Drama filled journey

Yesterday I was traveling from Bangalore to Coimbatore to visit my sister’s by flight. It is usually an hour and a half journey from my home. So booked the cab accordingly. When the cab arrived at 10.30 am (for my 1.30 pm flight) I didn’t expect the excitement that was gonna follow.
Just close to my home the traffic jam started. Since I had a 2000 Rs note (finally got one when I had been to a bank), the cab driver requested me to give him the cash instead of using the credit card and he called up his friend at the airport to have some change ready because the travel was expected to cost around 1200/- Rs and he didn’t have the money to pay back the rest. That is when his friend informed him that there was some heavy security in the airport and that the traffic was too high on the roads. Now my estimated time shot from 11.45 to 12 pm. I asked the driver to ensure to drive through less congested routes and got my kindle out. We were hitting traffic every now and then and I tried not to check my time lest I get worried and anxious. But almost close to 1/4th of the distance I heard a ‘bang!’ sound followed by yelling and some cursing by my driver.

Looks like my driver tried to overtake a suddenly stopped car only to have that car not see us and come forward there by hitting our car on the right back side creating a dent. Now the other car driver(another cab) was chasing us and was trying to get us to park the car and sort this out. Both the drivers started shouting that each of them had heavy damage but the other driver was hearing none of it. He threatened my cab driver even though he (my cab driver) tried to convince him that the mistake was on both sides and that his car had the maximum damage and also he was getting late to get to the airport. When the other car driver didn’t relent, my car driver decided to give him a miss and went through some lanes trying to stop him from tailing us and merged to the main road. I was all the while wondering what happened to my day suddenly. Hitting, Chasing, Escaping and Hoodwinking… 🙄
It was already 11.45 pm and I wasn’t even half way through. Now I started to worry, because there is no way I could get in (along with an additional baggage to drop off) and get to the gate before boarding time. I also started to check for the next flight just to be sure that my trip to the airport will not be wasted. By about 12.10 or so, after very long waits every where and the frustration of the driver at having his car dented (which was pretty new by the way) we reached the highways by 12.20 pm. From there the route was quite empty when compared to the roads inside the city. Finally, after that tension-filled will-I-make-or-not moments, I landed at the airport at 12.40 pm and the boarding was about to start at 12.45 pm.
Ran to the counter which was about to close and that girl looked at me up and down, totally disappointed. I told her that I had been through some rough journey and I really can’t help that I am late. Got the boarding pass (which wasn’t necessary because I had it on my phone, but these airline people will give you one on paper anyway) and my luggage receipts and ran through the airport all the time wondering ‘how I will ever talk / comment about people who run through airport at the last minute from here on, when I am doing just the same’ (wonder why I was worried about that…but I was) Thankfully not much queue in Security line. After that when I reached the boarding gate at 1 pm is when I breathed a sigh of relief. And they hadn’t even started to get ready for boarding. The boarding started only by 1.25 pm for 1.30 pm flight and it was 10 min late anyways.
And the whole flight journey to Coimbatore was only 30 mins in air. Reached Coimbatore by 2.20 pm. For a flight journey of 40 mins in total, I had to endure the traffic filled travel of 2 hours, which was OK, but it could have been with less drama, tensions, and suspense. But the highlight of the day: My nephew was very happy with his Thomas and Friends train set which I got for his birthday and we ended up building the big set and play with it in the evening. All the drama was totally worth it.

Do not travel for a day

When I saw the post ‘Data Visualization is a beautiful thing‘ I was reminded of a discussion that happened between my friend and I in London airport before my departure from there. This post is about the air traffic and how the data is visually represented and how they give you a better overview of the travels that happen. I did mention in a post that my friend’s flat or at least the window is in such a direction that I can see the planes flying around every 10 mins. So while I was at the airport on my way back to India, seeing the huge crowd over there, we were discussing how every single day of every single month of every single year, the flights and the trains are always full or at least nearly full of people who are travelling. I have never ever seen an airport or a train station half empty. It is always full. There is so much of flux happening in those areas. What if for a day every single one of us in this world decide to stay put in the place where we are and not travel anywhere. What would happen? Apart from a very huge loss  to the aviation and railways and probably the sales people at the stations. On an average how many days does one spend travelling? I like travelling, flying in a plane, going from one place to another in a train, but I don’t think I would want to spend my money on flights for twice a month or something like that. I would like to do that only once in 4-6 months. The rest I would love to do it through road, like using a Car or a bus, preferably a car. What do you think will happen if all of us decide to not travel anywhere for a day?

Never the same!

There’s never one sunrise the same or one sunset the same.
-Carlos Santana

Taken using my phone while on my drive from Bangalore to my home town on the Saturday early morning, near Hosur! Am home for Diwali, which is tomorrow ,10th November. Festival times, yay!!!

SoCS: Traffic Rant

Gonna talk about traffic, again. On Friday I had to go to the gym in the evening, for my yoga class. Since I was working from home, I decided to start an hour before the class so as to beat the traffic that can be caused by the sudden downpour of the rain in the evening. I had to take a route which has narrow roads (my usual route to my work place). When I reach there I see that it is practically deadlocked from all sides and the traffic isn’t moving an inch. I was in the same place for more than an hour. Why? Because on a road which is already very narrow and where you are supposed to follow a single lane on both sides, all these morons and dumb heads who do not have a lick of both common sense and traffic sense, decided that the incoming traffic is more important and they formed three columns and left a very small place for my route. And one big vehicle got stranded and not to mention all the cross roads from where the vehicles came and blocked the way too. I had to practice my yogic breathing inside the car so as to not run over the two wheeler’s and cars who had occupied 3/4th of my lane . Seriously I so wished that there were a rule so that they be decapitated, (there I got to use that word too 😉 )

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Post for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: use a word, anywhere in your post, that begins with the prefix “de-.” Extra points if your word ends with “ed”! It’s all about the fun – have some!

SoCS Badge by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

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Raindrops

One of my favorite photographs of raindrops on the car window taken using my phone, while waiting outside a mall.