Do minat

My travel from bangalore to hyderabad has become jinxed of late. On one occasion, I had to survive sharing the aisle of an a/c volvo with a bus cleaner having homosexual tendencies. But on last friday, I got the adrenaline rush of my life in last two years racing against time to catch my train to hyderabad. I have become an addict to the high I get through doing things/reaching places just in time. Be it chasing movie tickets on friday nights or racing on my seven year old splendid splendor to sneak in through the DRDO gate (to my home) that closes at 9pm.

But as I said earlier, the mother of all such highs was felt on last friday. I had planned to start from office at 1:15pm to catch the kachiguda express at Yeshwantpur departing at 4:10pm. Thanks to the thousands of e-mails I had to send to 'close' a few things, I started from office at 2pm. I thought may be I over estimated the time and felt comfortable enough to get onto a city bus to shivaji nagar instead of a direct autorickshaw to Ypur. The bus reached shivaji nagar terminus at around 2:55pm. Last time (on a non-friday!) it took me 20 mins from shivaji nagar to reach Ypur. Even with 2x deration, I would still reach by 3:45pm (assuming 10mins for catching the bus). I managed to catch a bus at 3:10pm and somehow got a seat to sit. Its already 3:30pm and the bus is stuck in the sea of vehicles. I felt stranded and decided to take an auto rickshaw to mitigate any risk of missing the train.

He seemed to be an energetic young man, but his auto was like an old patient; coughing, wheezing and ready to die. I was about 5km away from Ypur and we had 20 mins. The count went from minutes to seconds. It was only at 4:02pm when I saw Ypur address boards. There was a sweaty mix of tension & excitement in the air. The auto-wallah took me through hazaar nooks and gallis and out of nowhere, Ypur railway station appeared in front of me. I had just two minutes to go and I had to let go of the 40 rupees return change he owed me. "Thank you thambi, chillara nuvve pettuko" (Thanks bro, keep the change). With two heavy lugs, a porter's helping hand was definitely relieving. When I finally believed that I made it, my greedy self re-appeared and started haggling for 10 rupees. Blimey, I had just 100 rs notes on me. He was ready to walk away with one of those notes (and I didn't want to repeat my lines "Thanks thambi...."), when for the first time I felt happy giving away 10 bucks to a eunuch (and getting back 9 ten rupee notes!). 4:10pm it was and I heard the signal and felt the chugging of the train.

Phew, my mind was blanked for a minute. My coopey was entirely a non-telugu set. I wondered if I boarded the right train. After having a peek at the next coopey I saw an old man reading "Swati- saparivaara patrika" and thats when I confirmed that boy its the right train. Rest of the journey went on fine, reading 'Afghan' (hollywoodised version of apna "DON"), playing with a cute 2 yr old kid and chatting with an 'IT' engineer from hyderabad. Even this time fate had its way and no F[21-25] in my coopey. Wonder how long thats gonna continue! Anyways that was that.