The Trip to Oooohty

Btw, if you are as sharp as Rupert Baxter, and have observed the abrupt lull in the posting frequency in the past 8 days, and have started suspecting that something fishy was going on - fear not - I had gone for short holiday to Ooty and Kunnoor with my family.

The trip was wonderful. The thing I liked the most was the temperature out there. I am a person made for cold weather - I melt and stink and feel drowsy and lethargic and totally demotivated in the hot and humid climates of Bombay and Calicut (Mumbai and Kozhikode, if you are of the unneccessarily puritanically psuedo patriotic type). However, cold weather brings back the joie the vivre which hot weather so nastily puts cold water on. My appetite increases, and for a change I can eat heartily because I know that the food will all be digested in that nice cold weather. I don't sweat at all, I feel pepped up all through the day, lethargy follows the path of the dodo and my otherwise sluggish temperament takes a back seat as I am always on the qui vive (expecting adventures to befall me ?).

Of course, no good thing is complete with a few irritations and hitches here and there. We had this story in our Bal Bharti (SSC guys will be feeling nostalgic, no doubt) about a King who is wandering in the jungle on a hunting expedition, and as he is wandering about, thirsty, in search of water, he come across a hut. A fair, beautiful, and as we come to know later, wise maiden (They are always fair and good-looking, aren't they ?) comes out, and the King requests her for something to drink. She gives him a bowl full of some thirst-quenching liquid, but sprinkles pepper all over the surface. Instead of being able to gulp the liquid down in one shot, the King has to sip the liquid carefully, by blowing away the pepper every time. He compliments her on the tasty liquid, and adds that it would have been tastier but for the pepper. Then she gives all sorts of wise fundae as to how the value of the liquid increased because of the pepper that came in the way. True, no doubt.

So, here's a brief take on a few of the irritations that made me appreciate the simple joys of life and made the trip so memorable.

1. The Bombay airport that resembles CST

You think you have attained some exclusivity by travelling by air. No, you are wrong. People throng there like the dickens - and the government will simply not increase the number of seats, so you have to stand in the lounge. The electronic board that notifies you about the status of various flights is malfunctioning, so the airport staff members move around like heralds, shouting out the flights that require security check.

2. The shameless and oversmart lady

The announcement says that people for xyz flight, please head to Gate No. 5. Everybody hurriedly gets up and a long queue gets formed. As we are approaching the gate, we see a family approaching the gate at right angles to us. This contingent is headed by the shameless lady, and consists of her husband, an ayah, a healthy and fit pair of grandparents, and one baby in the pram. They just butt into the queue and walk through the foyer. The cheek ! (I don't see any reason why they couldn't stand in the queue - the pram is no excuse, because it was a foldable pram.)

3. The crammed up space deficient airplane

We are not the Japanese. The average Indian male's height is 5'8". And these guys can just about fit in. What about the guys who are more than 6 feet tall ? What about those poor bastards like me who are a full 6'4" ? I can understand it if I am not able to sit in taxis and buses. No problemo. But, this is an aeroplane, for Christ's sake - and just because we are travelling economy doesn't mean you should be so inconsiderate.

4. Flop visit no.1

We decide to visit the Ooty lake. 4 of us cram into a rickshaw and for 30 Rs. we are taken from the hotel to the lake. One look and I know we shouldn't have come. The crowd there resembled the Chaturshringi mela in Pune. Still, we decide to take the plunge and head towards the boat-ride ticket counter. Bluuaahk. Someone vomits, and some of the vomit falls on my father's shoes. We regroup, and unanimously decide to head back to the beautiful confines of the hotel. This time however, the rickshawallahs have the upper hand and we are forced to pay 50 bucks for 2 rickshaws for the 4 of us. Nice.

