A splash and dash to Mandya.
Date of Journey- 02/09/2012
Service- KSRTC Airavath Volvo.
Distance- 92kms(appox)
My eventful day started up at around 4am in the morning. I had to visit
Mandya to take up an exam which was scheduled at 9am. I had to reach
Mandya by atleast 8am as I had to search my examination center in the
district. Though I have passed through this place hundreds of time on my
way to Mysore and back, this trip was an important one. It was a cold,
chilly morning when i left my place. My father dropped me to the
Mysore road Satellite bus stand.
I reached the satellite bus stop by 5am and there was already a lot of
activity with almost all types of services heading to Mysore and beyond.
However there were no sign of Airavath Volvo buses. I headed inside the
bus stand and noticed a line of Volvo buses parked in a row however
most of them had returned from their destination overnight. With time
slowly slipping through, I was getting worried as I knew I could not
bank on rest of the services if I had to reach my destination on time.
Finally saw one of the parked buses in the row cranking to life and the
crew started calling for Mysore bound passengers.
I headed out immediately towards the bus and to my surprise it was an
old Mark l Airavath maintained in a very good condition. I asked the
conductor as to when the bus would depart. The conductor said he would
wait for atleast 10 passengers after which it would do a non-stop
journey to Mysore. I asked him if the bus stops in Mandya, he replied
with a no but said he will drop me off outside the bus stand in Mandya.
Me along with around 7-8 passengers boarded the bus. The bus slowly
inched out towards the exit of the bus stand and waited for few more
passengers.After waiting for few more minutes around 10 passengers
boarded the bus and then we finally left. My father who frequently
travels to Mysore in Airavath had instructed me that I should buy a
ticket till Mysore by paying Rs 240/- and later request for a stop at
Mandya since it was a non-stop service. However to my surprise while
buying the ticket, I asked the conductor if he would issue me a ticket
till Mandya and he agreed. I paid a total of Rs153/-.
The bus now made a small halt near Nice Road after Kengeri and to my
surprise I saw my conductor who issued me the tickets took over the
wheel while the driver went straight to sleep on the make shift bed on
seat 3 and 4. Turns out that our man is a driver cum conductor and right
from the word go he meant business. Though he was driving fast there
were no hard overtaking, unnecessary honking and harsh braking. The bus
was cruising at speeds of 70-75kmph and rarely the bus touched 80kmph.
After a couple of minutes, I decided to take the co-driver's seat at the
front. We got into a little conversation about our lives and after a
couple of minutes later he asked where exactly I was going in Mandya. I
told him the address of my Examination Center and he said, he will take
me there with ample amount of time to spare. We chit chatted all the way
through and with little time we crossed Ramnagaram. At this point of
time, I went back to my seat to catch up with a power nap as I was
feeling a bit sleepy and I did not want to sleep sitting next to him. I
asked him to wake me when we reach Mandya. He assured me that he will
indeed wake me up. I slept for almost 45mins and when I woke up I
noticed that the bus had stopped for a break near Maddur. I got down and
was taking few pics of the bus. Just then, the other driver who was
sleeping all this while boarded the bus and honked at us to board the
bus. The last of the passengers boarded the bus and finally our man
boarded the bus with a cup of tea in his hand and came upto me and
offered the tea. I declined but he insisted. At this point I noticed all
the passengers in the bus had a weird expression on their face.
By the time I finished my cup of tea the bus entered the outskirts of
Mandya and slowly made its way on B.M Highway. I got up from my seat,
picked up my bag and headed over to the front to alight near Mandya bus
stand. But our man, told me that that Examination Center is located up
ahead, right next to the highway and asked me to wait. A couple of
minutes later the bus pulled over right next to the Examination Center's
main gate. He suggested me to get down here, wished me all the very
best for my exams and left.
Here's the picture of the bus I took at our break near Maddur.
