Travelling has been one thing which i loved doing and was one of the main reason for me to accompany my dad for giving invitation to all the relatives which was yet another custom to make the life of the groom and bride’s family miserable during the marriage. I happened to start from chennai last thursday late in the evening which was one day before the chennai’s most dreaded friday, the case with the roads were no better although all the city roads were not hit by traffic but it was the National Highway which was stuck with traffic.
Although i’m one of those who would sit through the night travel and gaze at all the scenic beauties during travel even during the night time, oflate i have been sleeping through the travel and during this particular travel when i was almost about to sleep close to 1A.M. the bus stopped and i never went back to sleep until 4 in the morning, i thought even the city traffic was better when you consider the situation, i never knew the national highways were so worse during the rainfall with all the potholes . It was pitch dark and it was as if i was riding some rides on some theme park. Only the flashing lights from the all the busses, cars and the lorry were source of light outside. This only made me to think about my ipod which i left it back just cause this travel was supposed to get hectic the next day where i had to ride Dad to the various relative’s house. I wondered why isn’t everyone like me ” one socially fucked up brat” atleast all these nuisance in the name of ritual could have been avoided. With all the honking horns and the parked highway lorries the night looked to be filled with melancholy and thank god it drizzled which cheered me up. I was like gazing at those lovely drizzles outside until the mess at the National Highway Cleared. I looked as if it would take us one whole day to reach the destination but we reached only about 4 hours late which made the 8 hour journey which looked like a breeze previously seemed like a horse cause my neck and back were aching in pain.
Despite all this worst journey i had some sleep but couldn’t have a long one cause it was my dad who made it a point to wake me up to ride the car. I took a pain Killer and rode the Maruthi 800 which was the only thing present :(. Although i haven’t ridden it for a long time, but this one made me look like i was using some makeshift rickshaw( the old school rickshaws) with some low power engine on it. I only complained about it for some time until i started enjoying the ride. The roads looked much cleaner despite having rained for previous two days just like in Chennai but there were hardly any signs of water logging on the road. Most of the roads weren’t even that broad like ” Gosh do i have to go through this ??” the roads looked like a one way while it was actually a two way road will all the busses speeding away. Although hesitant at first caught speed after some customization , I rode the car whole noon while my dad was sleeping sitting close to me,which made me lonely in the car and i was like thinking about my life, I started comparing the road with my life at the current stage and it looked very much analogous.
On the road you never know where the road ends unless you have gone through it, and it seems that the destination is never gonna be reached unless and until someone or some milestone shows up midway.
Despite having all these philosophical thoughts running through my mind, i had one serious problem “I can’t read Tamil”, I totally relied on the English nameboards throughout the journey but on reaching few of the rustic regions, i had no clue and had to wake my dad and ask him about the whereabouts. This was my first long drive on a car and i drove close to 180 km i.e 179.2 Km to be precise in about 5 hours time and i felt like i was driving well unless some SUV’s and MUV’s breezes past you. After a long day of traveling and on reaching home I hardly had any energy to sit and eat but had some liquid food and hit the sack to have some nap and woke up late the next day and was like eating all those sweets which my granma had prepared for me. The sweets were sweeter than they usually were never knew the reason but it might be cause of the whole tired journey. My skin was sun tanned cause of the journey and i’m trying for whole 3 days to get rid of it but i’m yet to acheive some success.
The worst part of the trip was yet to come though. Its a known fact that there is always a rat race for people to get to their natives during the festive season and since we were heading the other way we thought we dont have to bother about the return journey but god had other things in mind everything looked good until about half an hour into the journey all of a sudden i developed some rashes in my hands, i was damn sure it was some insect bite never heard of any such incident prior to that on a bus so i felt it was just one bite and thought it might ease away with time , later on it felt like as if my arse is on fire and gradually the rashes started to become big .My body was almost like on fire while it was slightly drizzling outside , the situation was getting worse with time I knew God is totally conspiring against me first it was the joblesness and then now its this alergy especially during the night travel which is making my situation miserable. I could have had the luxury of sitting at home and relaxing rather than going through this journey. I ran to get out of bus when it stopped for the break for people to go to Loo . People were looking at me like as if i was in someother pain while only i knew what pain i was it was like some screwed up guy had applied the accupunture needles at my back without knowing where the exact points are and the tingling pain seemed like both Ants and mosquitoes joined hands in wreaking havoc at my back, hands and legs. Thank god the conductor got a call from some co-conductor in some other bus about an accident on the way back and recommended the driver to take the ECR route and the bus was diverted from a funny place called Pun- Rotti 😛 towards the pondicherry and the cool drizzle as well as the coastal brezze atleast made me feel better. beleive me or not i took my shirt off just to counter the heat developed by the insect bites and the worst part is that despite having my Dad close to me he hardly showed any signs of insect bites. With all those skin scratching throughout the night most of my back and hands became so red that on reaching chennai i had to run to a nearby shop and get ice cold water early in the morning to get myself drenched in it just to cool myself, on having a close look at it in the morning Dad said its just cause of Bed bugs in such a demeaning manner i thought i better screw him up next time he comes for help to me . Rushed to the closest medical shop and took some allergic tablets and went to sleep on reaching home . It took close to 10 hours of sleep to get me back to my usual state.
Although the burning sesation is all gone i wonder how can bed bugs get into a Ultra deluxe bus ?? With all the time left for ma bro’s marriage i donno how am i gonna cope with all the rashes on my body, Shouldn’t it be the responsibility of the peope running the buses it to clean or atleast dust the bus before people board into it the next time? I dono why is it so messed up these days especially during festive seasons, people should rethink about them travelling in the State Run transport in future.
Eventhough i’m not of preachy type i’d advice “Never Ever to travel during the festive Season, if at all you do please never ever travel in a State Run trasport service even if its has AC in it.”
P.S: Its been long time i have posted something up here so rushed back to rant about the journey
My Grumblings 