Me, my tree, our coconut and we

The coconut falls
from the tree without a notice...

Quiet and peaceful, it was everywhere
With not an inkling of wind or storm
The coolness of the shadow rented the air
Under the coconut, on that noon so warm

I rested with no worries, plaguing my mind
With my head resting easy, on my palms behind
Dreams all nice and sundry, each of happy kind
My heart melting in gratitude for the tree so kind

And that's when this occured,
The coconut fell
from the tree without a notice...

I was caught unawares, unable to duck
Bewildered and stunned, cursing my luck
It hit me with a thud, then dented the mud
And left me in a daze, looking like a dud

The content smile, now replaced by a grimace
Plays on my mind and stays on my face
It never happened before, never felt so sore
Never was so heavy, never hurt more

And then, how and why,
the coconut fell
from the tree without a notice?

I grew with this very coconut tree
Or should say, it's the tree, that grew with me
I was not me, he was not he,
In fact all along, all was about 'we'

I have rested by it's side on all the days
Through the rains in the Junes or the sun in the Mays
However sparse the shadow, however wet the bed
And even hit by coconuts, naughty in their ways

Why now, then, do I realise,
The coconut falls
from the tree without a notice?

But, then it used to be different
The coconuts used to be small
And every one that was sent
Would be used as a ball
Not bothered as it went
As long as I recall
Infact, with one spent
Waited for another to fall

Even then, I realise,
The coconuts fell
from the tree without a notice...

The tree's taller and it's coconuts bigger
Which one would fall, is not easy to figure
I keep looking above, waiting for one to come
Keeping my hands ready, to try to catch some

I can rest no more, on the pillow of my palms
And see no more, across the coconuts and palms
And then, the coconut comes down without a notice
When I happen to waver and I happen to miss

You see,
The coconut falls
from the tree without a notice...

Peace is now estranged, and sleep's not like of old
Old times seem untrue, those times that were of gold
I shudder without reason, huddle out of fear
And cuddle up to myself with no one else near

No breeze rustles me nor the comb of leaves
The shadow doesn't soothe, as my stricken heart heaves
Everything's still and still the stillness doesn't stay
It's the fear, I say, that's taken the calm away

You never know, I tell you,
The coconut falls
from the tree without a notice...

But it's my coconut tree, mine so much
You see, I just can't stop loving it
I still caress it and fondle with my touch
I say, "I won't cry, even if you hit!"

I know, it knows my pining for it
And hence fills the coconuts with nectar for me
"You must try, and have the coconut, split,
And then you would see my love for thee!"

"As for the coconut", it continues,
"It shall continue to fall
from me without a notice!"

Yes, it does, it really does,
The coconut falls
from the tree without a notice...

-Vindy

Romancing KSRTC

I am completely in love with KSRTC! For someone who has travelled all his college life in the Mumbai local trains, this is quite an achievement, because it’s almost impossible to replicate the same feeling and excitement. The reason is that, KSRTC has never failed to provide me with my share of fun whenever I have availed its services and made my journey eventful and memorable every single time.

Although I have travelled quite a lot in KSRTC buses since my childhood (I have my native place in North Karnataka), the romance with KSRTC actually started in June, 2007. We had just completed our graduation and had embarked on a trip of Karnataka without much prior planning. We only had the places, which we wished to visit, chalked down and assumed the state transport to be good enough to ensure a hassle-free trip. To say that the trip was completely hassle-free would be a rather generous verdict, but it surely was fun-filled and KSRTC had a part to play in it. From having to spend a chilling, dark night on a deserted, unlit bus stand to blotting the beautiful Karnataka coast, on the subsequent day, under rampaging, pouring skies and beside the swelling Arabian Sea, it was truly a memorable experience. It would not have happened but for that bus stand and that bus.

In fact, the state transport has helped me to dispense with advance reservations and the associated procedures, every time I decide to travel. I can just go and try my luck with getting a bus and believe me, I have found one taking me to my destination every single time! I have now stopped worrying about seeing a ‘waiting list’ tag against train reservation availability chart on the railway site. Every time I see that, I gear up for another bus journey with an expectant smile on my face. The expectation is all about another unforgettable experience and I have always found my expectation quenched and, in fact, surpassed on more than a few occasions. Let me narrate a few of those experiences to vindicate my claim.

