The Journey- Part 1

As I was rummaging through my bag for my wallet, I heard Birdy say, “let’s go!”. It was weird how things were changing so hastily around. The number of people who were to make through the trip had fallen from 9 to 3. But somehow it did not make much of a difference to me. All I knew was that, I wanted to reach Hassan on time.
Little did I know back then that this would be more than just a travel from Bangalore to Hassan; it would be a journey.

I often find it hard to frame my thought. But Birdy did that for me by describing what made a trip, a journey. “Travelling”, he said, “is when the destination is more important. A trip is when the journey and not the destination, is important”. Well, those words said it all.

I sat there in the front seat like a dreamy li’l kid watching Birdy and Garu talk about lenses, apertures and focal lengths, which actually took me back to my College days where I had to study the types of microscopic lenses. I shook my head and thought that Greek or Latin would be easier to understand.

But then the topic changed. It was more about roads and mile stones.

Two and a half out of the three of us were starving. Well, I count my appetite as half as its well known that I cannot compare with other’s. The growling noise that our stomachs made would have put Lions to shame. All we had with us was 450 bucks. Unable to find any ATM at a stretch of few miles, we decided to suffice our craving for food with the little food that we could afford. That is when we found heaven on earth - Manoj Dhaba!!!!!

The best dhaba I have ever been to. We did not eat a great variety. All we had was dal and roti. And believe me when I say this, the food was scrumptious. I had 4 roties in a row, which has never happen before, ever. Altogether we had 16 roties and 3 dal curries.And the whole lot fit well in our budget.

And, the journey continued…..

It’s strange how something’s in life just falls into its place. This trip described that phrase well. It was so easy going. No one offered us any unsolicited advice, no differences of ideas, no one snagging or cribbing about anything totally irrelevant and also no bee stung faces.

It was peaceful just like it was supposed to be. The roads were good. Though it has an “Indian” aspect, displaying lot of ‘Take a diversion’, ‘road under construction’, and also vehicles following a US lane drive pattern, we could effortlessly touch 150kmph.

We talked about random things, Garu’s discovery a-Deiti , Indian roads, cars; and also about how strange it was to see 2 of our friends getting married. Birdy tried his best to teach me to identify cars by the way they look. Well I did learn a little. Throughout the trip I kept trying to name the cars that crossed us. In fact I guess I learnt a lot …

We had a pit stop at some place an hour away from our destination for a cup of tea and another one to watch the sunset. It was a serene scene. The sky portrayed a painter’s imagination beautifully displaying a field behind a huge tree and few distant tiny windmills at the far hill under the multicoloured sky, which reflected the colour of fresh grapes and oranges. The beauty described itself.

The last hour of the drive was not as eventful as the rest of it as we knew that the drive would end soon. Also the city roads which were best suited for bullock carts gave us a tough time.

But finally we were there… destination Hassan.