An Epic Road Trip-Part 2

Jude was a bit reluctant and argued with them to let us go because we were already very much behind schedule but the Police were reluctant to let us go. What made them suspicious was that we didn’t have any luggage for such a long journey. SK was going to Trivandrum only for the weekend so he didn’t have much luggage with him. Both me and Arun just had a small bag with our clothes. They felt that something somewhere didn’t add up. Arun was wearing a black Lungi and Superman T-shirt. Jude and myself were in our slacks which didn’t give an impression that we were on a road trip. SK was the only guy who was properly dressed. Finally I had to call up a friend of mine from my IAS coaching days in Delhi who was currently an I.P.S officer in Karnataka to let us carry on with our journey without any further delay.

We decided to take it slow so as to get over the harrowing experience and stopped the car to get some tender coconut water. Arun struck up a conversation with the Lorry driver and even got him tender coconuts to be allowed to take some photographs in his Lorry.

 
  

  

Finally in the evening we reached Bangalore. Our dear friend Rakesh a top notch lawyer came to us with food to show his support and wish me luck. We saved a lot of time because of this and were off to Cochin driving through the night. As a matter of fact we had covered close to 1500 kms in little above 24 hours. In the wee hours of Sunday as they dropped me off at my Uncle’s place in Cochin it was a job well done and would later go on to be known as “The Cochin Job” in the lines of the Italian Job.

On the way back there was just one driver Jude and gradually the arduous journey started to take a toll on him. Now for the uninitiated it has to be noted that Arun hardly knew driving at that point of time and didn’t even have a driving license. The Lawyer who got 3 of us to undertake this crazy journey decided to try his luck to persuade Arun to take up the wheel for some time so that he could rest. Moreover, there was a 200 km 4 lane stretch ahead.

  

Understandably Arun was fast asleep, slowly Jude parked the car to the side of the road and woke up Arun . With a fair bit of coaxing and cajoling Jude managed to convince Arun to take up the driver’s seat .Jude in the meantime was cheeky enough to hand over the steering wheel to him and go to sleep for a considerable amount of time.

At one of the Toll Plazas in between, 2 men requested for a lift to Mumbai. The men said that you need not pay the toll tax all the way till Mumbai courtesy because of them. Jude and Arun were perplexed , firstly these guys could be anybody and secondly they couldn’t make up their mind to trust those guys on the road. The hitch hikers turned out to be Army Jawans who were stationed in Lebanon as part of the International Peace Keeping Force. At every toll plaza once they show their ID cards they are allowed free transit. They had come to their respective native places and were returning to Mumbai for their onward flight to Delhi where they were supposed to report. They began narrating their experiences in Africa and slowly Jude and Arun warmed up to them.  Incidentally one of them was a military truck driver, Jude promptly handed over the Steering wheel to him and went off to sleep again with Arun on the watch.

The travelling party reached Mumbai as a new week dawned over the horizon they were dead tired but their minds buzzing. After dropping off the Armymen in the airport they picked up Shilpa who drove them over for an early morning breakfast to a restaurant overlooking the sea. As the couple were gazing into the sea Jude was contemplating as to what was in store for his brother. This was first among his many long distance drives from Mumbai. Jude had undertaken a total of 3 road trips from Mumbai to Trivandrum out of which two were solo and one in a Tata Nano.

As for me the meeting with the girl did not yield a positive result and I lived to fight another day. My mom who had come to Cochin was delighted to know that her younger son and friends pulled out such a coup d’etat. But equally angry because Jude didn’t meet her and say hello to her after travelling such a long distance. Till date SK’s wife doesn’t know the real reason as to why many years back her husband reached for Lunch on that Vishu day and took his flight back to Mumbai after a couple of hours

Years later Jude was having a bad day as a Corporate Lawyer trying to close a deal with an important client. He took a breather and went out for a smoke at that instant he gets a call from Arun who was in Dubai informing him that he had just cleared the UAE driving test and expressed his sincere gratitude to his first driving guru.  Ambrose reminisced “ If I can get those 3 jokers to undertake the crazy trip in a car for close to 56 hours nonstop, covering four state of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala along the way I can very well convince anybody”. He took a deep breath and walked back in to the boardroom to clinch the deal. As for the 3 jokers they realized that Engineering was not their calling and thankfully moved into Managerial Roles. 

At the end of it when I look back that slip of the tongue from Jude where he said that we could go from Mumbai to Cochin and come back within flat 20 hours turned out to be one of the most badass moments in my life. This trip will be the gold standard to which all later trips were compared to.I have often come across instances where after days of planning when we finally undertake a trip it wouldn’t be that great. Most often than not the trips that come out of the spontaneous decisions turn out to be absolutely exhilarating and liberating to a great extent. You just let your spirit soar into the unknown and the rest will be history. The experiences that we have in these kind of scenarios are totally out of the world.  In a nutshell “Great memories are made of impromptu outrageous experiences”.

