A local bus ride..!

Walking from the house to the bus stop is a joy. But will take more time.  One has to by pass the wet little by lanes which are slippery in the rain of June.  The side houses on either side of the by lanes are small but beautiful.  But not spacious as all small houses.  Once the main tarred road is sighted the attack of dust clouds raised by the passing trucks and cars will cover the walking folk.   If it is raining, it will be red mud which will be the threat.  This is not for no reason.  We have a pipe line which has been put after cutting out the good road well spread with good black bitumen.  Once the pipe line is put in place no body usually cares to re-do the tarring.  It will take some time to do it with all the procedures and permissions completed.

The bus stop is a small covered and concretised structure with a cement bench. For the elderly it is a solace as one would definitely like to sit away from the traffic moving so fast, rubbing the sides of the road users.  The bus comes in great speed and screeches to a halt to pick me up and the conductor gives his customary "Weisse..." which means 'Right'.  As soon as I put hold on the handle bar of the gate the bus starts to move and by the time I get into a seat the bus has picked up speed.  Now in the seat the sight is really soothing and enjoyable.  Any one travelling in Thrissur know that.  Either side of the road is good houses with greeneries and greeneries all over. 

The road is good at places, bad at places, but all along is narrow.  So the driver has to be good at his art of swinging and swerving, turning and cutting etc.  Out right, he has to use his unofficial air horn to frighten away the small vehicles coming in front of him.  It is not that he has to scare away all, most of them are dead scared and give way as soon as the bus is sighted in the rear view mirror, but there are some who come from outside and some youngsters who are new drivers ..!  They do not know the set up going on and fall prey to the driver's horn.  Once in a while there would be such a vehicle.  The buses are always on their fittest as they have to pull fast to overtake and manovure at small spaces.

All along, a cool breeze passing through make one feel the joy of a bus ride as the poor driver takes away the pain of driving and the riders are left at peace to sight seeing or day dreaming all through.  People get in and get out, both men and women, many a time carrying little children.  The conductor see to it that people get in without any hurt and once settled, approaches and collects his fare.  There are two pieces of beautiful green field roads, one at Kanjany and another at Chettupuzha.  Once the famous Chettupuzha is over the next suburb of Thrissur town city is there called Olari which is adorned by the famous St. Therese church and a famous temple nearby.  Both are great in their own ways and are a joy to see on each trip. First come the church of Little Therese of Lieux and then comes the  temple.  The Chettupuzha has a little river in it which has dwindled with time but was a deep canal earlier in the times past.  Once upon a time there was a serious accident in that river when it was in spate   in the  Onam festival time, in which a number of Onam clelebrants and a good number of the other travellers in the bus had to lose their lives.  It was told that the driver of the bus was a good natured fellow and the owners of the bus specially treated him with a great Onam meal, which is customary.  As ill luck would have it, at that particular time, near the river the bus lost its brake and that was it!  The bus full of passengers plunged into the river in spate and many could not swim into safety.  The one single story apart there never had been any ill incidents or accidents on that road.

After Olari, the traffic will steadily increase and the ride willstill be enjoyable, but a tard slower.  Once can see around the beautiful houses and Government offices of Hospitals around, most of them very old  or be in their own world either listening to music which many of drivers would play in their good music boxes for the benefit of the travellers, but not in all buses.  By now, in my trip, we got a good rain and all had to put down their shutters.  This is most uninteresting time inside the bus.  The passing air will stop and one can't see much to the outside.  At times the customers will lose their designated or intended stops also.  Within this confusion we approached the 'West Fort' which is a bus stop only.  There was a Fort on the West side of the city at one time, but till date I have not seen that Fort. Now have to search for it.  By now the sides of the road is full of all sorts of shops and businesses of the city town of Thrissur and the bus crawls with traffic to approach the famous 'Vadakkumnathan Temple'which is in the centre of the Town Thrissur!  I disembark and my ride is over. 

Starting Trouble on a Humid Morning in Chennai

The starting trouble on a humid morning. 

The mornings are always a time of starting trouble, either it is for men or it is for vehicles.  The old times vehicles had that at a higher rate.  It was an effort to put into life an old car or truck in those days.  Always there were more than one person involved in starting a vehicle then.  The driver always used to have a helper who helped to turn a handle vigorously and turn the fan inside the engine from the front, while the real hero, the driver used to sit in and accelerate until the engine started to catch up and rev on its own.  As soon as the fire starts the handle turner pulled back the handle, swiped the sweat on his brows and took a deep sigh of relief.  Next he put the handle back inside the vehicle and either waited to see the driver revved up for a while to heat the engine and then sat in.  

Now that was about old vehicles.  Old people are almost the same, but generally, do not need any helper!  Getting up is generally without effort as long as one is in village areas where birds wake up almost every body in the morning.  But waking won’t do.  One has to get moving. That is the challenge.  First one says all the prayers one can remember.  Then sit up and get up.  This is to move and see if the morning news paper has arrived!  If it has not come, one an go to bed again.  But as it is the morning paper very rarely make a miss and it is there at the door.  One avidly grabs the paper and open the pages quickly flipping away the first couple of pages of mere trade in the form of full page advertisements.  These days, there are prompting words like “FREE, FREE’,  ONLY FOR TODAY, ONLY FOR THESE ..FEW…DAYS,  YOU SAVE…SO MUCH’ etc., etc.  Once the news comes the big headings with more ink is gone through quickly to see that the world is on its axis properly turning and then slowly one strains ones eyes for the smaller inked stuff !  By the time a cup of tea is made available by who so ever is in the house hold and that triggers the day!

The effect of tea is now a real winner after cigarettes and desi cigarettes called beedis are a strict ‘no, no’ due to their cancer properties well known and advertised these days.  All that is good and fine but the heat of the weather chart make one drowsy in Chennai this time of the year.  A much wanted rain does not come down and the clouds are going hay wire hither and thither to rain or flood in places where it is not expected.  What ever happened to climate, every body wonders! But one has to suffer it.  No one can do anything single handed.  As such has to suffer the vagaries of the extremes.  One hastens to take a morning walk early as before long it is going to be too hot to walk outside.  Even when there is a cloud, still the hot winds from the west make it uninteresting outside in Chennai.  So it is good to be indoors after the morning walk or reaching office if it can be so done.  At least until after some welcome rain which is expected in a week or two.

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