Hello friends,
I wanted to share these series of incidents that happened with me while returning to Hyderabad after spending the weekend in Visakhapatnam.
It all started on a quite sunday evening in Visakhapatnam. I had to reach Hyderabad the next morning by 9 a.m. to be present for office. After partying with friends I boarded the bus at 5:45 p.m. The bus departed on schedule at 6:00 p.m.. But the bus was going at a snail pace as if all was conspired that by any chance I should not reach Hyderabad in time.
It was 4:30 in the morning and this guy sitting besides me wakes me up and says,"dude get up the bus has broken down." I finally got up but it took some time for me to get what had happened and what was going on around me. I saw some people outside the bus and many comfortabely sleeping in the bus. We came out of the bus and enquired about the condition and came to know that the bus had broken down at 2:00 a.m. It was some remote place called Aswaraopet.
After understanding that the bus was not going to move for another 3 hours or so we both went out to search for any other alternative. After walking for 2 k.m. we reached the local APSRTC bus stand only to know that there was no bus to Hyderabad till 7:00 a.m. Then a call came which informed us that a mechanic had arrived and he was working on the bus and it could be reapaired by 6:00. So we went back to the bus. There we came to know that it was a Naxalite affected area.
Luckily i found a fellow associate from the same department from Satyam. It was a real help otherwise i would have had a very bad time explaining the situation to my R.M. Having known that I would not be able reach Hyderabad in time he called my R.M. and informed about the situation. The bus finally got repaired and we hit the road at 7:00. The bus had barely moved for 2 hours and it started having problems. It started spewing out a lot of white smoke creating a fog behind the bus. The people passing by were staring at the bus and at all of us inside the bus, as if we were at fault for that condition of thye bus. We stopped for some 15 minutes and then hit the road again but there was no improvement in the condition of the bus. The bus finally came to a dead halt 2k.m. from Khammam. All the passangers were enraged and took the driver and the conductor in their grip and started demanding for a refund. To this the conductor assured us that he'll book a bus for all of us. So we all boarded autos and reached the khammam bus stand.
At the bus stand it was a real mess. It was heavily crowded and there was no chance that the conductor could have got a bus booked for us. Then he told that he would arrange a private bus. After 2 hours the passangers were fedup with the conductor and got hold of him and thrashed him a bit. After getting some he was ready to hand over the money to us.
Now the money was in our hands and the planning started how to arrange for the appropriate transport for all the 30 passangers. After a lot of arguements and discussion we arrived at solution and we booked 3 qualis and an innova and boarded them according to the destinations.
Now we were 299 k.m. or 6 hours from Hyderabad. It was already 12:00 p.m. that meant I would not be able to make it before office time. Then there was one more problem, it seems that there was diesel shortage going on in that area so we could not get diesel for another 100k.m. The petrol pumps were lined up with vehicles seeking diesel but in vain.
Finally we reached Secunderabad station at 6:00 p.m. But it was not over yet. At that time of the evening Secunderabad turns into a sea of humanity which is really difficult deal with. For a moment I thought how do people manage to live in places like this. We managed to get an auto till Paradise. Don't go by the name of the place, it turns out be a real hell as the traffic is really chaotic in this place the whole day. We had a tough time to find an auto from there. After about 20 minutes we managed to get an auto till Balanagar. On the way i called my R.M. to inform her that I would not be able to make it, she told me that we'll talk the next morning, I got a hint what was in store for me. After reaching there we had to rough it up for another auto and managed to get one till Shahpur after about 15 minutes. From shahpur we took an auto to our destination, Bahadurpally, and reached there at 7:30 p.m.
So after 2 bus break down, 1 cab ride and 5 autos we reached the Satyam Technology Centre, Bahadurpally. Hence ended my 24 hour ordeal which should have ideally taken 12 hours.
