Travelling in Buses and Rickshaws in India

I catch a bus to Mangalore outside the university entrance. My friends drop me till the entrance. Now the bus driver spoke Tulu, which was the local dialect. When I uttered a word to two in Tulu, they all said,

'Ah, aae nama nae'

Which translated into, 'He belongs to the same region.'

It was a public bus, and I was sitting in the front, with a group of men. My Tulu was not very good. But I told them I had to get down at the station. I asked them to help me out and to tell me where to get down. They nodded their heads. For the next thirty minutes, I just listen to their conversation and try understanding their world. I did not pick up too much. Eventually we reach and they urge me to get down with one of the other co-passengers. Trusting their counsel, I go along. It is 11 am, on a deserted street somewhere in mangalore. The co - passenger starts walking away. I run behind him and ask him where the station was. I thought he was going to help me. He pointed in one direction. I looked and it was this opening to a long road in front of us. There was not one soul in the street. 

Life in an Engineering College in India

I was in one of India’s best engineering institutes. My friend gave me his building number and room number and told me that he had left the room open for me. He had classes that morning and would meet me later in the afternoon. Once inside the university campus, I have to walk another kilometer or so, to find the right hostel building. I see some students, but I assumed most of them would be headed to their classes at this point of time. On reaching the hostel, the guard thinks I am a new student and directs me to my friends room. My friend turns up. Has he changed. Sure he has. College does that to you. College does that to everybody. You always want people to be the same. Especially friends you have grown up with. I wonder why people, change all the time.  I wish people never changed. They stayed the same. But that is not going to happen.

Train Journey from Bengaluru to Surathkal

I have to catch an evening train out of Bengaluru to Surathkal today. I decide to leave my friend's home early. I am glad I spend the day at home yesterday. The best travel advice I ever got, was that when you are on the road, get a lot of rest. You need all the energy you can muster up for life on the road. If you are tired, take a day off. You do not have to do everything that the guide book tells you to do in the city. Sometimes, a simple conversation with a local can expose you to all the experiences you need to explore around the city. I remember traveling with my family as a child. We would often just visit archeological sites and click pictures in front of these structures. No one knew the significance of the building, its historical context and more. We just wanted the picture, then we could go home and tell the world how cool we were and that we had seen the world. I leave my friend's home early and thank his mother for her hospitality. M next destination was an engineering college in Surathkal. I had to sneak in and maybe also attend a few classes.

My friend studied at a university in Surathkal. I decided to go and visit him there for a few days as Surathkal was not too far away from Bangalore. But today, I had no specific plans. I decided to go to the Forum Mall and just spend the afternoon there before heading to my next destination. Walking around malls has been one of my most cherished pastimes for a long time. I spend a lot of time at the bookstores and music stores and then just observe people and window shop for the rest of the time. It is a real fun activity. There are so many different types of retail stores at the mall. Sometimes, I am just fascinated by how retail stores advertises and markets their products differently. 

The use of colors for branding, the way the products are displayed, the discount and pricing strategies. Some products were not just products. They were communicating so much more. Also when you observe the people in some of these product ads, it seems like the purpose of their life is to use this company's product. They have no other worry. It is like they are part of some distant land, where everyone looks just right, and there is always joy. Why don't we have ads with sad people on them. I never understood marketing and advertising. By making a product look better through promotion and marketing, you do not make the product better. It seems like every store is out to loot you. How do we extract as much money as possible from this customer? But some brands tell stories. They don't just sell products, they sell human emotions too. I often feel like fiction book writers and advertisers tap into this vast reserve of human concepts and ideals. Most humans remember things through concepts. Everyone has an image of what a chair must look like at the back of their mind. Everyone has an image of what being in your early 20's is like. By a simple trigger, of a familiar human concept, through an ad or a book,  (an image or particular statement) various emotional centers of the human mind can be stimulated. Then we connect to these ideal notions of life. Everyone wants to be fit. Everyone has to look good. Everyone has to eat healthy. Everyone needs to enjoy life. Everyone need to go to Mauritius for a vacation. If you do not adhere to these standards, you are missing out on something. Something important. Something really cool. I walk into another fashion retail outlet, as these thoughts cross my mind.

