The unknown awaits

Travelling has always been fun, travelling alone has been quite an experience for all of us without question. Travelling alone is a new concept for me, the first time was on the 7th of February, 2011 around a year and a half as of today [2nd September, 2012]. I have always been accompanied by parents or a friend while travelling. More recently ever since I moved to Hyderabad the number of lone travels have increased and are happening at a regular interval. Given my habit of being open on my blog about about all my experiences this is not going to be any different.

Two weeks after moving out of home I planned to come home for the weekend, booked a train ticket even before i left Bangalore given the heroics and magical skills you need to possess to book a tatkal ticket in India. Plan was set, Hyderabad to Bangalore, Garib Rath express what could go wrong? I went down to the Begumpet railway station and as usual reached early and had to wait around 45 minutes for the train to arrive. Bored, I took out my phablet [Galaxy Note][*showing off*] and was browsing the web, playing games and stuff. The security guard of the ATM came and sat next to me and started looking into my screen, and many times pushed my head away so he could view the screen properly, given the gentle heart I am i switched off the screen after 5 mins of public viewing. Not a great thing to do but my only choice, then he started asking me questions about internet on my phone and stuff, that conversation was fun enough especially explaining how birds carry data from one cell phone tower to the next.

The wait was finally over at 7:20 pm and I got into the train and I had booked for a lower berth as I had two laptop bags and did not want to leave them unattended on the floor of the train. There was this family I have no clue from which part of the country, a man his wife accompanied by their daughter and two young sons of the daughter. They had occupied my seat, i did not ask them to move just yet and just sat at the aisle seat and hoped they would realize people sleep and move. As i waited, another guy comes in from nowhere and says this is my seat, I said that is my seat pointing to the window seat. He asks me to move, the family was having dinner, so I asked this educated retard to open his eyes and see that they were eating. He says he needs his seat, I began ignoring and finally he just squeezed in on the seat opposite to where I sat. Finally the family is done with their 12 course meal, I was like finally! I told them they need to move now and I need to sleep. The obliged after some murmuring,comfortable in the 6 feet bed of the train I was on the verge of blissful sleep when a lady started trumpeting through the voice receiver of the chinese handset, holy mother of god is there any such thing as etiquette? Certainly not the case with the people I was travelling with, the phone call went on for hours or there were repeated calls I do not know but I was waking up every 20 mins just to realize only 5 minutes had passed by since the last time i checked my watch. I still had this feeling that something was missing, but could not figure out what, until the kid started crying at the top of his voice, yep there it was the stages of retarded travel was now complete. 12 hours journey, 2 hours of sleep, Bangalore welcomes me with auto guys asking 200 bucks for 7 KM, and then when I speak to them in Kannada and tell them I am from Bangalore they smile in the most ridiculous way and walk off.

The journey back to Hyderabad was pretty chilled out and I just slept like a log and probably the thought of going to office again kept me from bothering about my co passengers. That very next weekend I was supposed to travel back to Bangalore but this time with two other buddies and I thought to myself, this is gonna be a good journey! No stupid co passenger can bother us. Well how does one anticipate a group of 8 card game addicts who don’t give a **** about their co passengers?! They played cards till 12 in the night and stuffed me and my friends on to one seat! They had encroached on our area. This after we repeatedly asked them to vacate and the only response from them was the game is almost over just 5 more minutes. Finally another passenger got in the train at some station in between and he directly went to the TT and complained and we got our berth to sleep. The night was not over yet they continued playing on the berth above us and kept the lights on, another complaint and the lights were off, nope the night is still not over! One of the retards had lost his footwear and he goes around throwing the bags of mine and Ganessh[my friend and co passenger] before I asked him to stop doing that. He finally found the missing slipper in the morning 20 minutes before the train arrived at destination Bengaluru.

The latest one happened on the bus journey from Hyderabad to Bangalore, so this guy whose berth was next to mine [Sleeper bus] asks me if I want ThumbsUp and I said thanks i’ll pass. He said he come on man, just drink some, the seal was intact so I thought no harm in having some and i drank a bit and gave it to him, he says drink some more and I was like ok and finished about 200 ml. He says thanks, takes out a bottle of Royal Stag and mixes it and drinks it happily and sleeps. He has a sound sleep, by sound i mean he was snoring and that sounded more like a broken pumpset in the village of Dholakpur! Well no problem as long as he was did not puke or started acting funny! All was well and i’m sure as hell he mentioned he needs to get down at Hebbal but he slept through the stop despite the conductor shouting Hebbal a 100 times!

All these trips have taught me what to expect from travel and travel in India is never like what they show in movies if you know what I mean 😛

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