5. Flop visit no.2

Everyone recommends that we go and visit Madhumalai sanctuary. 1.5 hours laters, after battling the heat, bumps and dust of a parched landscape we arrive at the sanctuary. Me and my dad walk up to the ticket counter. It's a big mess there. There is a huge queue. People are jumping the queue here and there, everybody is looking confused, the policeman there who doesn't know either hindi or english is shouting something in gobbledegook, people are waving arms, other people are just standing there in clumps, a group of goras is standing in the centre all confused and dazed and I getting this sinking feeling in my stomach. An obliging man tells me that I will have to go to the counter and take a token - after about an hour or so, they will call my number and then I have to go and buy the tickets. But what about the queue, I asked ? Oh, he says, those are the people who have a token and who are crowding there despite being told to come only when their number is called. I take the token, but the whole mess has just put me off. I take a look at the first of the buses that are leaving for the tour. Horrible. Green in colour, all ramshackle and rickety, cramped up and uncomfortable, God ! No glass, no curtain, no cushions - just hard wood and metal. Again, the great minds have a hasty conference, and after 15 minutes of intelligent debating and thoughtful reasoning, the decision to return to the hotel is taken. Our driver ofcourse, iss flabbergasted - he tries his best to convince us to stay and take the ride, but falls silent when I ask him whether there is any confirmation that we would see tigers or lions or even elephants. But you can see deer, he says, a while later. Anyway, back to the hotel we go.

And yes, my parents did stop on the way and drink some filter kaapi which they said was excellent - so the trip wasn't exactly wasted.

6. The trip from Ooty to Kunnoor

I wonder whether all these politicians, who travel around in a fleet of government vehicles and make the police barricade the traffic for hours even before they are supposed to pass through a given road, realise how much they inconvenience the general public. I suppose, even if they did know, they wouldn't care. Fine, I say, let the politicians have their way, they have to run the country I suppose. But what about all the altu-phaltu posts like the Governor ? I mean what does the Governor do ? Rather, considering the amount of tax-payer's money spent on him and on maintaining his lifestyle (what with the bungalow and amenities and servants and cars and petrol and plane travel), is it really commensurate with his contribution to the country ? God only knows, as Bharat Dabholkar says.

The reason I am asking this is because Ooty and Kunnoor are barely 40 minutes away - a mad driver can do it in half an hour. However, unfortunately for us, the governor of TN chose to pass through our very route - and traffic came to a standstill. Believe me, I have been through some really horrible traffic jams, at Lonavla on the old Bombay-Pune highway, and in Bombay itself. However, the traffic jam that we passed on the opposite side really took the cake. The thin, 2 track, potholed, winding, steep and uphill roads all joined forces to make it really miserable for the guys coming towards Ooty. Luckily, our side of the traffic kept flowing smoothly with only intermittant bottlenecks, but the other guys had a horrible time. Then, heaven opened it's floodgates and all the rain came cascading on our luggage atop the car. So, we had to step out and take the bags on our laps.

To make matters worse, our driver was a weird fellow who just irritated the hell out of all of us, without intending to, of course. This guy, when his car slowed down, (in this case, as I told you, we had to stop every now then), would shift the gear to neutral and then back to first, again to neutral then to first - even if the car slowed down for just a second or two. I really wonder who taught him driving. As if that was not enough, he used to leave such long gaps between himself and the next car - without exaggerating, 5 more cars could have fitted in between. And all this on a slow moving bottlenecked road. The shocking thing was, all the drivers there were doing this. We could make out that the opposing side had a 2-3 kilometre long traffic jam, yet, every other vehicle was leaving such long gaps on the opposite side, and making no effort to cover it too. Out here, you have bumper-to-bumper traffic, and if you leave a gap, people will openly swear at you and fill the gap up. It seems weird that this should cause irritation, but it did - and we all felt it. As my mom put it, we felt like taking a stick or a spur and prodding that guy. Go... ! At one point, this guy actually got out of the car, (as we were waiting in the jam) and started chatting with a car driver stuck in the jam in the opposite direction. Our line started moving - but this guy showed no inclination for getting into the car. I had to wave and shout before he ambled over and leisurely got going.

Lessons -

1. Home Sweet Home.

2. If and when you become very rich, make sure you buy and maintain a holiday home in some easily accessible (read very close to the airport) hill station with average temperatures in summer of about 18 degree celsius.

3. The traffic jams of Bombay are nothing compared to that of Kunnoor.

4. The weather of Bombay sucks more than ever.

5. Appreciate the taxi drivers in Bombay for how fast they (try to) drive.