Category: general

As you might have figured out,

, kodhi and I were supposed to go to Sikkim and Bhutan. then, bj’s leave got suddenly canceled and he had to back out and it was just the two of us. And about a week before we were supposed to leave,

comes to Bangalore and comes up with this brilliant idea. He says if we can chuck the trip to the north east and go somewhere close by, Sathya (who was about to finish a project and thus get leave) and he could join us. And that instead of two of us boring each other for fourteen days, four of us could have fun for four. I’ll cut the story here, get back to abusing bongs for rioting in calcutta and get on with the story.

We were going to Highlands Home Stay near chickmaglur for a couple of days. We were to reach there on Monday and were planning to leave on Wednesday. Manu was to come back to bangalore while we would go on to goa. Everything seemed fine. Except that it was already Sunday morning and we were yet to decide on transport.

The idea was to rent a car, maybe from Avis. However, none of us was taking responsibility for it. Then, my mom threw a fit and told me that she won’t allow me to drive in the Ghats and that we should hire a car with a driver. However, what were we to do with a car and driver when we were staying at one place for two days? Numerous SMSs and conference calls later, we had decided to go by bus, and I promptly booked tickets up to Chickmaglur. There was going to be a little problem here, as described later.

The jeep from the estate was bang on time picking us up from the Chickmaglur bus stand. It was as rickety as it got, as we headed away from the town, after buying enormous quantities of bottled water, soft drinks, biscuits and beer. We were soon off the main road and into the Ghats, and the air got colder and the views got better. And the roads got bumpier. Also, I should mention here that the leg space in the jeep was minimal and we were in acute danger of falling victim to deep vein thrombosis.

We stopped at some random village on the way and there was a change of jeep personnel. Our drivers got off to be replaced by a new pair of drivers and about a kilometer later, we had gone off road and into dirt tracks. It had also gotten dark by now. A while before someone had mentioned that Chickmaglur district was a Naxal-affected area. A while later, someone remarked that the jeep drivers were naxals and were out to kidnap us. Why else would there be two guys in front, we asked ourselves?

The darkness and the path that we were taking convinced us that these guys were indeed naxals, and we were indeed being kidnapped. A couple of times we did ask the guys where they were taking us. And they replied “estate”. We were totally at their mercy, and could do nothing about it now. The road twisted and turned and the jeep clattered and clanged. After what seemed like an eternity, we saw a few electric lights. A lone colonial-looking house in the middle of nowhere. We had reached.

Highlands estate is a 250-acre coffee and pepper estate, and lies in the middle of nowhere near chickmaglur, in the Bababudangiri range. They also grow pepper and cardamom along with the coffee, and the estate gets its water and power from a small stream that flows through. A turbine has been placed in the stream, and thus the estate is self-sufficient in terms of electricity. There are no mobile phone signals available, so you are completely cutoff from civilization. The rooms are comfortable, though the hot water in the loo is muddy.

It was a nice lazy day and a half that we spent at highlands. We took the occasional walk, once to a “sunset point” (I went there alone – the others decided to turn back halfway; and by the time i reached there the sun had set) and once to the little stream that flows through the estate. Simple south indian breakfast lunch and dinner were served to us at the appropriate times. There was coffee available, though none of us took a liking for it! such irony. The views were spectacular, as was the weather. Just the hint of sunlight but there was still the chill in the air. And there were the long bitching sessions.

One of our two evenings there was spent star-gazing. We were so far off from civilization that we could see a sky full of stars. So full that we couldn’t even spot the Orion (the only constellation we can easily see in the city)! We watched a few shooting stars. Followed the path of a few satellites. Tried to remember some high school physics. And Sathya was explaining some random involved mathematical concepts.

On wednesday morning, before we left the estate, Sam (the owner of the estate – a fairly young chap) took us on an estate tour. It was as if we were back in school as he explained to us the coffee growing process, the processing process, the kind of beans, the coffee market and the like. We got talking about the ubiquitous cafe coffee day. He said that the owners of coffee day own some 10,000 acres of plantation, and are india’s largest exporters.

The way back was once again by the rickety jeep. This time, it was in broad daylight and there was only one driver. And we followed the same dirt path back. We were confident we weren’t being kidnapped by naxals this time. And Sam had anyways told us that there were none in Chickmaglur. Most of them were in the Sringeri area. Soon, in due course, our phones started buzzing with SMSs. We were back in civilization. And planning the next leg of the trip.

After a quick run of the A* algorithm (in this stochastic case), there were two clear routes. One was to go to Mangalore and then take an overnight bus or a train from there. However, the earliest we could reach Mangalore would be at nine pm, at which time it would be next to impossible to find an overnight bus. We settled for the other option.