The coastline trip, mentioned above, occurred under very interesting circumstances. We had been unable to find a staying nest in an overcrowded Dharmasthala, a pilgrim place in Dakshina Kannada district, on that auspicious Saturday night. It was cold and raining and we had some heavy baggage with us. Beyond midnight, after a blind voyage on an unmanned road we reached the desolate bus stand, which is outside the main township. Except the toilet light, all others had been given a rest and everything else appeared dark and bleak including the parked, mute buses. We spent the next few hours trying hard to get some sleep without much success. Then we were on the first bus at the break of the dawn. This bus was supposed to take us to Murudeshwar, which was quite a distance away on the Karnataka coast. That the bus had a very few passengers apart from us, provided a great relief and we spread ourselves on the vacant seats to make up for some lost sleep. There was an incessant, heavy downpour going on and a pretty threatening grey sky looming above. The bus was constantly bearing the onslaught as were the surroundings and we were all in a strange state of ‘wet trance’. Dozing heads banged on the steel handle rods and the hard glass windows on the side, whenever the bus braked and at every sharp turn. Every time we woke up, we caught the sight of the lovely, lively surroundings; the alarmingly rising waves in the churned up sea, the racing waters in the river on the other side dying to meet the sea, the wildly swinging trees (especially the tall ones like the coconut tree), the freshly bathed fields in vivid, bright hues of green and the wet, battered dark grey tar beneath us. It seemed like a completely different world and ten astonished souls traversing through it in a modest bus.

A week later, I was headed to Udupi, another sacred place on the Karnataka coast, from my native place, Kittur, in North Karnataka, in another KSRTC bus. This time, I was with my family. We were passing through the Arabail ghat, between Dharwad and Ankola. The clock must have just slightly ticked past 1 am. The bus was tediously working its way through the ghat section and everything seemed absolutely normal. Then, the left front tyre punctured! We were in the midst of a dense ghat region, with tall trees bending on us from one side and the deep dark valley on the other. It was pitch dark, with the thick cloud cover masking even the stars and the moon. Luckily, it wasn’t raining very heavily. With no proper light source available, the two drivers (most of the long distance buses have two drivers, one substituting for the other after some time) and the conductor had a torrid time replacing the punctured tyre under little illumination from cigarette lighters and mobile phones. It took them slightly more than an hour to complete the task and we were on our way again. A few kilometers into the ghat, our bus met with a group of drunken hoodlums! They first forcibly halted the bus, then tried to instigate the bus driver with their stupid acts and when the driver tried to pacify them, they started hitting the bus with their fists and sticks. The whole bus rose in unison against the miscreants and shooed them away. The journey resumed. As if this much adventure wasn’t enough, the replaced tyre met the same fate as its predecessor and punctured! There was no tyre replacement available this time and the whole bus had to be replaced i.e. we had to halt another KSRTC bus and pack ourselves into it.

A couple of days later we were moving on from Kottigehara to Horanaadu, right through the thick of the Western ghats. The rains were wreaking havoc and the drive through this amazing Chaarmadi ghat held us all spellbound. The waterfalls, some of them newly created due to the heavy rainfall, were swelling and cascading down the slopes. Some of them were overflowing onto the road and then downwards into the valley. The valley had turned into a homogeneous mass of pure white mist. The road was so narrow that our peeping eyes directly met the seamless whiteness around us on quite a few occasions. It felt, at those times, that the bus was simply wading through the white mass without any road beneath it. That ride in that bus was far superior to any rollercoaster ride in any amusement park. Thrilling, as a word, sounds deficient to describe that experience. Then, to add to all this, a landslide occurred and a pretty huge tree came crashing down with a lot of loose wet mud. This blocked the road badly and all vehicles were stranded where they were. The tree had to be cut and the mud shoved away to make room, enough for a bus to pass. Then slowly, even as the dusk receded into night, the traffic on both sides was cleared and we felt we would reach Horanaadu finally. But that was not to be. The heavy rains had caused much damage and some bridges had gone under water. We were shifted into smaller make-shift buses which took us to Horanaadu by some alternate narrower route. As the next day newspaper said, that region had received the maximum rainfall on the previous day, with the whole transport and communication going into disarray. We wondered how we could make through such a situation! We toured around Karnataka for close to three weeks and the efficient KSRTC service made sure that we didn’t waste any time for lack of travelling options.

