The light was dim, and the day being so long and tiring , the Bus Stop seemed to be more dim to me. It was almost 2 in the night and still it was crowded. Quite a mixed crowd i should say, most of them being tourists in search of a place to spend their night and some of them had lost their hope and were looking for a bus to go back.
The weekend being long ,
Pondicherry was over-crowded. None of the hotels,from cheap lodges to expensive starred hotels had a room for anyone. On one corner I found a bench that was about half my length and almost as wide as me. Painted gray, it was one of those
typical benches that you would find on a bus stop, made for a couple of people to sit. A lovely King size bed with a fluffy and cozy
mattress. On it was spread a shining white bed sheet. The room was freezing cold and a warm blanket was there waiting for me to hit the sack and go off to sleep. Instead , it was this bench made out of stone, hard as rock.
Thakur had arranged for a some
newspapers that were to be used as bed sheets. Took the towel out of my bag and tried to cover my body with it. Unfolded the arms of my shirt so that could save
at least my hands from the
mosquitoes. Slowly sleep started to creep in.
A jerk in the Bus broke my sleep. It was about 4:30 in the morning. The music was still on in my ears. The bus was a
Volvo just for the name and was far from comfortable, as
Anuj had said it was shaking in all the directions. Could hardly find sleep
until late in the night. Was listening to music and slept off with the music still playing on my phone. The conductor told me that we were already in Chennai and would reach the bus stop in about 5 minutes. It was pretty dark outside.I woke up
Anuj and
Sumit.
Sumit was visiting his sister in Chennai.
Anuj and me were going to
Thakur's place and we three were going to
Pondicherry that evening. Soon we reached the bus stop. Got our luggage and
Sumit asked us to check our mobiles and wallets so that we
don't forget them in the bus. Each of us checked our stuff and we moved on. The
Koyambedu bus stop is about 10
Min's walk from the private bus stop where we got down and we decided to walk. As we entered the bus stop, I checked my pocket for my phone and it was not there. Totally panicked, I just shouted "Where's my phone".
Immediately both
Anuj and
Sumit tried calling my number, but in vain. It was already 'Out of Reach'.
Although none of us had any hope of getting it back, but we wasted about an hour searching for it. Finally we gave up on the search and headed to our respective destinations, caught buses. We took M-70 which would take us to
Guindy Station and
Sumit to
Vellachery where his sister puts up. From Guindy took a share auto to
DLF IT Park where
Thakur was waiting for us.
We rested at his place for some time and by noon all three were ready with our bags. We planned to visit the Elliot's beach in
Chennai, have lunch there and then go to
Pondicherry. We got into a bus which took us to
Adiyar and from there we took an auto to the beach.
Anuj had recently bought a 8 MP Canon
Digicam and hadn't had a real chance to use it. So he was all excited about taking pics of the beach. As soon as we reached the beach he opened his bag and took out his
digicam. Switched it on and clicked. As soon as he tried to click he realized that there was something wrong with the camera. Checking it for some time he opened the shutter to the battery. Saw in there and was in a state of shock for a moment. There was no battery in there. He looked for the battery in his bag, but it was no where to be found. He realized that he might have dropped the battery from the charger while putting it in his bag. So I lost my phone and in a sense we lost the camera as well.
WTF?
It was the first time
Anuj was at a beach, so he was pretty excited. We spent some time at the beach and then went to have lunch. We had lunch at 'Punjabi
Dhaba' very near to the Beach and the food was really
yummm. Every time I was out on a trip in the south, have always been disappointed with the food. But throughout the
Pondicherry trip, i should admit, we got excellent food. We then took a bus from
Adiyar to
Koyambedu, and took a bus to
Pondicherry at about 4 from there. We reached
Pondicherry at about 8:30. It was pretty late and the first thing that we wanted to do was get into a hotel room, throw our bags, get fresh and then hang out at the Gandhi Beach. We were told about a Mother's Guest House, we called them up and found out that there were no rooms vacant. We were pretty confident that we will definitely get a room. We went to Nehru Road, where we were told that we would find a lot of hotels and would definitely get hotel rooms. Looked for a few hotels there and everywhere we got the same reply , 'Sorry Sir, no rooms are available'. Still pretty confident we took an auto to Gandhi Beach. The first hotel we went into was 'Hi - Design'. We asked for a room and this was the first place where we heard a 'Yes Sir'. But the
tariff for a night was 5.7 K + Taxes was totally out of our budget. So we moved out of the hotel. We went into almost all the hotels on the beach and none of them had even a single room empty. Now we asked an Auto- Driver if he could get us a room and he told that we would definitely get a cottage at
Auro Beach about 10
Kms from
Pondicherry. We took the auto and he took us to
Auro Beach. There we first went into
Soorya International, and got the same answer. We met a person there who supposedly took the last room available @
Soorya, about 15
mins back, and he told us that he had searched each and every hotel @ Aura Beach and there was not a single room available.