Kodhi has had a hate-hate relationship with Shimoga. He?d been there only once before, and that was for an inter-college fest where he didn?t particularly do well. The fest on the whole had turned out to be a disaster, with the only positive being that kodhi had fallen in love with a classmate. I don?t know if I?d be adding much value if I were to tell you that that love story (kodhi and his classmate) didn?t last too long.?

It was six in the evening when we reached Shimoga, and the first thing we did was to assess options. The hunch that had led me to take this path was that the Shimoga-Karwar market would be well-served, and if we could get to Karwar, goa wasn?t too far away. This assumption had been based on the fact that one of my relatives used to frequently travel between Shimoga and Karwar!

One look at the board in the Shimoga bus stand destroyed all hope. The only bus to Karwar was at ten in the morning. There were a couple of rays of hope, however ? there were two overnight semi-deluxe buses going ALL THE WAY to Panjim. The worst case wasn?t too bad, we decided. Quick enquiries around the bus stand revealed that there wasn?t any other bus to the coast. There was one overnight VRL bus but that was all booked. My uninformed estimates had gone horribly wrong.?

Murphy seemed to be in full form that day. Further enquiries at the counter at the bus stand revealed that there was no reservation for the bus to Goa, and that we had to ?buy tickets on the bus?. The worst case suddenly looked infinitely worse. I noticed one Volvo to Bangalore that was to start at half past eleven. In the worst case we could go home by that, I declared. We still had four hours to kill before we could make that decision.

Now, Shimoga is an extremely small town. Much smaller than I had assumed it was ? the last time I?d been there was twelve years back. In this kind of a place, there can?t be too many good ways of spending four hours. The benches of the bus stand weren?t an option. Now, working for a firm like Unilever is that you have contacts literally in every nook and corner of the country. Kodhi tapped on these and delivered his verdict ? there were two good hotels in the town – Samrat Ashok and Jewel Rock.?

If you are a regular reader of economics blogs, you learn to think in terms of incentives. So, when Sathya asked for the auto driver?s opinion of the two hotels, and the guy suggested the one farther away, we had to take it with a bucket of salt. After checking out the one close by (it was right opposite the bus stand), we decided to experiment with the other one.

The problem with a small town like Shimoga is that there is no eating out culture. The only people who eat out are occasional visitors to the city, and this means that there isn?t much of a market in restaurants. Jewel Rock, which is supposed to be the best in Shimoga wouldn?t score anything when compared to restaurants in Bangalore. And it?s strange when you go to what is supposed to be the town?s best place and find yourselves at one of the two occupied tables!?

Endless orders for Bournvita sustained us till nine o?clock. All the while I kept wondering what kind of life people in this town had. Having lived in Bangalore, my mom says that she can?t even think of living in Mysore now! Going by that I wonder how bad Shimoga can be. I could never think of living in such a place.

Back at the bus stand, we were told that the bus to Goa (which was coming from Mysore) was running late and that we might have to wait. While making these enquiries, I also figured out that a large number of people were waiting for the same bus. Death were there.?

In the meantime, following repeated SMSs from his girlfriend and thoughts about work, Sathya was putting max NED. I mean, he had lost all enthu. The problem with NED is that it is highly contagious. If someone you closely interact with is suffering from a lack of enthu, it is very likely to rub off on you also. The situation looked ominous here. Sathya was already into full-blown NED. Us being in Shimoga, Kodhi wasn?t in his best spirits. And the thought of having screwed up the trip for everyone had kept me down. The Volvo back to Bangalore beckoned.

In bleak times such as this, all you look for is for a thread to hang on to. All you need is a ray of hope. One little positive thought that you can latch on to in order to drive the negativity away. Some small thing based on which you can feel good about yourself. That was the day I realized why people drink when depressed. The temporary high the spirit provides, if harnessed well, can get the person back into good spirits. It maybe temporary, but a temporary ray of hope is all one needs. It?s like the famous Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) case. All it needed was some additional capital to tide over the crisis. It was known that finally it would all end up well. All it needed was a temporary infusion of capital.?

Kodhi and Sathya were seated on a bench at the bus stand, along with all the luggage. I was on the lookout for the bus, waiting to literally catch it. And my immediate objective was just that ? to spot the bus before the crowd, jump on and catch seats. There was a ray of excitement that this provided. If only I could achieve this, it would be small compensation for the mess I had got us into. It might even provide that kick that might make the rest of the trip memorable.

