Seat No. 28 on NH 48

9:30 PM Indiranagar
National Highway 48 is the route connecting Mangalore to Bangalore through the scenic Western ghats. As always for me, the journey home began with getting the last ticket and thereby ending up on the last row of the bus to Mangalore, but this would be a journey like no other I’ve been on before.
10:00PM Gandinagar
I knew this the moment we tried to get going from Gandinagar. The bus wouldn’t start. On a road that can hardly accommodate 2 buses, ours was stuck bang in the center resulting in total pandemonium(please try to imagine any road in B’lore at peak hours with a bus blocking it). Before long there was boisterous crowd gathered at the front with the intention of pushing our stranded bus backwards so as to free at east one lane. As soon as the driver gave the signal, there was a huge war cry and the bus started moving backwards. Unfortunately our driver who should have been looking backwards, was busy encouraging the crowd at the front. With a loud crack, the bus came to an abrupt halt. We had hit a sign board, but at least we weren’t blocking the road anymore.
12:00PM Gandhinagar
After 2 long hours, a few impromptu mechanics had replaced the battery and we were finally on our way.
4:00 AM- Shiradi Ghat(somewhere in the Western ghats)
Shiradi Ghat is a very wide easily maneuverable ghat, with wide roads and a very reasonable angle of descent. Or at least it was. Now, there was no road, only a path. I remember as a kid, I had once gone on a ferry ride. The water was extremely rough and our vessel swayed violently, threatening to capsize at any moment. I was frightened to death. This is exactly how I felt as my bus swayed, with me oscillating like a pendulum inside it. Kudos to TATA Motors for designing a vehicle which could move with no two wheels being at the same elevation at any point in time. As the chassis creaked loudly under the strain of the three tons of the bus trying to contort it, it felt inevitable that eventually, it would give up and the bus would break into two. At around the same time, the gentleman on seat No.24 decided to readjust the angle at which his seat was reclining, and Voila!! he managed to break the locking mechanism on his recliner and the seat fell with a thud on to my already aching knees. From then on, each time we hit a pothole, this seat flapped up and down , ramming into my knee.

8:00AM Panemangalore Bridge
I woke up next at the toll gate for the bridge across river Nethravathi. As I put my head out of the window to look at the road ahead, all i saw was muck, and no tarmac. It was truly ironic that we had to pay an extra Rs50 at the toll booth, maybe it was entertainment tax, because the next 2KM sure felt like a roller coaster ride.

9:00 AM Home at last!!!! :-D
South Canara Dist. in September is a sight for sore eyes. The entire district turns green soon after the rains ... Sigh... and then i thought...maybe coming home is worth risking knee replacement surgery :)