"What are you looking for sir. How may I help you?" asked the salesman at the store.

On the 9 hour train ride from Bengaluru to Surathkal, I am told to shut my laptop and go to sleep. The ticket collector tells me that laptops cannot be used at night. You must only sleep at night. Stupid ticket collector. Grr.

I wake up and the train has reached Surathkal, I pack all my things quickly and jump out of the train. Gosh I was lucky there. I set my alarm for two hours before the arrival time. I overslept. If I did not get up, when I did, the train would have carried on to the next destination, which was somewhere in the middle of Kerala. Phew. Imagine getting up in another state, and not having any place to stay, or anywhere to go to. My mother, had got me quite paranoid about interacting with strangers on train journeys.

'Don't talk to strangers. They will be dangerous and may rob you.'

Mothers. Aren't they the cutest things in the world. But I was in Surathkal now. The plan was to sneak into one of the best technological universities in South India, and to understand what learning and student life is like there. The other objective was to just spend time with some of my childhood friends who now were engineering students at the university. I catch a public bus after a long half hour wait and end up at the entrance of the university. I am not a student, so I had to sneak my way in. I have to walk another kilometer or so, on a hot afternoon in Surathkal, with 10 kg's of luggage. I wish had worn shorts today. All I want to do now is lie down on a bed, in a cold air-conditioned room, with a big jar of lemon juice placed on the table right next to me. Ah!

Sat-chit-ananda

@AbhishekShetty_

What to do in Bengaluru/Bangalore?

I reach Bengaluru at 7 am in the morning. I was here for three days and decided to stay at a friend's house. He was in college now. Most of my friends were in college, except for me. But his family had a home in Bengaluru. His mother agreed to bear me for two days. His house was quite far away from the main station. I wanted to see the city. I was on the train for a good 24 hours. I did not want to sit on another mode of transportation again at least for the next 7-8 hours. Going to my friends home at the other end of the city, meant another 2 hour bus ride. So I decide to not go directly to my friend’s home.

I keep my bag at the train station. There is a room at the station, where you can keep your bag. You can then collect it later, but you need to show them your train ticket. I hate it when they have such requirement. I am very careless, with my tickets. If you tell me to take care of anything beyond my phone and wallet, I am always a little skeptical. I am in my head most of the time. Taking care of things is not my foray. But I find my train ticket, in my back pocket, and I am allowed to store my bags at the school. Now how do I go around the city? Should I book a cab? Maybe a bus. I don't know how to use the buses. I don't know where they go. Hmm. I should have thought about this before depositing my bag. How stupid of me. 

Travelling on Trains in India

I was on a train from Madgaon to Bengaluru. I stocked up on food and drinks for the train journey. I have a sleeper seat in the upper bunk, in a relatively less crowded coach. That is a good sign. Life is kind. As soon as you get into the sleeper coach, there is a ritual you must follow. You place your bag in one corner, lay out the bed sheet and pillow, and take all the things (books, laptop, food) you will need for the journey. Just before the journey starts, the coach starts filling up. This is when an experienced train traveler in India stays detached. It is chaotic and messy. Egos are hurt. Bags are thrown around. People fall. You just observe, or even better listen to music, so people do not know you are observing. If you try solving any of the train problems, then you will end up further aggravating it. You are no messiah. So shut up and stay seated.

"Sir, you are sitting on my seat."

Ma'am, can you please move your bags?"

"I have the window seat for this journey

"My family is here, do you mind taking a seat in another abandoned corner of the train, so that I can sit happily with my family here. It is only a 24 hour journey"

What to do in Panjim/Panaji, Goa? - City Walks, Libraries and Astronomy Centers

My friend in Panjim promised to take me around the city. He knew where the good places where. We start the morning at the Basilica of Bom Jesus, which is a structure that houses the relics of saint francis xavier. I remember reading up on the life of St Xavier. How he gave up a rich upbringing, to spread the word God. He had a deep adoration for life around him. I felt like he came from a place of love. Inside the church, it was interesting that nobody asked me my faith. I was allowed to come in and pray nonetheless. There were so many beautiful aspects about faith and religion. I always wanted to ask the leaders of each major religion of the world a question. These religions included Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and more. I assumed they were really wise and enlightened because of their deep study of the scriptures of their religious books. Why did they not find a way to learn from the good values and practices of the other religions? If they all wanted to promote the idea of respect, love, brotherhood, why did they not work together? Why did the wise religious leaders not cooperate with each other?

