This week I am visiting my home…my parents’ home in Pune; after 1.5 years. They have visited me a bunch times in the past 1.5 years J. I planned my travel by bus as its still holiday season in India and you don’t get train reservations, unless you planned and booked 3 months ago! And well bus is much quicker than train too. I attended half day at work and my husband took me to my bus boarding place. Koramangla in Bangalore! As per Indian time schedule a bus came 5 mins late.
When we plan for a long journey of 14 hours..its understood your bus will be one of those huge Volvo bus; either ways my husband took care to find me the best luxurious AC bus. What came to pick me up was a small mini bus like from the 1970s but with the same name of the travels…I was speechless to comment about it. And I said to my husband ‘Are you sure I am supposed to travel 14 hours in this bus!’ And quickly he realized that this was just a pick up bus that would carry passengers from nearby locations and drop to the actual location from where the bus would start! Phew! What a relief! I didn’t know we have pick up services in India. And if so, they should at least upgrade their mini buses to newer versions!
The driver was one of us..typical Indian characters- who in their world are perfect while the rest of the people around are so stupid and should not be roaming out freely! We were going over a small bridge which was over the underground road. And a car in front of us was waiting carefully to drive through the incoming traffic. Our pickup driver got so annoyed that he is waiting for NOTHING! He popped his head out of his drivers’ window and screamed at the car driver “Yo Dude! You can go man! There no need to wait” (closest translation). The car moved on quickly while our driver mumbled to himself “Why do people buy expensive car when they can’t drive!” Yes sir, so true. This entire attitude while he himself was breaking every other road rule J.
We picked passengers to cover all 20 seats of the mini bus. It was quite suffocating each time it stopped for people. Big and large sizes of men and women travelling in a mini bus! Finally, when I reached the location after 40 mins. my real bus looked so much more convincing. Big, large, huge, gigantic regular VOLVO bus!!!! Phew!
When I got into the bus, I saw I had a window seat. We Indians do not ever let go a window seat, and if you’ve paid for one..then NO WAY! I was talking on the phone, passing the information of the location where the bus will stop in Pune, so my family can come to pick me up. I had a girl passenger next to me. My seat of 7W (w is window, clear identification); the girl asked me very smartly with a dirty expression, “Do you want to go in to the window seat or should I?” In other words, can I take the window seat! I asked her what is 7W? Window seat? She says…I think so! Like it isn’t obvious enough? So you are openly stealing my window seat??? I said hang on, let me take my seat! Window-seat-stealer!!! I got my window seat! J
Then when they put on the TV, it was such a pleasant relief. I mean all through these 1.5 years I have travelled around only to Tamilnadu. So every time I board a bus, I have heard loud, harsh tamil songs or movies. To my pleasant surprise the bus guy put in a DVD that had only Hindi movies. So what if they are Salman Khan’s movies! It’s a good deal any day! Yaay! I ended up watching Ready (crappiest movie), Bodyguard (another stupid movie) and then Maine Pyar kyu kiya; which I am surprised that it’s the same story as Hollywood movie ‘Just go with it’ which released very recently. How can a new Hollywood movie be similar to an old Bollywood movie? Isn’t it the other way round?
Anyways, I am home now. Back to the town I grew up in and it changes every time I come here. New roads, new stores, new malls, lots of traffic etc. It sure is much hotter than Bangalore right now. I am missing the cool Bangalore showers! More to come about Pune visit!
