The Plight On A Friday Night

Here is how I describe my most adventurous trip to my hometown so far...

Some time around 8th May (Friday), Raghu mailed a few of us asking our opinion about travelling by train to Mangalore, to attend Pradeep's brother's wedding. Himself, Shiv and I confirmed. But he did not book the tickets until Tuesday, 3 days before the scheduled date of travel (it was because his internet connection had a problem, but let me blame him for everything ;-) ). A day before the trip, he cancelled his ticket, and so only Shiv and I were to travel together.
And the day came. I took a ride from my office to Marathahalli in a Vajra (Volvo city bus) bus, and from there to Wind Tunnel Road in another. Wind Tunnel road is where Shiv's office is, and the conductor did not know this place. I had trouble in explaining where this place is, until another passenger interrupted and told the conductor that it is near Total mall.
Fine, I waited for Shiv there, who came quickly (strange!!!), and we took another Vajra to Majestic. We reached there at 7.30 PM, and as we had another hour and a half for the train to arrive, we took a stroll on the busy streets of Majestic, and hopped into a shoddy pub. After sharing a pitcher of beer along with tasty chilly chicken, we bought some food from KFC and headed to the train station. We checked there and realised that our tickets weren't confirmed. Still, we decided to go to the platform 9, where the train would arrive. I called up Raghu on the way, and he told us that our tickets weren't confirmed, but we should try talking to the TC, who would try to give us some place in the train.
When we reached platform 9, there was no TC. We finished our KFC food (and realised that the KFC guy had cheated us, packing only 4 pieces of chicken, instead of 6), and waited for the train to arrive. The train arrived, along with that, the TC too. We asked the TC, and initially he said he can't do anything. When we met him again, he suggested that we board the car S3. We weren't sure, so we thought of going to KSRTC bus stop and taking a bus to Mangalore. I spoke to Raghu again, to check whether he'd get the money back for our 2 tickets, and he suggested that we should take TC's advice and board S3 because if TC has advised so, he can surely get us seats.
We jumped into that car just as the train started moving, and stood at the door for a while. After half an hour, the TC came, and told us to sit in 2 adjacent seats. Good, we had seats, that too together. Super…. We played Rummy for the next hour or so, initially Shiv having the upper hand, and later me. I guess the final score was 183 - 115, mine being lower. Just as we finished what would be our last game, the TC came and informed us that the seats we had occupied were already booked by someone else, from Mysore. He gave us two options: take a ticket in the general class and travel in that, or get down at Mysore. In any case, he said that the amount we (actually Raghu) had paid for our tickets already would already have been returned, so we must pay for the trip we had from Bangalore to Mysore. That would be 120 Rs for sleeper class. Add to that, the unconfirmed ticket means ticketless travel, so a fine of 250 rs. That meant each of us had to pay 370 Rs for a trip from Bangalore to Mysore. But when he had given those seats, his intention was very clear, to make money. Just as we expected, he took a total of 200 Rs from us, and we alighted at Mysore train station at 11.30 PM.
Then we took a prepaid auto from there to Mysore KSRTC bus stop, paying only 21 Rs. Just as we arrived there fifteen minutes later, we saw a Mangalore-bound bus departing. As I had to take a leak urgently, we skipped that bus and after I relieved myself, we went to speak to the station master there. He put a bomb on us, saying that the bus we had seen was the last bus to Mangalore. Great!!! Someone gave us hope saying there is an Airavata (Volvo intercity bus) in another 15 minutes. We waited, and the bus came as expected. But it was already full. We saw one junk red bus bound to Madikeri, and the conductor suggested that we take that bus and take another from there to Mangalore. But that bus was full, so we skipped that too. After that, there was no bus that would go anywhere close to Mangalore for the next hour and a half. Finally, another Madikeri-bound bus arrived, which was full again.
Then a kind police constable, who was watching us for the two hours we were standing there (taking only a cup of tea in between), told us that it was the last bus for the night, and the next one would be three hours later, at 4.30 AM. Great!!! We boarded the bus, and Shiv found a seat for himself. I saw one empty seat between two men (it was a 3+2 junk bus), but I was reluctant to sit there. A passenger, who was travelling with 2 drums, gave me one drum and told me to sit on that. So I put that drum in the aisle, and sat there with my back towards the direction of the bus. It was a circus. Every time the driver braked, I had to hold on tightly to the rods around.
At Hunsur, one guy sitting next to Shiv alighted (the route of the bus was not through the regular Kushalnagar bus station, but through Virajpet). Finally I had a decent seat. It was congesting, still we managed. I could not get sleep, so I was staring out of the window, trying to remember every place. I got the thoughts of the sort "hey, that's the place where we stopped for a leak during our first Irpu trip", "hey, that's the place where Raghu rode Kunal's Bullet for a while" etc.. Once we crossed Gonikoppa, the road was unfamiliar to me. Then I fell asleep for a while, and when we I woke up, the bus had stopped at Virajpet. The bus was 90% empty at that place, and the driver had suddenly had an adrenaline rush, and he drove like a maniac. We reached Madikeri at 5.25 AM, with me sleeping only for 10 minutes or so. I wonder how Shiv managed to snore!!!
The bus from Madikeri to Mangalore was at 5.30 AM. Aha, five minutes!! We relieved ourselves, and then grabbed a few bananas and some water. Even the Mangalore bus' conductor was there, and so we thought we still had time, so we went to drink some tea. As we drank, the bus left. Shiv tried to wave at the bus with his 2 hands full of bananas. I think the driver thought that Shiv was trying to attract some monkeys, so he ignore Shiv. Damn!!! We had another half an hour for the next bus, so we had Akki Shavige and Uppittu at that small eatery in the bus station. Just as we finished, the next bus arrived. This time, we got into the bus, wasting no time.
And then, 3 small children little ahead of us in the bus vomitted all over the place, forcing us to go to the back rows of the half-empty bus. The journey was quite rocking.. Literally.. Still we both managed to fall asleep. When I woke up, we were in the outskirts of Mangalore. And then the conductor came and reminded us that he owed us some change. That's only 4 Rs. That was very professional!!! We had forgotten about it, but he hadn't.
And the bus reached Mangalore city, and as I saw my house pass by, I asked the driver to stop. He said that the bus doesn't stop at all city bus stops. Damn, I had to get down 2 kms further, and take a city bus and reach home at 10 AM.
Later, Shiv said he reached home at 10.30 AM.