The only time I was out of Andhra Pradesh(for a significant amount of time and not on a vacation) was when I got transferred to Bangalore in the last week of February, 2008. I have stayed there for an year and a half and every time I traveled back home, it was an interesting experience.
The first time, it was an almost teary good bye from my parents when I was boarding the bus. After a grueling twelve hours in the seat of a Volvo, the next morning, my head was all cold. The A/C in the bus was not functioning well and as a result, there were tiny droplets of cold water forming on the top of our heads from where the cold air was supposed to blow. It was very difficult to get some sleep with this Lord Shiva's effect on our heads. So, I covered my head with the blanket provided by them which was smelling funny at places. The next morning, I got down at the Kempegowda bus station. I don't know if there was a sign around my neck which said 'bakra' but I ended up paying an autowallah almost 25% of the fare I paid for coming to Bangalore from Hyderabad, and reached a friend's place which was some 15 km from the bus station. If you have ended up paying more than required, every time you traveled by an auto or a taxi, then I am glad I am not the only one who is a victim of this syndrome. I kept traveling once a month to my home.
It was during the long weekend of the Telugu new year - Ugaadi or Yugaadi that I set to travel home in a bus again. We were some 40 km away from the outskirts of Bangalore when the driver stopped the bus and declared that the bus had failed. It was around midnight when this happened and we were on a lonely highway. Every bus which went past us screeched to see if anyone of us was interested in getting aboard and they were happily declaring fares at their will. I did not have the money so I simply waited with the mob. Some (already) frustrated guy took the contact info from the driver and called up some lady at the office at Bangalore to see if she had already sent a replacement. She responded saying that, it was the festival time and all the spare buses were all busy and that one bus was sent for our rescue and would reach us by 2:00 A.M. in the night. I was hungry. Using my mobile's screen as a flashlight I wandered out on the highway to find a store. To my surprise, there was a college there and that meant that there would be some stores there. I ventured out further and saw a dull red light. It could be a medical store. All of a sudden, there was a long screech and a shrill cry of metal scraping against a road divider. The sound sent a chill down my spine. Immediately, I turned in the direction of the source where it came from and I saw two people going down, on the other side of the road, on the divider which was separating this little road of the suburb from the highway. At once, I crossed the highway and went to them. Luckily, they just had a couple of bruises from the fall. This is when I realized that I was way too far from the bus and the mob to call for help. The guys on the bike managed to stand up by themselves. I asked them if they were alright, to which they said they were fine and set off on that bike.
With the hunger clock still ticking, and some more venturing, I could see the dim red light more clearly now and to my surprise it was a medical shop. Obviously, it was closed at that ungodly hour. Since I had seen so much happening already, I thought why don't I give it a try and go wake someone up and buy some biscuits. When walking down the road, I saw some obscure silhouettes, I slowed down and walked more carefully towards the shop. Suddenly, I was a celebrity. The street dogs there took a note of me and some started to bark and some started to howl, expressing their own enthusiasm that I was there at that hour. I had to walk towards them as they were directly in between my biscuits and me. Then, a few from the pack stood up and were intimidating me. That was all that was required and I was no longer hungry. I returned to the bus and its replacement came after an hour or so.
There was a failed bus, the angry mob and a replacement. What else could go wrong? The only thing that was wrong was the type of the replacement. It was not a Volvo, it was some bus which would tour local districts. The seats were a perfect 90 degrees and there was no option to recline as they were welded at that angle. The driver was an experienced fellow but the bus did not permit him to drive for more than three hours at a stretch. During the night, he would stop and have a cup of tea every 3 hours. The next morning, the sun was shining on our foreheads and it was pleasant and warm. The driver stopped the bus at a local dhaba. Everyone was tired and the sight of the dhaba was like an oasis in the middle of a desert, everyone refreshed themselves and were ready for the second round of torture. It was not far from the dhaba where the tire of our bus punctured. Change of tire wasted precious time but we could not proceed without changing it. We proceeded without a spare tire for a few miles and then the driver found a vulcanization center which even offered to mend punctured tires. I cannot remember the spelling of 'vulcanization' that was written on the center but I do remember the 'Punchar Shop' (Puncture Shop)
After all these hurdles, we came to Hyderabad at around 6:30. It should have been A.M. but we reached at 6:30 P.M. Whatta way to start a new year....
More on travel experiences later.....
