6,7 March 1998 (Sat,Sun)
Just as all VVIPs make a tour of the riot/flood/drought/violence-affected areas, well after everything is back to normal, we too decided to make a visit to the bomb city of South India, Coimbatore.
The three of us, Uma, Yogi and myself, set out by Island Express, which leaves Bangalore City at 9 PM. We had confirmed tickets and boarded the train on Friday, 6th March 1998. The train made a pretense of leaving, at 9.10 PM, took a few steps, I mean, ran a few metres, and believe it or not, retraced its path! (Comparable, to athletes going back to the starting block after a false start)
Finally, it set off, this time for sure, at 10 PM, an hour behind schedule. The picnic festivities of the day, (I was in a company picnic from 7.30 AM to 7 PM) had made me dead tired, and I hit the sack early. Uma had an adventure of sorts, when the TTE alloted an occupied berth to another passenger. Uma and that elderly passenger discovered that they were two and they had only one! berth, I mean! It was resolved with Uma getting a berth in another coach.
I was oblivious to all this, and would have gone all the way to Palghat, (who knows, even Cochin) had not a fellow passenger woken up Yogi to tell, Coimbatore had come! Uma had predicted we would reach by 7 AM, but it was only 5.30 AM (even Indian Railways make mistake once in a while)! I double-checked with a coffee-seller that the station was indeed Coimbatore before alighting.
We caught a bus to Uma's place, reaching it by 6.30 AM. After breakfast, we went to a nearby (a few bus-stops away) Ganesa temple. We decided on grandiose post-lunch plans, a movie and then Maruthumalai (a Muruga temple atop a mountain). At 2 PM, we were at the bus-stop, having no idea when movies in Coimbatore began. ("The Hindu" is an unfriendly newspaper in this respect; some theatres were not mentioned at all!) A solid half-an-hour wait brought us a bus, which took us to the Railway Station. My idle eyes spotted a poster of "Tomorrow Never Dies" in a theatre, unspecified in The Hindu.
At once, we took another bus, retracing part of our way, and finally landing up before "Central" (not the Jail, but the name of the theatre). What do we find? The Matinee is House Full. (There was a note, telling, as a/c was unavailable, ticket rates that day were Rs.0.25 less!) We looked all sides for black ticket sellers. But horror of horrors, what a place? We spotted only one guy, who wanted Rs.50/- for a Rs.12.50 ticket! (I had every mind to complain to the management why there were no tickets readily available in black, as in Bangalore)
It was 3.30 PM. Uma suggested a Botanical Garden worthy of our visit. We changed two buses to reach that place. A notice stared at us : Closed until further notice! Disaster No. 2.
This Garden was opposite the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University and we decided to spend some time roaming inside the campus. A guard stopped us in the Gate, but was convinced that we had some "work" in the University. We took a slow walk enjoying the campus garden and the old buildings, when Yogi spotted cricket being played in a ground yonder! What to lose? We might as well watch the match, we thought. We walked to the edge of the ground, and made ourselves comfortable under a tree. The bowler bowled, there was an appeal, the umpire gave the batsman out, and oh no! removed the wickets indicating the end of play for the day! Disaster No.3!
The list of disasters were complete when we found the University Canteen closed as well, leaving us hot, sweating and thirsty.
In contrast, the rest of the day, which saw us taking a bus to Maruthumalai, climbing the 500 odd steps to reach the temple located in the top, having a darshan of Lord Muruga, and, enjoying the view from the top, seems almost uneventful!
An attempt to add another entry to the list of disasters was made when I lost my cap (the new cap from HP given for the picnic). But the kindness of the temple footwear-keeper thwarted that! We were back in Uma's home by 8.45 PM, and my innocent question to his mom, whether power failed at night, was answered in the form of a blackout from 9.30 to 12.30! (Never knew when to keep my mouth shut!)
We got up early the next morning and started off at 5.15 AM to Tiruppur. We caught a local bus in 2 minutes and reached bus stand, and in no time, boarded a Tiruppur bus. (These things are possibly only in dreams, in Bangalore) The songs at full volume in the speeding us brought us memories of REC Trichy. 7.10 AM found us in Tiruppur and a few minutes later, we were in the Kalyanamandapam.
It was an all-time best get-together of the Class of '97, since we left the campus - 21 of us, the absentees (I quote them, because they are less in number) being, Boo, Anitha, SMA, Lachu, Mohan, Ramesh, Ezhil, Suman, Shyamala, Vineetha, Vems and Vidya. Vijay, who works in Tiruppur, joined us the last. We had a gala time, chatting with each other. We had breakfast and lunch together and posed for a few snaps.
The high point was when all of us boarded a van for the ride from the Kalyanamandapam to Railway Station. The Madras gang left by one train, while the Bangalore gang by another (both incidentally Madras - Coimbatore - Bangalore train).