I have a ?history? in catching seats. For two years, I traveled 12 km across the city to NPS Indiranagar by a BTS bus. During the time, I learnt the nuances of ?catching? a seat on the bus. This art would be perfected later when I was at IIT. Chennai Express would arrive at 1445 to Chennai, only to depart as Lalbagh Express an hour later. Traveling in the general compartment in this was yet another experience. I?ll probably write about that in a separate post. For now, it?ll suffice to mention that I honed the art of catching seats there.

The last time I had felt such a sense of accomplishment might have been back at fourth term at IIM, when I had cracked the derivatives course. I was on top of the world. Sathya was to my left, talking on the phone. Kodhi across the aisle on the right. We were in the penultimate row of the most rickety bus I?d ever been in (not counting the local buses in Madras). A few seats were broken. Once in a while, we would get thrown off our seats as the bus negotiated a pothole or a speedbreaker. And I was still feeling good.?

I had been the first guy to get into the bus as it rolled into the Shimoga bus stand. I had jumped in even before it had stopped, and caught three seats. There was a kid who had entered the bus through a window in order to catch seats, and I even beat him to them. The old skills had no doubt proved to be extremely useful. I was to assume at that point that this would carry me through the rest of the trip. Unfortunately, the rickety bus, lack of sleep and extreme tiredness would prove to be our undoing.

During my brief stay at the Shimoga bus stand, I learnt much about the geography of North West Karnataka, and also about the travel markets in the region. I also learnt of the general geography of the region, including the various roads. I learnt of the various classes of buses, and also a bit about consumer behavior. For example, over short distances the class didn?t matter. The premium to be paid for a higher class wasn?t too high, which meant people you?d expect to travel by the ordinary classes would take luxury buses for short distances. Immense learning were.?

We shared the taxi ride with Toby, a barefooted Norwegian hippie, who had earlier traveled with us in the same bus to Goa. He had spent the last six months working double shifts, and here he was, to party. He had been india for a month already, and seen most of the south. Kerala. Tamil Nadu. Hampi and Mysore. And it seemed like this was his regular routine. Work six months in a year. And party the next six. Amazing lifestyle, one must say.

As the taxi driver had promised, the cottage was right in front of Tito’s. A cricket ball’s throw (i.e. < 22 yards) away. Was run by this guy called Francis who had pulled down his kuchcha house and built a few rooms which he would lend out. It was a basic room with two beds and a functional bathroom. Seven hundred a night for the three of us. The price would go up to three grand during christmas, we were told. A few minutes after we checked in, Sathya and Kodhi were fast asleep. Visibly exhausted after the long bus journey.

When traveling with friends, it is imperative that the objective and style of travel match. If you are the kind that decides to do maximum justice to the place you visit, and want to travel a lot, it is no fun to go with guys who just want to spend time in the hotel. If you are the types that likes to be active during a holiday, and keep doing something, you should avoid going with people who decide they don’t want to expend any energy. Making a mental note of this, I put on my cap and headed out, hoping to figure out the geography of Calangute village.

The twin beaches of Calangute and Baga are filled with shacks. It’s perfect competition out there. The menu is supposed to be the same across shacks, as are the prices. Each shack looks the same. They serve the same drinks. Each of them have put out some sun beds for those that want to get a tan. And they have these extra-friendly waiters – even these guys seem to make extra efforts to network. They take hours to get you your order – they know that being in Goa you are in no hurry. And they let you sit around for hours even after you’re done. No one asks you to get up. If only the food were to be better…

They serve the standard English breakfast fare. Bacon and eggs and sausages and baked beans and toast. And pancakes. They also attempt to make pizza and pasta and some tandoori shyte. I happened to eat some pasta and it was downright horrible. By the looks of it they didn’t seem like they were capable of making good Tandoori stuff either. I’m longing for my next visit to Little Italy or Fiorano. I need to set right the pasta taste.

One of the most depressing thing about Goa’s beaches is that naked female skin loses its value. The place is brimming with old and fat firang women, the more conservative of whom wear bikinis. It is not an uncommon sight to see women topless here. However, you’d rather not look at them. One look at the bare skin and you’ll notice that it’s mostly wrinkled and sagging, with lumps of fat underneath. It is impossible to walk ten meters here without seeing some such skin. Horrible. And maybe it would make sense to shoot an “only the balls should bounce” ad here.

Then, we happened to see some stereotypes that we had only read about. We noticed a number of old firang women flirting with young Indian guys. There seemed to be an unnaturally large number of such couples on the beach. “Gigolos”, explained Sathya. On another occasion we happened to spot this old firang guy walking to the beach with his arm over the shoulder of a little Indian boy. “Bloody firang pedo”, exclaimed Kodhi. A lot of stuff that we read in the papers or see in the movies is actually true, I thought.

