My driver stopped him, and the auto guy agreed to drop me off at the airport. It was around 9.20 - i would somehow reach. I thanked my stars - only too soon. The auto choked and stopped exactly 1 km before the airport. I was actually thinking of carrying my luggage and laptop and running the last kilometer. The auto guy was determined to make the vehicle move. He yanked the self start. The engine slowly came to life. Hallelujah!!!! The auto moved. I could see the airport. I would have cried.

I went in thinking things would be a cake walk after that. Well the day was meant to be tough and i had no choice. My flight was from the international terminal as it was either going to some place in the Gulf after a stop over in Chennai or was coming from somewhere - no clue. I went in with my luggage and was told to go for immigration. Huh!! Im going to CHENNAI from CALICUT - why wud i go thru immigration. I had to and I did. After that i was asked to get some no due or some dumb form signed. I really wondered if i was gonna be packed of to some 'Al Habada' kind of place surrounded by men in white robes.

Finally, i was put through security check and i went up to the waiting lounge. My first sight - it was isolated and there was not a single soul. I walked a little ahead and saw a couple of signboards. Voila - i did not have to go to 'Al Habada' to see men in white robes - they were right here in front of my eyes. Was i really in Calicut?

I sat for a bit awaiting for my flight announcement. My flight was announced - it was not clear but from what i could make out it sort of sounded like 'all passengers travelling on blah blah blah to Sharjah are requested to board through gate no. blah'. Hello that was my flight, i was going to Chennai - WTH was it going to Sharjah. I walked to the Gate - and managed to find some folks from the Airline - told them i was going to Chennai and why on earth was my flight going to Sharjah. They were like - Madam ur flight is coming from Sharjah and its final destination is Chennai. Phew!!!

I got into the flight. It was packed. There were Indians of all shapes and sizes and of course smells. It smelled like i had walked into a perfumery where fish was being cooked. Good god how was i to survive! I found my seat - luckily no one was sitting beside me. Divine intervention!!! There were three guys behind my seat - not something that i cared about except that they sang some crappy Tamil song ( i like Tamil songs but the one they were singing was downright crap) repeatedly till we landed in Chennai.

Kamaraj airport came into sight. My journey was drawing to a close. I was relieved. My relief was short lived. We were at the international terminal - no issues this time coz i knew i would be out and home in an hour. Well if i had the chance to walk out on ground level that would have happened. There was some renovation work happening - i walked up 4 floors on a spiral stairway before taking the escalator down 4 floors on the other side. Arggggggggggghhh this could get no better.

Luckily, my luggage came out fast and within minutes i was out breathing Chennai 'smoke -filled' air - a relief for the first time!!!