The long journey to my hometown

While I have been travelling all over India no journey has been as exciting or different as the one to my hometown. I was at a site for commissioning near Ariyalur for around a week till 12th Jan. Ariyalur is around 50km from Trichy, the nearest airport. Though I had completed most of my work, there was still some work pending. Now Pongal festivities-the most important festival of Tamil Nadu was to start on the 14th n go on till the 16th leading to an extended weekend till 17th. That meant idling till 18th or flying bak to Bombay on 13th n then returning to Ariyalur on 18th. Both were crap options.

This lead to a brainwave 'Why not go to my hometown which is across the Bharatapuzha river from Ottapalam? I would have to travel to Trichy first which would take 2 hrs, from there take a bus to Coimbatore-6hrs, then Coimbatore to Palakkad-1hrs, then Palakkad to Ottapalam-1hr n finally cross the river to reach my quiet little village. Phew! However things don't work out as planned. By the time I got the MoM signed with the customer it was already noon and I would have missed the last bus at 10pm from Palakkad to Ottapalam. I decided to hire a taxi to Coimbatore n then proceed from there-It would have saved atleast 2 hours. So I booked a taxi to pick me from the Ariyalur Gueshouse at 2pm. In the meantime one of the plant engineers requested whether he and his top boss could accompany me in the taxi to their hometowns which were on the way. Naturally (since I had to go back there!) I acceeded to their request.


Well as the taxi that was supposed to come at 2 didn't turn up till 2.15pm I repeatedly kept calling the cab service. Well the taxi owner kept repeating his standard line that the cab would reach in 10 minutes. Finally after 8 rounds of 10mins it arrived at 3.35 n guess wat he told me at that time- Sir since you are late I have arranged 2 cabs for you. I didnt have any answer for that. The plant engineer and his boss-the plant manager got in and we started our journey- an hour and a half already late!


We first drove through NH227 towards Trichy- a two lane road where you would see corns of rice being laid out in the open for drying and threshing. We really make good use of our roads! The driver and the plant manager kept chattering continuously and he was hardly able to touch speeds of 55kph. On the way we crossed 2 really long bridges over the Kaveri. It also seems Trichy is an educational hub- there were many schools and colleges notable among them being St. Joseph's College where APJ Kalam was said to have completed his graduation according to the plant engineer At around 4.45 we stopped at the outskirts of Trichy city for snacks (sponsored by the Plant manager for his pal-the driver) in front of a Bangalore Iyengar Bakery (you keep seeing them all over south India)- the veg puffs were good but the Badam Kesar milk left a lot to be desired!. By the time we started our journey, it was 5.15- loss of another half an hour!. We then entered Trichy city to drop the manager- well his house was not exactly on the way so we had to go out of the way n drop him! The good thing was I got to see the famous Rockfort temple from a distance.

With the decibel levels having gone down considerably now, I was trying to understand the processes inside a Ciculating Fluidised Bed Combustion (CFBC) boiler until we were rudely interrupted by a bleating sound-our car had just managed to avert running over a flock of goats crossing the roads. When we looked out we found that the entire hamlet had gathered around the car- one of the goats had bruised its leg.Then the driver got out and found that mudguard of the right front wheel had come loose. What happened for the next 20 min was straight out of a movie! The owner of the goat started demanding a hefty compensation- to the tune of 2000 or more claiming then the goat was mortally wounded! The driver haggled with him and ultimately they settled for 200 bucks. In the meanwhile there were claims and counterclaims being made and of coursee the perpetual name dropping of police officers in the nearby police stations!

Well with another half an hour wasted we resumed our onward journey by 7. From there on it was a pretty smooth ride. After dropping the plant engineer at Puliyur which thankfully was 'on the way' we proceeded towards Coimbaotre with another 140Km to go, by 8.15pm. The highway ahead in most parts was four laned- it meant we covered the remainder of the journey in around 2 hours. So we reached Coimbatore by 10.15 n realised that the last bus to Palakkad had already departed.

As I was contemplating the option of checking into a hotel, my bro gave me this brilliant idea- of taking the 6381 Kanyakumari Express to Ottapalam. Now this was the train we used to board to go to Kerala during our summer vacations until the Konkan Railway happened, so it has a sentimental value attached to it. I bought a Second Class Ticket and waited for my first journey in the General Compartment- the train would arrive at Comibaotre only at 12:05am. It was crowded as hell and I just about managed to get inside.The next hour and a half I spent standing in various uncomfortable positions till I got down at Ottapalam.

As the dam upstream had been opened, the river had got flooded considerably in the past two days. So I was advised not to cross the river on my own. The next 3-4 hours I spent in the waiting room unitl the break of dawn when my cousin arrived and we crossed the river at 5.30 in the morning. The water was more than waist high in many sections of the river and I needed alomost half an hour to cross what with trying to ensure that the laptop doesnt get wet under any circumstances. I reached home by 6.15 and almost immediately dozzed off to sleep.

And thus ended my long journey from Ariyalur to my hometown which took more than 14 hours!