Since the last August, I have been staying in IISc and have travelled a number of times in buses. The KSRTC has various types of buses, named appropriately and catering to various passenger needs. The ordinary ones or even the semi-luxury ones, which go by the name Vaayavya(or Eeshanya) Karnataka Sarige normally stop at most bus stations. They have an ever changing crowd of passengers who want to travel short distances apart from the long distance travelers (like me, who start in Bengaluru and travel till Dharwad). Many of these hail from the rural areas and hence the crowd has, somewhat, an ethnic look to it. Men with stained cloth turbans, dull dhotis and kurtas are a common sight. Many of them are habituated to chewing tobacco and your nose buds may unfailingly catch its aroma renting the air. Their female counterparts have stark coloured cotton sarees, covering even the forehead at times, a prominent vermillion mark on the forehead and quite a few green bangles adorning each hand. These rural folks are slightly darker in complexion than the urban people as well as thinner and coarse in appearance. It is worthwhile observing their general behavior, tendencies and expressions to gain some insight into their habits and manners. Although this space may not be appropriate to be writing about such observations, due to the irrelevance to the topic as well as the amount of data that could be presented, this is one of the aspects that I like about travelling in an ordinary bus. Sometimes, you might end up in an ill serviced bus and at such times you would invariably find it breaking down at some point in the journey. Then some additional time is wasted in fixing the problem leaving you with some more observations and experiences. Tyre punctures, break related problems may surface every now and then. Last week, however, when I was going to Dombivli from Belgaum in one of the ordinary red buses, I encountered a novel scenario. At around 0230hrs, about 40Kms from Pune, a strange warning system started to beep in the driver’s cabin. It was sounding like some alarm beep beeping continuously without a break. Amidst all the creaking noise in the steadily vibrating bus, the beep sounded pretty different and rather indulging. I was in some sort of a shaky, half sleep and started wondering what sort of a stupid person might have set an alarm in his mobile at this hour. When the sound continued for a few minutes, it started getting irritating. The irritation soon got to the driver as well and he halted the bus at the roadside. What started then was an ingenious debugging exercise by the two drivers and the sleepy conductor!

The warning system was some sort of a box with some circuitry inside it. The driver first opened it to expose all wires and electrical components. The system continued beeping further irritating the driver. I was battling hard to pull up my heavy eyelids to soak in whatever that was happening. I argued with myself in a state of sleep, ‘Everything was perfectly alright till now. Why the hell, should that beeping start at this hour! Maybe the driver’s playing some trick. Maybe he is bored and wants to have fun with the circuit. But why now! Why can’t they let me sleep for once?’ By the time I realized that something was really wrong with the bus, the second driver had sprung up from his slumber and joined the first one in the debugging exercise. I gathered some senses and muttered to myself, “The KSRTC again! This should be fun again. This seems to be some new problem this time. Some circuit related problem, eh! Shall I go and extend my generous help! After all I deal with circuits, don’t I. Where else would I exhibit my engineering skills!” I was about to get up shrugging aside my sleep when I heard the first driver declaring, “The vacuum seems to have gone empty!” I stopped where I was and tried to assimilate what I had just heard. ‘How could vacuum be empty? Vacuum signifies emptiness, doesn’t it? How could that be then empty?’ I was perplexed and amused. ‘Maybe it is a term used by them to signify something else’, I reasoned and sat back quietly on my seat waiting for the next comments. The second driver declared himself to be well aware of the whole box and started doing all sorts of things with it. There were some switches on it corresponding to every critical security component of the bus like the headlights, brakes, tyre pressure etc. and the alarm was raised whenever any of these malfunctioned, he explained. ‘This is interesting’, I felt. The knowledgeable driver tried switching on-off a few things, then pulled out a few things and replaced them back. All this while, the beeping continued faithfully. The conductor barely woke up and muttered some words, which were understood by none, and then went back to sleep. Some of my co-passengers thought the opportunity to be perfect to empty their bladders and did so without even caring about the problem that the bus was facing. They just simply did their job and went back to sleep! By this time, the two drivers had drifted to some gossip with the problem conveniently forgotten. Both of them and even me had realized that the problem won’t be solved by anyone on the bus. The journey resumed in the same state where it had come to a halt and true to our realization, the rest of it was spent with the beeping sound in the background. When I got down, I smiled to myself and said, “KSRTC never fails to spring up surprises!”

Contrary to the above incident, when I travelled in the Airavat, I slept so well that I did not get up for six straight hours! I was going to Dharwad from Bengaluru. I slept around 2330hrs and when I woke up, I was startled to see the Hubli bus stand. I reached out for my laptop bag to confirm that it hadn’t been stolen away when I was in my deep sleep. I had actually decided that I won’t sleep very hard to keep guarding my bag and here I was, sleeping like never before in a bus.

All such experiences have made my journeys slightly hatke from the boring routine. This helps, especially when you are travelling alone. Unless you want to urgently reach your destination, some interruptions and exceptions add that extra spice to the journey. Besides, when you have a place as beautiful as Karnataka to travel across, such aberrations enrich your experience. It’s the lack of perfection which provides you with some randomness and something to look forward to. It adds some human element to an otherwise mechanical phenomenon. It provides you with an opportunity of something to narrate and write about, as this.

-Vindy

|| Shri: ||

Ganapati Bappa Morya !!!
Mangal Murti Moraya !!!
Undir mama ki; Jai !!!
:)
Om Shri Raghvendraay namaha !!!
Hare Shrinivasa !!!
Hari sarvottama, Vayu Jeevottama !!!
:)