Panic had started to set in, it was 10 already and we
didn't have a room yet. Still having hopes we asked the auto driver to take us to other cottage resorts. That night we knocked the door of each and every cottage resort there and were kicked out from each and every place.
Receptionist: Sorry sir no rooms.
We: Not even one?
Receptionist:No sir.
We: Not even a Dormitory?
Receptionist: Sorry Sir, all rooms are Booked.
This was the story at all the resorts there. One lodge said that they even rented their staff quarters on that night. The less decent ones used to shoo us away from the resort gates saying 'Rooms
illiya'(Rooms not available).
Now the
panic button was on. The auto
wala then tried a number he had, started speaking in the local language. What i could make out of the
english words he used that the hotel had one double bed room available. He told them that we were three and the reply came that it was not a problem. The
conversation went on for a long time and it seemed to me that he had started off with .... 'How's
bhabhiji and how are
your children?'.He ended the call after about 10
mins. I was so happy that we finally got a room. But the auto driver had a look of disappointment on his face. I asked him what happened and he said that the management at the hotel would only allow Tamil speaking people. "What .......... ?"
He then told us that there were quite a lot of lodges within the main city where we would get some cheap rooms, but the rooms were not up to the mark. Looking for a place to sleep we were even ready to get any sort of room even if it had just three
mattresses on the floor , enough for the three of us to sleep. So we headed for the city and the wild goose chase started again. From one lodge to another and one more and one more. All the receptionists had a disappointed smile on their face, every where we got the same reply, "Sorry sir, no rooms". It was 11:30 and still we
didn't have a room. Finally the auto driver also gave up and dropped us back at the Bus Stop. We decided to have dinner
at least and went into Hotel Mass right opposite to the Bus stop. With little hope I asked the receptionist for a room and was sure about what i was about to hear. And i got what i expected. Another 'NO'. An idea sprang up. I suddenly remembered that 'Hi - Design' had rooms available. I asked the
receptionist to call up Hi-Design and ask
whether they had any more rooms. He asked me to carry on with my dinner and he will let me know. We waited anxiously for the receptionist, all eyes fixed on the restaurant door. Each time the door opened i expected the receptionist to walk in with a smile on his face, come up to our table and say 'Yes sir, they have a room available for you'. It was just about 15
mins , but it looked like an eternity. Once again the door opened, and this time it was whom we were expecting. I saw the smile on his face, exactly the same that I was expecting. Very confidently he walked to our table and in a very polite manner told us "Sorry sir, all their rooms have been taken up".
At the dinner table we started blaming each other for what was happening, the same "Maine
kaha tha na ......." thing. But the biggest question was, "What do we do next?" One of the options was that we go to the bus stop, take a bus for Bangalore and
Thakur for Chennai and forget all about spending the weekend at
Pondicherry. But the Indian in us was still alive. The Indian who is taught to fight till the end, no matter what happens. And thus, we
decied that no matter what worse is to come, we will enjoy
Pondicherry the next day. Our confidence rejuvenated, we finished our dinner, went out and caught hold of an auto driver. But the instructions were different this time. "Anna, we have been searching for a hotel all evening. Haven't got one (Full Confidence ...
Sooper). Even if the room costs 5K per night, we
don't mind ... please get us one
anna, where else would we sleep? Please
anna, please". And once again we started the search. He took us to a lot of lodges and hotels. Most of the hotels, we told him that we had already visited, and the others told us that they had no rooms. Finally it was 1:30 and even this auto driver had given up. We asked him to drop us at the Bus Stop.
The light was dim, and the day being so long and tiring , the Bus Stop seemed to be more dim to me. It was almost 2 in the night and still it was crowded. Quite a mixed crowd i should say, most of them being tourists in search of a place to spend their night and some of them had lost their hope and were looking for a bus to go back.
But we had something else on our mind. We
didn't want to go back to Bangalore or Chennai. What would we tell our family members, our friends, our colleagues. '
Haath ko aaya aur mooh na laga'?
NAHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN. We decided to spend the night at the bus stop.On one corner of the bus stop I found a bench that was about half my length and almost as wide as me. Painted gray, it was one of those
typical benches that you would find on a bus stop, made for a couple of people to sit. One of the corners had some sticky liquid, looked like a
chaasni to me, someone would have spilt it there while eating samosas, 'IDIOT', I cursed him.
Thakur had arranged for some newspapers that were used as bed sheets. I covered the entire bench with the newspaper and using my bag as a pillow lied down. Tried to cover myself with my towel. Slowly sleep started to creep in and a thought crossed my mind. We were looking for 'A Room that never was'.