One fashionable thing to do nowadays in Goa is to go to the “Dil Chahta Hai fort” and get photographed there. For some reason we assumed it was the Aguada and planned an evening visit. Sathya was getting too many calls from his girlfriend and put NED. So it was Kodhi and I who ventured out at five thirty, hoping to rent a bike and get to the fort before dark. I had to pawn out my PAN card so as to rent a Honda Activa (at the usurious rate of three hundred for twenty four hours). I’ve just about taken possession of the machine when the lender tells me that there is no fuel, and no fuel is to be found for another twenty km and so it would make sense for us to buy fuel at highly inflated prices from him. There was no choice there.

For someone who usually drives a geared bike, it’s tough adjusting to an ungeared one. Every time you accelerate, you hold down the left brake (actually the clutch) and press down the left heel hoping to change gears. When you have to slow down, the left hand comes into action only later. It’s the right toes and right hand that move. And by the time I had got acclimatised to this ungeared beauty, we were at Fort Aguada. Only to see a wall with a huge door and padlock on it. There was some signage by the Archeological Survay of India. And it was getting dark. The fort was closed for the day. We had missed the DCH moment. I had even planned the caption we were going to give the photo on orkut – “we wanted a DCH pic but Sathya ditched us”. All in vain. We cursed our luck and took a few snaps anyways. And began the descent, hoping to return the next morning.

For dinner, we decided to abandon the shack and go to some place on the Baga causeway. “It’ll be the same food”, Sathya warned us. “And ambience will be inferior”. We didn’t care. Alfredo’s was where we were going to go. However, at the last moment we saw a live band in action at the neighboring La Calypso and entered that. Decent Indian food. And good music (they played the Doors, Hendrix, etc). Not much conversation. And in the meantime Monkee had called us and told us that DCH was shot in some fort in south Goa, and that Aguada had nothing to do with it. The Aguada visit got promptly deleted from our calendar the next day, which was eventually spent just lazing at St. Andrew’s shack.

Our last few minutes in Calangute, before we got picked up by Paulo’s complimentary shuttle, had a filmi angle to it. Just when we were about to leave Calangute, VAK Kanti had landed up there and wanted to meet us. We told him we were at the Calangute bus stand and to meet? us there. He got somewhere close and called us saying he couldn’t see us. I took over the phone (I pride myself for being an expert with directions) and proceeded to direct him. And he seemed to be going round and round in circles without ever seeing us. The shuttle got ready to leave. We loaded the luggage and Kodhi, and I was standing outside still barking out directions. And there was still no sign of Kanti. Things were getting desperate. And unlike in the movies, the bus left before he could turn up. I sometimes think I saw a bald bespectacled figure chasing the shuttle as it pulled away from the Calangute bus stand. However, Kodhi refutes this claim, and hence I’ll just credit it to my imagination.

As much as I would have loved to end on this filmy note, my essay about Goa will be incomplete without mentioning the scene that to me symbolized Goa. It happened a few minutes before I left, while I was walking to the Calangute bus stand. A couple of dogs (yes, a couple) were fucking. From what I have seen in Bangalore and other places, when a couple of dogs are fucking, the others just move away to give them their privacy. No one hangs around. Clearly not the case with Goa. As these dogs fucked, there were some four of them around them. Watching. Open eyed and open mouthed. Tongues hanging down. And while they watched, the fucking dogs went on about their business, totally unmindful of the attention. I wanted to capture this on camera, but the camera was in the bag which was with Kodhi at the bus stand. This great moment thus goes uncaptured. My apologies for the same.

There is a CCD some ten minutes away. A ride by a maruti omni taxi takes us fifty bucks. Apart from the ride, we also get loads of conversation, and also the chauffeur’s mobile phone number. “Saar, next time you come to goa saar. Call me saar. I’ll pick you from airport saar. And give you nice and cheap hotel saar”. For the uninitiated, the whole place works on commissions. it’s all interlinked. The taxi driver finds accommodation for you. The guy at the hotel recommends a place to eat. The guy at the restaurant helps you rent a bike. And the guy who rents you the bike will tell you where you can fill the petrol. Amazing system. Works like clockwork. And of course, everyone gets his share. Maybe the doctors and the drughouses and the labs and the pharma companies in the US could learn from this.

