<I cannot resist to pen down travel memoirs of yesterday’s trip to Kanchi and Vellore even though I have loads of pending work. Word of caution, the article is quite long and may test your patience. You may be tempted to fast forward by just dragging scroll bar>
History repeats and only 2/3 of James party could make it to the outing but with different combination of families. We need to plan for James party reunion before kids summer holidays are over. Thanks to RSS [Rakesh, Smitha, Seema] for pulling out this outing at short notice and more important is successful execution. Rakesh easily slipped into bigger shoes of Pranab da [Guru] and executed role of Finance controller. On Friday morning, I learnt from Seema that driver job is outsourced to BVR travels and I can compensate my sleep while travelling. This happiness was short lived when our own TV9 [darling chiu] brought the updates that I need to get up at 5 AM in morning on a weekend and drive the car down to Indiranagar. I raised my concern but had to shut my mouth and oblige to the home minister. Let’s get down to the events that happened on the trip.
Target was to leave at 6.30 AM from Bangalore but delayed since we have to comply with IST [Indian Stretchable Time]. 11 member cricket team boarded the private vehicle and Martin Luther King was on wheels with a small table fan on his head to beat the heat where as open windows for customers since we opted for non-A/C, good example of pay by drink. 11 member cricket was diverse in terms of age – 2 chillar party, 2 middle aged couples, 2 senior citizen couples, 1 in early 20s ready for marriage. 1 member was unique who can be counted on both kids and couple category, I am sure you know whom I am pointing to. Let’s call this team Sixers which becomes easy to refer in rest of the article, since 6 out of 11 people name starts with S [Sreedhar, Sugandhi, Seema, Smitha, Shilpa, Shriyaa]. 6 being majority, Sreedhar Bhat was unanimously chosen as captain seated next to driver.
Pit stop at Sarvana Bhavan on highway for breakfast. Usual stuff on the menu which come spontaneously like Sa Re Ga Ma [Idli, Vada, Puri, Pongal, Masala Dosa]. Masala Dosa is always accompanied with Vada [not complimentary] similar to software with bug so that we can maintain relation with client in the long run. Good strategy, If Vada is not selling force it down the customers throat. Sixers after having heavy breakfast started usual complaints that nothing was good but everything was in. For me food was excellent keeping James as benchmark. I dozed off and rest started inquiring the driver one by one, what time will it reach Kanchi and nagging Rajat for She-Potty. Seema saw a chance to be in good books with him and went for defence. The highway managed by private owners took a heavy toll on our pockets but relieved that it was two-way price.
In the afternoon, tempo traveler took a deviation from highway to Kanchi. Female folks became alert looking at the advertisements of Pachiyappan, Kumar, Komathi silks. After reaching the temple learnt that temple was closed for God’s nap and will reopen at 4 PM. Next thing on mind was again Sarvana Bhavan for lunch. There was no parking place and driver had to give up lunch. The place was very hot and we bee-lined for A/c compartment and found that the prices are double in comparison to non-A/C counterpart. This is an example of Public ko Din dahade lootana. We vanished from the place and appeared in meals area [non-A/C] just like StarTrek serial. After heavy lunch again Sixers called it not good but the plates were empty and to top it there were ice cream, candy. Chillar party dropped half the water on floor while having candy and place was messy when we left.
Female folks forgot the afternoon nap with silk saree shopping next. Tempo traveler made inroads into saree street and female folks were waiting to jump out of the windows. My assumption was that no one will accept credit card and we can escape on the purchase but it did not hold good. After heavy toll on highway, pockets were loosened. Sales guys on these street have in-house saree shops and invite the people walking on the road similar to wedding where folks stand at the entrance. Seema quickly calculated the profit which Mani makes in Hanumanthanagar. Smitha was not satisfied with purchase. After shopping, made darshan and had quick road side coffee/tea. I was profusely sweating and could not bear the heat, I gulped lot of cold water, soft drinks but did not quench my thirst.
We hurried to our next stop, Vellore Golden temple. Rakesh tried his best to play the songs Rajat liked but was a failure. Driver took a deviation into Vellore city to meet his relative which resulted in 15 km more. The shortest route would have been to continue on highway and take deviation at Sripuram. Driver had earful by the captain when we were still on the way at 6.45 PM and entry to Darshan will stop at 7 PM. Slowly Sixers lost the patience and started nagging the driver. Somehow we made it to golden temple in nick of time. The first ritual was to handover the prized possession to chappal stand. Rakesh learnt that senior citizens will not be able to walk in the long free path and went for paid Darshan queue. Sixers were divided into two Rakesh, Rajat, 2 Senior citizen couples on the paid route and remaining on the free route.
Deepak along with 4 S [Seema, Smitha, Shilpa, Shriyaa] plunged into free without knowing what was in store. In the first checkpoint, we gave up mobiles/cameras which is hard to do in today’s connected world. We were then placed in a cage for about 20 min to let go on a long journey. After 10 minutes realized that we are going round and round since we did not shell out the money. True to the saying money can buy comfort. One thing that I appreciated is that everyone was void of mobiles/camera enjoyed the beauty of golden temple with eyes. Usually we become busy in taking pictures to upload in the social networking sites and do not enjoy the moment. Smitha’s wish of touching the golden pillar left unfulfilled. The exit was shorter than the entry route and we finally landed up in a marathon of 3km within temple premises. Rajat had lightened himself after seeing yellow color gold and became more active.
Exhausted Sixers resumed their journey back to Bangalore. Even though eyes were drooping, stomach was giving signals that you cannot sleep without filling me. After long search for hotels, Seema jumped out of her seat to point a motel LandMaark [ it had two a similar to Shriyaa]. The situation was similar to Satta pe Satta movie where brothers pounce on the dining table the moment food is served. This time sixers review was good since non-veg was served along with Veg Biryani, Fried rice, tawa chapathi.
After having heavy dinner, Sixers boarded the tempo traveler and lost in sleep in no time. Reached Rajat’s house at unearthly hours. Martin passed on the driver baton to me to drive down from Indiranagar to Hanumanthanagar with a stop at Asha kiran apartments.
Guys thanks for reading this pakau article till this point, no prizes.
Thanks,
Deepak
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