The dirty pond.

1 Nov'09

Yesterday(31 Oct), I was late out of office - left at 9.00 p.m. After that I got lift in my boss's car, after a 4 kms drive reached the place Pakkam Koot, a place en route from factory to Pondy. This is of course a small road junction from where I could get a bus to my place Cuddalore.

It was about 9.15 p.m. and I am lucky (: to get a local town bus which travels from this Pakkam Koot Road to reach my town Cuddalore. It was a little satisfaction for me that I got a bus which is too odd given the time of the night. Yes, after 8.30 p.m. its rare to get a bus back to home from this location.

Anyhow, I proudly got into the bus with a piece of mind to having an opportunity to sit and relax my arse off after the hard days work of mending a couple of power point presentations umpteen number of times for the corporate conference which is happening tomorrow at Chennai. There were very a few people in this bus at this odd hour. One among the VIP was a 50 year old drunkard who was not in his senses. He was lifted into the bus and made to sit on the floor by his two friends. He was so much in his kick of the drink, that, he went on to lie on the floor to take a deep slumber. On talking with his buddies, I came to know that this fellow had drunk too much after his day's work of cutting sugar cane. Generally these type of work are better paid compared to other type of farm work in the surrounding area.

Not more than 7 people were there in the bus. After a 20 minutes of journey through the narrow roads and numerous bends, the alighting place for our drunken fellow had come. Now his friends awaken him to get down. The VIP throws out a surprising question, "Hey, why are you disturbing my sleep?" After a few attempts, he was made to understand that he was then travelling in a bus and his home has reached. The great bus which is the last chance of the day for the people to reach home, now stops for this great man to get down. The driver and the conductor of this bus has to be praised for so much passenger friendly.

Unlucky me, I got into this bus which I have so far not tried, since it is a round about journey for me to travel back to my home. But at this time of the night, and that too a rainy day, its some minimum probability for me to get through the other wise straight route.

After a few stops there were only two passengers including me, that was a very old lady (paati).The bus was travelling with right turns, left turns and jolts due to the gift called pot holes. Some times, these efforts of bus facility being provided to the not so populated villages at the odd hours are to be lauded.

A few minutes, there was a noise of stones hitting the back side glass of the bus. Glass pieces of the back window were flying inside towards me. The driver stopped the vehicle and got down to chase the culprit. The two back side glass panes bore the burnt. Ohh, some bad guy had transferred his fury on to the bus. Apart from the two passengers there were nobody around. It was damn dark and was dead calm outside, giving some frightening moments at the end of the day for me with desperation to reach home and fill my hungry stomach.

After a few minutes, I could hear the bus crew come back while conversing with few more people. The persons who came with the crew, were pity of the dastardly act by some rowdy sheeter. I was too tired of the days work combined with skipping the dinner in the bad plan of getting a sumptuous dinner way back at home.

Oh, poor me was drawn aback of the unlucky time get to give life time experiences then and there. Now the driver made a mobile call to his superior to get advised of first making a complaint to the concerned police station. Ofcourse, the police station is very far away from the incident spot. These are the rich formalities for a Government bus, though the condition of the bus is so poor when compared with a private bus. Unlucky me, I should have decided to go on my usual route rather than jumping to get on seeing a bus.

What say, things happen and some times we need to get wise by these odd experiences.

Now, the crew got to speak with two more passerby. Later decide to inform the local village head as advised by the passerby. I guess, the passerby should be the Macbeth. Since there were nobody around, I decided to go along with the crew to the place were there were many hutments. The guy who was accompanying us, told about the incident to the “village head” and asked him to come.

Afterwards he came outside his hut. He was a bit small guy and did not seems like a village head. He then speaks out that such incidents do not happen without his knowledge and must be handiwork of people from some other village. He then speaks out that he was organizing a hartal in the morning in protest of ransacking of his leader’s office at Chennai. He says with glory of his police arrest subsequent to the hartal in the morning and that he just then reached home after release a few minutes then.

Much of years and generations are needed to make these people know of what to do for the country, how to protest and what to do for developing the country rather than making protest at the drop of the spoon. Our country has too much of people falling in this category, and its much needed to change their mindsets.

Then, all of us headed to the incident spot. The “village head” sees of the damages. The passerby was all along accompanying us and he was the one who was leading us to the hutment of the so called “village leader” and back to the bus. I suppose he was the black sheep and pretending to be making humane approach to us at the same time confirming to his “village head” that he has accomplished his part of protest. Though public are there at the loggerheads of getting affected, luckily the stone or the glass did not hit any of the two passengers.

After discussions back and forth with his superiors, the bus driver managed to make the drive to the nearby police station which itself is some 20 kms away. After the melee of some 45 minutes, before the bus made to the police station, I managed to get off at the main road and catch another bus back to my home after a delay of 1.5 hours at the mid of the night.

There are many places on earth which do not have proper roads to approach.
There are many countries in the world where proper transport is not available.
There are small villages which did not ever seen a transport facility for generations.

But, here even though the road was too narrow, with nearly hundred blind curves and millions of pot holes in just a 25 kms route...
Though the driver and conductor are courteous enough to work at the extreme hostile conditions, in accustoming with the poorest of the villagers, there is a tribe called rowdy who makes his journey on to that road, just throw a gravel onto the bus just for his whims and fancies.
The shitty reason may be that his leader got cold and cough and he wants to express his displeasure by damaging the public property. There would be a huge fan base in the name of self acclaimed "village leader" for him and a clan makes out its sojourn to make a talk in his town.

Bull shit

Will not these people get to come out of their dirty pond.