Later we visited the St. Cathedral Church and also visited a museum nearby that house a large collection of paintings. Many of these paintings were of the various leaders from Portugal that ruled over Goa. There were artifacts like coins, weapons, maps and other goods also present at this museum. Below the painting of each leader, there were the following details

Born ____

Died ____

Remembered For ______

Some of them were remembered for conquests, some of them were remembered for inventions, some of them were remembered for administration of the colonies. Most of them lived for sixty to seventy years. It made me think about death? When would I die? What would I be remembered for? I recalled the words of the artist, Aisha Chowdary who was suffering from pulmonary fibrosis when she made this comment at a conference, 'In 100 years time, everyone in this room is going to die. Not one person will be alive. We may die at different times. But we all will die someday.' Hmm. I was twenty years old that day. I may survive for another sixty years if I am lucky. That is about 525949 hours, 21914 days, 3130 weeks, 720 months. I have just 720 months left. Just 720 summers left in my life. Wow, that was not too much time. I had to change the world, get married, start a family, travel the world, read every book, make beautiful art, start a company and more. Oh man! I don't have enough time now. If I try doing everything, I will end up doing nothing. If I really want to be remembered for something after my death, I needed to focus on one thing. Just one teeny tiny thing I am crazily passionate about. Hmm, What is that one thing for me? Ah! That is what I am on this journey for. Very cool. But why do I want to be remembered when I am dead and gone? I mean how will it matter to me, if somebody remembers me, if I will never know that they remember me.

In the afternoon, we catch a bus to the panaji library. I thought it would be another broken down building, with books from the last century. Mumbai, the city I came from, was the financial and entertainment capital of the world. This city of dreams, did not have many well resourced public libraries. There were a few in South Mumbai, but not everyone can travel two hours everyday to spend time there. If one of India's most prosperous cities did not have a good library network, what about the tier II and tier III cities. If people don't have access to knowledge, how would they explore human ideas, how they put forward well researched arguments.  A friend, I recently met in Mumbai, told me about a library in his village in Bihar. He grew up there. There was a retired civil servant that stayed there. He decided to hire a small room in a structure in the village and converted it into a public library. He bought new books and made many of his own books available. Because of his contribution, my friend, was able to spend his childhood, reading Gandhi, Tolstoy and Thoreau. It is mostly people like this that have to take a personal initiative to make such resources available to people in their locality. 

Here in Panaji, there is another such initiative, The Goa State Central Library. We decided to spend the afternoon here. The first floor was the children's section and had over 10,000 books. The second floor was the circulation section and had 70,000 books, both fiction and non-fiction. The fourth, fifth and sixth floors were for Rare manuscripts, a reference section and a portugese books collection respectively. It was open to the public and anybody could spend the day here reading and learning from the wisdom of the ages. Goa also has a very effective village and district level library system. There are well stocked libraries available in most major cities in Goa. I wish more states in India, learned from the example of Goa. The National Public Library in Kolkata is another example, of a well resourced learning center, with a collection of over 2.2 million books. In the colleges that I visited over the past year, I mostly found a collection of technical and subject specific books. There was much work to be done with regard to developing a more diverse collection of both fiction and non-fiction books. I think it is extremely important for both the government and private sector to find ways to make knowledge accessible to the masses. With the advent of the internet, there are questions about, the need of a physical library. But not every individual in the country has access to an internet connection in India.

In the United States of America, the most well resourced, library is the National library of Congress with over 34 million books in its collection as on 2015. The best academic library is the Harvard University Library with 16 million books in its collection. The Boston Public Library has nineteen million book and the New York Public Library had 16 million books in its collection. The New York Public Library functions as a private non-profit with majority of funding from the city government.  Beyond the public and academic setups, the private non-profit library can be another model, administrators can explore to make knowledge accessible to more people. The Harvard University Library, has 8 times the number of books available at the National Library of India in Kolkata. Harvard University has a large endowment fund, but the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in India can find ways to allocate a larger budget to the creation and sustainence of more libraries at the urban, rural, city, village and district level.

