If the beginning of my journey to escape the humdrum of life means anything then I’m going to have a bloody brilliant time. At least there will be drama and the feeling of everything being alright in the end in the way happy stories always end.
When people say that residents of Delhi are rude and couldn’t care less, then my running around to buy a ticket and catch the bus would just be the perfect testament to it. The officials at ISBT ensured that I would run across three floors and around that crumbling bus stand to buy a ticket to Dharamshala. A ticket that was booked over the phone and supposedly confirmed! Each of the men at the three different counters passed me along like a cigarette that they wanted to share. Each one told me to pick up the ticket at the other counter. And I had to do it twice! All because I had to travel on the same day and the man who had booked my ticket vanished for ‘tea’.
I was only glad I wasn’t lugging around my heavier-than-the-mountains trolleys with me. But, my taxi driver ensured I wasn’t thankful for it. I had asked him to wait for 10 minutes while I would go into the soon-to-be-renovated but currently dilapidated bus stand to figure out the status of my ticket. I was hoping to be back in not-a-blink-of-an-eye, but soon. Ha! My driver thought and he went on his own dilli darshan with the wind ruffling the surface of my luggage. Oh what a nasty man he was.
In between my ticket marathon, I come out to find out he is not there. So after a merry-go-around of phone calls, I get the message that he will be there in 15 minutes. I wait there for 20. Of course, no sign of my gallivanting driver! Finally, I get him online and he says, 10 minutes. So I decide to go back in to figure out what can be done about my ticket, for which I was still running around. Finally, a man at counter 7, the same counter i had been to already twice, tells me to come at 6.15 pm. Wonder why he didn’t tell it earlier!
But, has my taxi driver come outside. You bet! No! He tells me now that he is at some parking lot and I should go there to pick up my luggage. Can you believe that! I try to figure out where is this lot! But I can’t because already my head was spinning running around. Then he tells me it’s only Rs 20/30 to reach where ever he is... wtf!!
So, I go back to my ticket counter, finally get a ticket. Only to hear the man say, “oh yeah, your ticket was here...”
And I lost it with my taxi driver, who kept saying he is on his way. But he wasn’t!
Realising I may miss my bus, I dramatise my luggage woes to the conductor who tells me he would delay the bus for 5 minutes, IST- 15 minutes...
Still no sign of my wonderful taxi driver, who is “still on his way”. I scream at him saying I will miss the bus. Then he says he will be there in 5 and he was there in 10. Just as my bus comes out of the station, my taxi driver pulls up ahead and makes me run. I flag down my bus, pick my luggage from the taxi and finally board it with my ticket to kiss the mountains...
It was a drama for those on the bus, a bp-shooting experience for me and a joke for the rest...
A dramatic beginning... and I wake up to see the tall, dark and handsome mountains being caressed by the lithe and slippery clouds....
