It was decided on a phone call on Tuesday that we are going to Goa on the coming long weekend (Oct 2 – Oct 4). Some of us will go from Bangalore and others will join us there from Pune.
I booked the Bangalore-Goa bus tickets (return too) through Sea-Bird (which was a pathetic service in itself).
Scheduled departure from Bangalore: 8:15 PM
Scheduled arrival at Goa: 9:15AM
While I was booking tickets, Pranali cross-checked multiple times to make sure it is an AC bus. Though I was not so much in favor of taking an AC bus thinking that the weather anyways is cool and the night would be cooler.

Thursday evening, the bus started 15 minutes late. We didn’t get time to have dinner. AC, DVD-coach, semi-sleeper, partial luxury bus. The bus keepers (2 drivers for the night driving + 1 helper boy) had only one DVD, with only one movie – Shaadi No. 1 (horrible movie, because we were fearing they might put some Kannada movie, so the only relief was the movie being Hindi).

The bus stopped at a road-side restaurant at 12 midnight where I and Shambhu ordered for 2 plates Chhole Masala. Never did we know that it is a “Chhole Masala” prepared out of putting (not even properly mixed) Chhole into the curry of Egg-curry. Disgusting that was! And how much did it cost? 45 Rs. What a waste of money? Feared of having a stomach upset after eating the rubbish, I had a glass of juice and a 500 ml bottle of Slice. Thankfully, now I can sleep with a good taste in mouth.

The road was such a mess; the bus was swinging left-right-left because it was a narrow road and the ditches were making it shut-up-and-bounce because it was a broken road too. It was not easy to sleep (rather stick inside your seat), and scarier were the thoughts of coming back on the same route when our seat numbers were 34, 35, 36 (the last row of seats).

Savita calls me at around 7 in the morning (Pune group has already reached), “Where have you reached?”
Me (unaware of what lies ahead): I think we are a bit late but we should be there by 10 or 10:30.

After facing some traffic-jams on the way, we knew that we are at least 1.5 hour behind the schedule; the bus reached Ankola at 9 AM and stopped at Kamat Hotel. It had started raining by then. After some time we were told that the road to Goa is blocked due to rain. There is plenty of water on the connecting bridge and the news coming in was that the water level is still rising.

After waiting for around 1.5 hour, the passengers of the bus decided to take the train route. Because we were just 120 km from Goa, no one wanted to turn back. The bus took us to Ankola Railway Station. We got to know that there is a train Ankola-Madgaon at 11:30. Hardly had we started believing that we’ll reach Goa, it was announced that the 11:30 train is cancelled because of heavy rains. Damn! So, when is the next train? 5:30 PM. We were still deciding within ourselves whether we should wait for another 6 hrs at the platform, is it worth a wait; comes the next announcement: 5:30 train to Madgaon stands cancelled too because of the submerged railway track. Great! So this news put an end to all the discussions leaving us with no other option than to wait for the rain to stop and the roads to clear.

Though we tried for other options like taking interstate buses, buses through Hubli, attempts to book cabs (even at higher proces) but all in vain. Everyone was just too scared to go that way.

Finally the bus took us back to Kamat (where all buses for that route were halted) and we waited there till 4 PM when we heard that the Sea-bird buses have started leaving for Goa. We felt a sense of excitement again. The buses had really started and we had hardly moved 5 km when the bus was stopped by some cops. They were turning all the heavy vehicles back saying that the road is still not open.

Back to Kamat and it is still raining. The only option left now is to head back to Bangalore. We didn’t have time to waste. The day was setting (there was no sun by the way) and it was getting darker. The later we go, the lesser were the chances of getting a bus to Bangalore.

6:15 PM – Hired an auto from Kamat to Ankola bus stand only to realize that we have just missed one bus to Bangalore and the other buses left are full. No Vacant Seats! We were advised by some local people to catch a bus from Ankola to Kumta and from there we would be able to get buses to Bangalore. Did we an option not to believe them and think of our own?

Boarded a bus to Kumta – 40 km. Luckily got a seat in the otherwise packed bus and unluckily got the worst possible seat in that bus. Of the two windows by my side, one window pane was broken (read missing) and the other was so loosely fit that it was roaring into my ears. So cacophonous it was that I felt like breaking that one too. We got down at Kumta in even heavier rain at 7:30 PM. Rushed straight to the ticket counter and I was the happiest person on earth to know that a KSRTC bus will leave for Bangalore at 8 PM.

The rain was just not stopping and mind you, it was not drizzling, it was pouring; but who cares, we have a bus now. We loaded ourselves into the bus and parked ourselves into the best possible coordinates as if we are the owners of the bus. Yeah, the bus was more or less empty. I teased Pranali, “Won’t you like to board an AC bus?” We were hungry, we were drenched and we were tired, but this bus took all our worries at once.

I recalled the “Jab We Met” Kareena Kapoor dialog, “बस भगवान् जी, अब और excitement नहीं चाहिए बोरिंग बना दो जी अब इस रात को ”.
The bus started. We were now on our way back to Bangalore after converting a supposed-to-be-exciting Bangalore-Goa-Bangalore trip into a more-adventurous Bangalore-Ankola-Kumta-Bangalore trip.

But, I pictured: “पिक्चर अभी बाकी है मेरे दोस्त” when our loving bus had a flat tyre at NT Road, Shimoga. 2 AM in the morning. Could I ask for a better night-out for myself? I walked out of the bus till the driver-conductor duo replaces it with the spare tyre they had. Sometime later, I observed that the driver-conductor duo is not doing anything and just waiting for something and discussing. Out of curiosity, I just asked them, “अंकल जी, अब क्या हुआ?” And to my amusement, they replied, “सर, ये जो स्टेपनी है, ये फिट नहीं हो रही ये टायर इसके साइज़ का नहीं है ”

I mean, how is that possible? It was like “carrying a cycle tyre as a stepny to your scooter”.

“तो अब क्या करोगे?”
“कुछ नहीं सर, वेट करते हैं, KSRTC का कोई और बस आएगा, तो passengers को उसमे बैठा देंगे ”
“^%%^$&%*%!#” अब क्या बोलूँ मैं?
The other passengers were also out by now.
Even after a wait of around half an hour, no sign of any KSRTC bus. A bus came in the opposite direction. They lent the spare tyre. The tyre was replaced and we were on wheels again. Anything else is in store for us?

The bus stopped at another Kamat restaurant, but we were relaxed that we are very near to Bangalore now. So, we freshened ourselves and had good breakfast. We had a mini photo shoot inside the bus only to save as a witness to our miseries. Finally! We reached Majestic at 11 AM.

But to take things again to the negative side, cancelling the Sea-bird return tickets was another nightmare that we faced. We had to spend almost 3 hrs in and around Sea-Bird office to get it done and I reached home at 4 PM completely drained, no energy left.

That was the end of our pain but I must admit that the 2 girls: Priyanka and Pranali, were too calm all this time. Girls generally are expected to cry/crib in such a chain of failures. But these two were way too energetic to walk all along without giving any negative vibes. But I must say, the long weekend was completely utilized :P

Next morning I got up with the newspapers filled with the news of floods rightly mentioning some of the areas where we had been just a night back.