Udupi- A name, which reminds many among us about the name of a South-Indian restaurant round the corner. Perhaps, only a filtered few among us are aware that it is a name of a Place too. It is in the coastal belt of Karnataka which is about 755kms from Hyderabad which is my current location. By bus, it takes 14 long hours to travel (Okay now, enough of Geography). In this article, I would like to share those 14 hours I spent on my journey from "Pearl-City" to the "Temple-City". So, fasten your seat belts and get ready for the roller-coaster.
It was a bright Sunday evening, where Sehwag was hammering every nook and corner of the ground and I could not resist to get off it. As the old adage goes "Time and Tide waits for none", I had to leave Viru for my bus :P. Reaching the pickup point with my buddies( who were too happy to send me off :P ), I waited there for the bus as it did not show up in the mentioned time. Meanwhile, my eyes caught a good looking girl (Seldom do I miss it ;)) who was waiting for the bus too and I was just wishing that she travels in my bus :D. After about half an hour, the bus finally arrived and Ta-daan she was in my bus.
Bidding all my buddies good-bye and heading towards the bus, I heard a slow Kannada Devotional song playing. I looked around and made sure it is not one of those buses on pilgrimage tourism. Soon as I settled, many greetings flew in through messages and calls, which made me feel like Marco Polo set on his voyage. A loud noise from the TV brought me back from my thoughts and "DOOKUDU" (a Telugu Movie) was started. Must say, it is a good movie but sadly I’ve seen it before, so I had no interest to watch it again. Call it a "Sheer Negligence" or "Weird Coincidence" internet-pack in my cellphone had expired too. So finally, I opted to listen to songs which made me realize I’ve many good songs in my cellphone.
Beautiful sunset and slow music took me to a different world which I enjoyed a lot. Soon the bus halted for some refreshment somewhere in a village which is never available in Google map, I went to blend with the mob to have the "Simply Dileesius" tea out of curiosity and the effort was fruitful, it was indeed delicious. I was all alone like a lost kid and that attracted a foreign couple towards me. If my memory is fine, it was Harris and Juliane from South Africa who were in India to explore dhabaas and local delicacies. We had a nice chat and discovered that, they were in their last week stay in India. Soon after, they took a pic with me. Well, maybe by now that pic has been published in South African Daily as "Malnutrition-Struck Adult In India" :P
Back to my seat, I dozed off unknowingly, courtesy songs. After about an hour, I was forcefully woken up by the scary rather hilarious snoring sound by my co-passenger, who is blessed with a kind of snoring which could make even Lions feel shy about their roaring. Holding back my anger, I took out the bedspread given to me and covered my face to sleep but in vain. Next couple of hours I had to deal with his horrible snoring and I ended up having a strong headache. Oh! did I miss out that "good-looking girl" in my bus??, her seat was at diagonally right to mine and I could see her deeply immersed into the movie going on. She was mentally not there, my plans of talking to her was aborted instantly.
Soon, I slipped into sleep though the 'King Of Jungle' was roaring non-stop next to me, a much required sleep for me as the date was already changed and my brain was demanding for some rest. At around, 2.30am a middle-aged lady screamed so loudly which was sufficient enough to send any heart patient to deep sleep forever. In no time, the whole bus woke up and lights were on, I mumbled to myself - "I’m damn sure, she has been molested by the old guy next to her" but in reality she had a dumb-baseless-irrelevant dream, which not only disturbed the whole bus but also brought me back to Lion’s Den. It took around quarter to an hour for everyone to settle down. Peacefully, I had a deep-sleep thereafter, ironically not long enough.
I wonder people who have new-born babies are never dependent on alarms. Right on the dot, at 6am a toddler started its tantrum which made me mumble again - "VERRY Good Morning, U MORON”. From that point, I had to simply sit and enjoy the nature for the next couple of hours. As I came closer to my destination, my new found excitement overshadowed the tireful journey. Finally, I jumped out of the bus and stretched my arms to feel the familiar breeze which energized me more than a RedBull could do;)
