I Vish...

Thurday, 10th June, 2010. 8.15 P.M.

My thoughts wandered as I drove my bike towards the airport. “When was it that I had last been outside to see the sunset on a weekday?” I thought. By the time I reached, I realised I could not recollect that fateful day and blamed it on being a software professional.

I was here, yet again, to send off a friend. I called him to know where he was and found out that it was going to be a long wait. I looked around and my eyes fell on a board that read “Work in progress, inconvenience regretted”. I wondered when the supposed renovation was scheduled to get over and slowly started to take in my surroundings. Within seconds, I was confused. I was not sure if I was at the international departure terminal of the Chennai airport, its railway station, or worse still, its market. The buzz of human activity silenced the drone of the construction work. People were everywhere. Men going around in lungis, women squatting and serving food to their families as they were waiting, and people lying down on the roads made it almost certain that I had to be at the central station. Alas, it was not to be. A wry smile and then I merged to be a part of them.

Left with no choice, I stood cross-legged in a corner and immersed myself into a book. The next time I raised my head, I was pleasantly surprised. I could make out the silhouette of a prominent figure. I watched from the side as a tall, broad, bespectacled person pulled his trolley along. No securities, no clicking cameras, not even a sign of recognition among the majority of the crowd, and a somewhat protruding belly left me in doubt (it was always the face that I got to see in the televisions and newspapers). I followed my intuition and tailed them (he was with his wife who is his emotional bedrock), ever so tentatively. They came to a halt in the middle of the road, and she made a call (probably to their driver). I knew it was to be now, or never. I walked past his wife and approached him gingerly. The moment I was face-to-face with him, I threw away my caution.

“May I have your autograph?” I asked, and I made sure that there was no trace of hesitation.
“Sure!” he said with a reassuring smile. Maybe I was not that good at hiding my hesitancy.
I rummaged into my bag and got out a notebook. In those fleeting few seconds I also had to decide in which colour I wanted him to sign. I had a choice of black, blue, red and green. I went ahead with green. With my notebook in his left hand and the green pen in his right, he was about to sign when I noticed that the cap had not yet been removed. While he still held the pen in his hand, I offered to remove the cap for him. Once we were done with that, he signed with a flourish and returned my things.
“Thanks!” I murmured, as he collected his baggage, walked towards his car and gave me one more of his reassuring smiles.

I scanned the pages to the one in which he had signed. I could make out a ‘V’ and an ‘A’ which was dragged to the end to form a ‘d’. Vishwanath Anand. The number one in world chess. I was still in awe as I watched the man load his luggage, get inside the car and whoosh past me.

I came back to my senses, sent off my friend and drove back home. All along, there was again one question that was nagging me: “Why is it that he does not receive the same amount of attention as an ordinary cricketer or movie star gets?”

"Cause driving in traffic sucks.."

It it not often that one stumbles upon a case where public transport is preferred over everything else. Fewer still are those when the cyberspace is consulted to decide the mode of public transport that is going to be used.

Be it love for the environment, animosity towards driving, or just the resolve to take to public transport on occasions that are not time bound, I decided to go ahead with it. It was then that I was confronted with the harsh truth that twenty years in Chennai had almost entirely revolved around Mylapore, walking and cycling to most of my destinations when left on my own. I had to face up to the task of asking around every time or find that treasure-trove of information.

This led to what has been explained earlier, a case where internet, that vast ocean of information, was put to test to identify the ideal means of commuting. And as it always does, the answers were there and it was only a matter of sifting through for the right match.

Chennai, as it happens to be, is considered to be among the World's 10 Best commutes(as of 2008), in terms of reliability, efficiency and cost effectiveness. The rankings were measured based on criteria that included the cost to the consumer and the government, overall investments in improvements and the speed and safety with which people reach their destinations. While trains do provide good connectivity in this city, it is buses that are considered as the lifeline.

"Busroutes.in" was the best "find", for it gave the solutions in the most simplest and effective manner. With a tagline "Cause driving in traffic sucks..", the site surely is a product of like minded fellows with an urge to get out of this maze of traffic that Chennai is also coming to be. Initially giving only the routes for selected buses, listing stages and marking stops in a map; it has gone on to evolve, and it now offers the bus or buses that need to be taken given the starting and ending points.

Irrespective of their motive for developing this idea, it does go someway in aiding to bring back the charm of travelling by buses. Insignificant though it may seem, travelling by public means does bring down the per capita emission of pollution and aids us in our efforts to save planet Earth.

Chennai being their initial target, they wish to move on to Bangalore once they have covered every route in Chennai. And maybe, with time, even the most remote locations in India might just be a click away!