The morning in Bengal uru after Hyder’s bad…

Its the morning 6th august.

After having missed my “Multi-axle Volvo” bus on the 5th of august… ok lets save this for another blog post.

Prelude: Just back in namma bengal-uru (i hate to call it bengal-uru why bengal? ok lets save this to for another post), yeah so back in bangalore after having taken a early evening bus from hyderabad, the bus reached bangalore at morning 3 or 4 i dont quiet remember, writing form memory can sometimes be very difficult, the brain keeps clouding the thoughts, and then the memory becomes doctored with some new additions which may not have happened in reality.

So I decided to drop-in at brunton manor (last resort) till the morning and take a train back home to very own “little england”. Not having the luxury of a bed in the bus coach and having slept for a brief 4 hours at the manor, i decide to get back home as i was to appear for a passport verification by the local police station.

So i took the all new namma metro from its signature starting station MG Road and went all the way to the terminating station byapanahalli, all the while hoping to catch the 0730hrs marikuppam express(this magical train takes you to england), having reached the station in nick of time i rushed to the ticket office and bought a ticket to BEML Nagar (confused with all these names? lets make another blog about just place names), and rushed to the platform.

For the sake of reference, the tracks at bypanahalli station are atleast two stories below the road level, and the ticket office is like midway between the two levels. And with just two tracks, and a regular traffic bridge(no footover bridge like at railway stations, this particular station is like totally casual) to cross over to other platform, one can never mistake borading a different train, but thats just what happened to me.

I thought I had boarded the Marikuppam and took nap listening to some music, only to be woken up later by a call, a call from the police station, asking me where I am, i told them i am on my way back I was in Hyderabad yesterday, today I am in bangalore and in next hour I shall be at the police station, hearing all this the cop at the other end said your application has to be sent today so hurry up, and he disconnected the call.

This when i realised that the train is fairly empty, and everyone around is not the usual crowd I am used to see in a Marrikuppam passenger, and then came my biggest revelation, as the train was nearing halt at a station, I glanced thought the window hoping to see a name i am familiar with, as i did that I noticed even the coach windows are weird, the frames are joined together, between the two neigh-boring windows, there is no usual gap between them where the fan and light switches are located, the station was Hosur.

I said to my self dude hurry up get down now, you are at a wrong station, you are in TamilNadu and not any where close to Kolar Gold Fields.

So i did, got out, walked among the hoards of passengers all walking towards one direction, trying to get as mingled in them as possible for fear of having caught by a ticketing squad and penalised.

Being in a new ordeal, and been quizzed by a swamp of autodrivers, “yanga pono saar?” tamil for “where do u wish to go sir?”, I quickly found a cop at the traffic junction and asked him how to reach the main bus stand. The young cop directed me to the nearest bus stop, from there I ended up at the main bus stand of hosur, the bus stand housed both buses from tamil nadu and also karnataka, i could see some bikes too with the KA registration plates, a quiet a lot of them still conversing in kannada, this was my first time in Hosur.

I asked around for any buses to KGF, i was told i just about missed it and there is one in the noon, about 2 hours from now, I told myself I can be home by then, rather than wait just take a bus to whatever falls on the way and make one more onward trip from there.

I asked a old superintendent at the bust stand, who was tasked to keep a track of all the buses, he said my best bet would be reach malur and from there take another bus to bangarpet. (I know by now your quiet lost with all the different place names but all that shall be demystified in another post).

And just when i found a bus going towards Malur (i was quiet surprised by the number of buses readily available between hosur and malur) the cop called back, and this time i told him i am in hosur, i shall be back in two hours, hearing this, he started at me, “yako uru suta idiya? wandu ghante nahi baruthini andi hosur wharth biteh, iga inno yaradu ghante beka?” which translates to “why are you roaming around? u said you will be hear an hour back, and you went to malur instead, now your telling me you need two more hours?”, the only thing i could d was to reassure him i will definitely be there in 2-3hours (quietly adding one more hour for any further delays), hearing that he said hurry else i am bound to send your documents empty.

So began my road journey to malur, what was in whitefield many years back was here now, a large chunk of land parcel was rose fields, with roses of all colours blooming, i happen to see these sight for more than once in my one hour trip to malur, it was noon now, i started at 0730hrs from bangalore, was in Hosur by 0900 hrs, having had breakfast and taken two local buses to reach the main bus stand, i must have left hosur at around 1030hrs. as i remember i was at Malur just around noon.

But now, having reached malur, i was told the bus to kgf just left, i had missed my bus again, and the next bus nobody really knew.

The last thing i needed here was another call from the cop. thankfully that never happened, poor guy must be wondering i am playing around. As so i had to wait till i dont know how long, but as i could not read kannada much other than just a tiny bit of knowledge to recognise my name in kannada, and also recognise K.G.F written in kannada with those properly placed dots inbetween them, for the matter of reference, the syllable KA in kannada looks like a small pebble placed over a big one and on top of that is a flat line, so that how i recognise the syllables, and was on a look out for every bus that entered the bus station, the bus station was not quiet small and so this was manageable, thanks to the decent parking ensemble.

After a wait of about an hour and frequent running to the new ticket conductors arriving, i had to ask if they knew any bus going to KGF is on its way here, matter of fact, there was. and just about then a bus came screaming bangarpet, with the sound of a familiar word i just took the bus.

And took a nap again, this time pretty sure i will be in the place i want to be since morning. In my BED.

I reached bangarpet in about an hour and took another bus towards KGF to reach BEML nagar. Its 6kms between both.

At around 3 in the afternoon i made the bus stop right in front of the police station, the bus driver didnt think twice of my unusual and strange request.

So after 6 bus rides, 1 wrong train and all this crammed in 7 hours after 7 in the morning, i was an km away from my home, but had to finish the formality at the station.

To end the story, i narrated the cop what i had been up to in the past 20 odd hours, he was pretty amused by it and quickly passed my verification and took my number for his house renovation sometime in the future, upon learning i have lived the past 6 years in delhi studying architecture.

Missing or boarding the wrong ride is an adventure in itself indeed. Good or bad, the experience counts.