In the evening, we visit another learning center after Dinner. It is an astronomy and star gazing club that my friend was a part of. They had their own telescopes and would conduct periodic star gazing trips around the city. They organized public lectures, film screenings and events related to astronomy, physics and the universe. We have a goan dinner of prawns and beer, and then spend the night at one of my friends relatives homes. It was a good day. Goa seemed like a place, I could easily fall in love with.

We visit my friend's ancestral home in the morning. Family photos adorn the wall. At one point of time, over a 100 people stayed here. The puja room was still lit and a priest came every morning to do the daily rituals. The furniture is exquisitely designed. Portraits of family members who looked like members of a royal family were also on the wall.. There is a palanquin in the attic. The storeroom is filled with broken and semi broken toys. An open cupboard with over a thousand keys is spotted in the distance. The house was like a maze, one room leading to another and then we walk into a large lawn. As we walk out of the house, we meet a lady that stares us down and forces us to take notice of her. He notices her, because she is an old member of the house. They have a conversation about the good old times. I observe and wait. I hear a crackle under my feet. I have stepped on a dead leaf. Back at home, we were treated a delicious lunch of goan fish curry and rice. We catch a ferry back to his home in the evening. We spend the night discussing stories and people we have grown up with. This is my last night in Goa. After a heavy morning breakfast, my friend volunteers to drop me to the panaji station. I catch a bus back to madgaon and then jump on my next train. Karnataka, here I come.

Sat-chit-ananda
@AbhishekShetty_

Friends in Panjim

I planned to meet a friend in Panjim, the beautiful capital of Goa. I am a little sleepy on the bus to Panjim. So I doze off for a while. Oh these short afternoon naps. When you get them just right, it is like somebody has just gotten into your head and cleaned it of all the ooze. Like a ear wax cleaning, but for the head. Or maybe it is like a head massage, the best head massage you have ever received. Somebody once told me that when you sleep, a process that involves converting the short term memory into long term memory, occurs in your brain. For some reason, on this bus ride from Marmagaon to Panjim,  I felt like I had fastened this process. Or I was super aware it was happening. I am woken up, by a bus jerk. Panjim aa gaya hai, utar jao (in slightly more broken Hindi). Panjim, I am finally here.

This feels right. I planned to stay with a childhood friend here in Panjim, Goa. He was a native of the city and moved here after the 10th grade. We were reasonably close growing up. I was looking forward to the time we spent together. Unfortunately this acquaintance, did not happen very soon. I had called him the night before and also left a missed call and message before leaving my last destination. I was sure he knew I was coming. But he did not pick up his phone. Did he abandon me? I called him once and then again. 

Nobody replied. This kept happening. 21 missed calls later, I thought I was screwed. I will have to sleep at the bus station tonight. That would be a first. But I have my laptop bag with me. Oh God! Why did I bring it along. Maybe, I can use it as a pillow and nobody will find out. It isn't too hard to steal a pillow. I wish I did not bring any valuables along with me on this trip. I wish I just had one pair of clothes and one tiny bag pack on this trip. Wouldn't that make things so much easier. These were the things I needed: A towel, a change of under garments, cargo pants, a casual shirt, diary, wallet, phone, earphones, camera, some pens, a bunch of handkerchiefs (sinus problems), formal t-shirt,bag of toiletries, sport shoes. Yeah, that is all you need to be alive on the road. Only I had two of each of the above and a lot of other unnecessary stuff.

Then the phone rings. Yippiee. It is him. I pick up the call. Where were you, dude? He answers, "I am on my way man, can you stand near the ticket counter at the station." I buy some ice cream, while I wait for him. I see a few students sitting across me, doing a sketch of the passengers at the station. O further inquiry, I find out that they are art students and are here to observe and collect content for their art. That was the coolest thing I heard all week. Maybe the coolest, after Vivin's story. But it was really cool, nonetheless. I think about how much you can learn about the world, by merely observing things around you. I looked at the situation I was in. A crowded bus station. People behaved differently. Some people were making purchases at a canteen nearby. 

