All is bad; that starts bad...

July 1, 2007......My Birthday

Me and Shankar planned for a trip to Auroville and Pondy. A very eventful day, though nothing was accomplished....

To start the day, we got up quite early at 7 or so..not so bad...prepared rice/sambar/idli (breakfast and for us to pack for the trip)/chutney powder.....then we planned to prepare coconut burfi... To do all this it took some time... i know, we should have planned properly.. we wanted to leave from home by 9-9.30, but, by the time we started from home it was 10.30 and we went to Koyambedu to take a bus to Pondy. The next bus to Pondy (ECR route) was jus about to start..so we got in..The bus started at 11.

In the bus, there was one group of around 10 people..making full commotion and disturbing everyone in the bus by shouting...One elderly person (thaatha) was sitting alone in a 3 seater..and these guys entered and 3 of them wanted to sit together...had they asked thaatha politely to give them this seat and to move to an another empty, he would have surely done that..but, these guys were calling him names, they we calling him as perusu and were treating him with full disrespect. So, he didn't open his mouth and he didn't move from that place also. I liked the was thaatha responded..but, these guys kept on calling names and to maintain his own self-respect or whatever, he moved to another seat.

After this, in the bus they were about to put some movie. These guys started shouting that they wanted to see Shivaji - The Boss..The driver got irritated, switched off the TV and then started to drive. These guys kept on teasing the driver. Driver got fully tensed and was staring at these guys through the mirror...these guys started commenting about that too..so, the driver stopped the bus and shouted at these guys and he started the bus only after these guys stopped shouting. Driver was completely disturbed because of this. He was not able to concentrate on his driving...These guys were also angry that the driver was behaving like this. Some how, after some time the bus went on smoothly..

But, the bus was very slow..there was no traffic at all...We had asked the conductor to tell us when we reach Auroville and he forgot to inform us..he dropped us on the road, some kms away from that place. By the time we reached there, it was 3.30. Then, we enquired a shop keeper there on how to reach Auroville and there was one person (buying veg) and he offered us to drop us till Auroville bus stand in his Ambassador (for free!!!!)...he dint accept the money we offered also!!! We were suprised to see a person like that!!!

From there, we had to go 8kms inside to reach the place..we took an auto. After all this, we came to know that Auroville (Matr Mandir) is closed on Sunday Afternoons....Really don't understand the logic behind having the place closed on Sunday ANs, that will be ideal time for people from outside to come and visit the place...But, as such we went to a gallery there...it was very interesting...

Then, we reached Aurobindo Ashram, Pondy at 5 PM. Meditated for some time [a peaceful place indeed], started from there by around 5.30, got some books from the store there. When i reached Ashram, i had severe head-ache. After meditating for half an hour, I was feeling very fresh!

To get back to Chennai, there were many people waiting, but, no buses...so we got in to a bus that goes till Dindivanam. For that itself, it took 2 hours. Then, had dinner there, quite good...Then got a bus to Chennai. The road from Dindivan to Chennai is one of those best roads we can find, and it was quite a fast drive. But, some where on the highway there was a road block because of a truck that got broke down and stranded there. It took nearly an hour to cross that area.

The situation could have been handled much better. There were some traffic regulators standing there and trying to regulate the traffic. There was one bus, that was trying to over take the stranded truck but, he was not able to move any further, because of the traffic from opposite side. Had, we waited for a few minutes for the traffic from the opposite side to move first, then everyone could have saved a lot of time. Haste really makes waste! The so called traffic regulators could have just put up a board saying "Take Diversion" for the traffic from Dindivanam to Chennai. It could have made things easier and faster.

Finally we took 5 hours to reach Chennai!!!

A very hectic day indeed.

But, whatever we intended to do did not happen. So, we would plan one more trip to Auroville on a Saturday! For those who don't know about Auroville, it is a township created to develop/inculcate unity and humanity.

To find more details on Auroville, please click here.