Private bus operators have figured out a new way of minting money. Sleeper buses. Over and above the existing seats (literally), they have added a layer of sleeper berths. Two on each side of the aisle. Two people to share a three and a half feet by six feet space. If you aren’t traveling with your wife or girlfriend, you might get to sleep with a friend. And if traveling alone, you get to sleep with a stranger. Such joy. And they charge you a hundred and fifty bucks more than they would for the seat! Travel by this seventy two times, and you don’t need to be a terrorist. I should file a case against these buses saying they promote sex against the order of nature (how many single women do you expect to travel this way?) and the moral police will surely burn these buses. For the record, we had seen through the scam of the sleeper berths. With no intention of going gay, Kodhi and I had booked seats.

I’ve always wondered how a traffic jam can take place on a straight road. Of course i know from my op-man course that if the flow is greater than capacity, there will be a bottleneck. However, I’ve assumed that most Indian roads are capacity constrained by intersections. This is based on my experiences at traffic jams in Bangalore. Life on NH17, however, is slightly different. On either side of the road, you have parked trucks. Stretching for miles. Rendering the national highway into a ONE LANE road. One lane, and vehicles have to pass in both directions. Disaster are there.

Then you have the Lingaraj syndrome. When Lingaraj, who was my father’s driver, saw a traffic jam ahead, he would instinctively move to the right side of the road. He didn’t figure out that for the jam to clear, the vehicles coming in the opposite direction needed a way to get past us. Lingaraj didn’t care. For all he cared, going on the right was a good arbitrage opportunity. And would duly be taken. And a million other Lingarajs would follow him on the right.

There are a few cops out there. And a few dozen random guys running around with sticks. Trying to clear the jam. They make the parked trucks move. Some can’t – since they are broken down – and their windshields are duly broken. There is a little movement on both sides. The Lingarajs are shouted at and their trucks beaten with the sticks. Some seem to back off. And there is more movement. We are lucky to be near the nucleus of the jam. We get past it in only an hour, during the course of which we realize there is a much bigger jam on the Karwar-Hubli highway. We are now going to take a detour. Through Kumta and Sirsi. And join the Golden Quadrilateral at Haveri.

The bus stops frequently. Every time someone on board wants to take a leak. Or put download. And it’s contagious. Every time someone takes a leak, someone else follows a minute later. And then someone else. Thus each pee break lasts for quarter an hour. And I wake up every time the bus stops. And look out to see what the golden quadrilateral looks like. I see some country roads next to the bus. And realize that we are yet to hit Haveri. That we are yet to reach the GQ. Even if the bus would reach on time, half the day would get wasted. Now, I’m sure I’ll reach only by dinner. I continue to hate private buses.

I wake up at a quarter to seven. And we are going past Chitradurga. We are on time after all. It’s just that the daymn GQ doesn’t exist beyond that. It’s essentially a dirt track. The current government has no incentive to finish it. After all, the credit will just flow to the previous government. However, I remember reading somewhere that there is a 100km stretch in Karnataka which has been unbuilt because of some legal issues. I guess it is Chitradurga-Haveri.

We seem well on course to reach ahead of schedule. A couple more pee breaks (this time initiated by some firang hippie women) push us back by half an hour. And then the bus stops for breakfast. Some “National Restaurant”. “My dad always says that when a restaurant is named “National”, it is owned by a certain community”, remarks Kodhi. A few skull caps at the counter confirm this belief. We don’t see too many of the bus’s occupants eating anything. The drivers and cleaners emerge after an eternity. The choice of restaurant was again a part of the commission cycle, we decide.

And amazing drive (Tumkur-Peenya) and an awful traffic jam (Peenya) later, the bus finally makes it’s way to the Paulo Bangalore office on Race Course Road. There is a huge crowd of auto drivers, waiting patiently for the bus to roll in, so that they can cheat unsuspecting incoming tourists. I say “meter” and get laughed at. After all, these guys have invested time to get a tourist so that they can make a fast buck. Agreeing to meter fare at the end of it will only result in their time having been wasted. The trick in times like this is to find an empty auto that is traveling – one where the driver hasn’t got down to accost the bus. It’s likely that this guy hasn’t wasted much time waiting for tourists, so isn’t expecting to make much of a supernormal profit. If you try two-three such rickshaws I’m sure you’ll find one that will take you at the meter fare.

It’s almost four days since i returned. I’m yet to recover from the effects of two painful overnight bus journeys and much lost sleep. I still have a blocked nose. I still move around like a zombie. And always feel weak, sleepy and hungover. And don’t feel like writing about my trip. I’ll be back with the third part of the series the next time I can muster some enthu. I’ve to go sleep now.