Mothers collecting bags of chips and biscuits for their little kids. A bunch of businessmen, in plain clothes, seemed to be in a hurry. A family sitting next to me, seemed to be traveling cross country and was surrounded by a bunch of luggage bags. The bus conductors were shouting out their bus journey descriptions. They were trying to convince, the people at the station that their bus ride was a ride to heaven. The most comfortable ride in the world. The cheapest. It was an offer of a lifetime. They sounded so convincing. I almost bought a bus ticket just for the sake of it. Eventually my friend arrives. He has a car. Thank God. No more buses and trains for a while. We stop at an atm. I had run out of money. I was in South Goa. The commercial beach capital of India. I knew I would need some money. We then spend the next hour driving to his home near the Baga Beach. He stayed near a beach! This trip was going to be insane. Insane in a good sort of way, I hoped.

That night, we decide to go for a walk on the beach. I've had enough of beaches for a year now. But this should be fun. Unfortunately, I wear my faithful sports shoes and not normally recommended beach sandals. I had to take slow, long steps, to prevent bucket loads of sand from getting into my shoes . This is the only pair, I had for this entire six month journey. Cleaning them would be pain. Getting new ones, would be an even bigger headache.  When you are on the road, you have to be extra careful of the one or two things, you use often. For me it was my glasses, my sport shoes and my cargo pants. If anything happened to any of these travel necessities, I would be heartbroken. It is funny. When you use a particular object for a long period of time. That object becomes an important part of your life. You identify yourself with it. When anything happens to it, you feel bad. It is like you have lost a good friend. So this was how I felt, when the frames of my glasses broke, when my cargo pants were dis colored, and my shoes were damaged because of excessive use at the end of my journey. It was like my life had come to an end. Like I was Voldermot, from the Harry Potter series and three of my hocruxes had been taken away from me. I had become weaker.

But we reached a beautiful restaurant, by the beach. It seemed quite inviting with live and slow music, a dim candlelight ambience, beautifully dressed people on tables having engaged conversations. The walk was sure worth the effort. I felt like it would be a good night. We settle down and order some drinks and food. My friend was passionate about Physics and Automobile Engineering. He introduced me to some of the projects he was working on at university. He spoke about a Race Car Design Project , he and a couple of his friends at college had taken up. I could feel the love, enthusiasm and passion that he had for the field. Any discipline or field of study can be beautiful. What is important is that you come to the subject with love. You ask important questions. You ask meaningful questions. You try and understand, why Maths is a beautiful subject and not always focus on how much you will score on the subject. Just listening to him, was such a beautiful experience that night. He was so excited about what he discussed. He loved automobile engineering. It made me think about students at several engineering colleges around India. I prayed they came  to the subject with the same love and dedication, that my friend came with. But if their objective was to just get a degree, they would be missing out on such a great opportunity. The opportunity to study a subject you deeply loved for four years as an undergraduate student. We got news,  that a bollywood celebrity was also in the restaurant with us that night. But no one individual was important that night. Because every individual at every table, felt important. I look to my left and I see a couple, looking deep into each others eyes. More like looking deep into each others souls. The music was slow and romantic and I felt it made the evening even more special for them. It was like every word, in the romantic song being played, in the background, resonated with them.

'Kyunki Tum Hi Ho,

Ab Tum Hi Ho,

Zindagi Ab Tum Hi Ho….'

She smiled. There was a certain twinkle in her eye. The man pays the bill and I see them walking out of the restaurant, holding hands, dancing to the music, madly in love. Soon they disappear in the distance. They become dots, on the vast distant landscape of white sand of the beach, illuminated by the lanterns from the restaurants that line the beach.

We finish dinner, and I have to take my big slow steps, to get back to normal non sandyland. When I reach home, there are three- four spoonfuls of sand, in my shoe. Not Bad. Good Job Abhishek. Really Good Job.

Sat-chit-ananda

@AbhishekShetty_