 Friendship is the one of the vital keystones in a person's life, true friendship overcomes distance, time and what not .Myself, Sreekumar and Arun have known each other for more than 25 years now. We first met at Holy Angels Convent School, Trivandrum during the course of our Primary Schooling then went on to study in Loyola School as well. It also helped that we lived nearby during that point of time in our lives until we completed our graduation. Post that we haven’t been in close contact much because life had taken us all in 3 different locations for many many years. Even today all 3 of us live in 3 different cities but still we manage to keep touch .But true friendships overcome distance, time and what not. It only takes time and a little effort to nurture friendships into something truly special. Come the hour and the men delivered, Period.  

  

If you ask me, one has lived a rich and fruitful life if you are able to tell stories such as these to everyone around you. An experience need not cause an impact at that moment of time but years later when you look back at the memory that is the moment when nostalgia hits you. This trip was undertaken by me and my friends 4 years ago but even today this tale has been told and retold in the countless get-togethers we have been to. That is precisely the reason why I wanted to put this on the record so that this memory does not get lost in course of time.

P.S:- For the travel junkies who are wondering as to which route we took.

Mumbai-Pune-Satara-Kolhapur-Belgaum-Hubli-Davangere-Chitradurga-Tumkur-Bangalore-Hosur-Krishnagiri-Dharmapuri-Salem-Erode-Palakkad-Thrissur-Cochin

The End

With inputs from Ambrose Jude, Sreekumar and Arun Sudheendran

  
Click here for Part 1

An Epic Road Trip-1

SK working in Pune was supposed to leave for Trivandrum (our hometown) from Mumbai the next day. Since it was a weekend I asked him to come stay at my place and take his flight the next day. I decided to invite my dear friend Arun as well so that we could have an impromptu party at my place on Friday night. Since it was an all Malayali get together the usual suspects were in attendance. Beef, Alcohol, Kerala Chicken Fry and Barotta .The irony of it all was that our guest of honour SK was a teetotaler and a pure vegetarian. All 3 of us were just chilling out at my place when my brother Jude joined us. A law student in Mumbai he had come to spend time with me over the weekend.

Off late I had discovered that being an employed Malayali guy of marriageable age is a tough ask and that too living far away from Kerala.  All of your friends around you are either married or in the process of getting married. My guests for the evening were discussing their domestic travails of their 2 year old marriage and here I was thinking of getting married. My train of thoughts was interrupted by a phone call from my mom who was asking me if I could make it to Cochin(a city 1500 kms south of Mumbai) on Sunday because she wanted me to meet a girl there. I was like what the hell it is Friday night and you want me to reach Cochin within 48 hours. Well you can’t pretty much argue with the boss. We all started looking for flights and trains but because of the of Vishu(New Year festival in Kerala) on Sunday the flights and trains were overbooked.

All of us barring SK were in high spirits since the Party had already started.  Jude pitched for a crazy idea as to why don’t we drive Angelo to Cochin. He said what are friends for if they can’t rise upto the occasion and make things happen. His rationale was that right now it is Friday Midnight if we start from here now by driving nonstop we could reach Cochin in 10 hours. After dropping me if they drive back to Mumbai again nonstop they can come back to Mumbai in another 10 hours. This way Arun will not have to miss work on Monday and Jude will not miss his exam as well.

 Arun pensively asked me if I really wanted to meet this girl to which I replied in the affirmative. SK who had been a silent spectator all along was all pumped up. He cancelled his flight ticket for the next day so as to join us in this road trip. He said that we could use an extra driver for the long journey. Jude the lawyer managed to convince the 3 Engineers on such a crazy idea. Even today I fail to understand as to why SK who was in full senses agreed to be part of the plot. This given the fact that he could be at Trivandrum the very next day without much of a hassle

The journey begins

 

SK, myself and Arun

Jude, the Lawyer

We packed up whatever food was left behind. I took one of the best pair of my clothes, my mind was buzzing in anticipation for the upcoming meeting. We had a pit stop at Arun’s place to inform his spouse about the plan, it was well over midnight. As we parked our car I made a bet with Jude that Arun’s wife is not going to fall for this crazy idea and he is not going to come with us.   Don’t know if Shilpa was too sleepy to even comprehend as to what her husband was saying, nevertheless Arun came back promptly with a change of clothes. Later on we came to know that Shilpa had reminded Arun that they had to renew the lease of their house which was expiring on Monday. He was planning to finish off that task the next day. Arun assured her that he would see it on Monday without fail. Shilpa warned him that he better stick to his word or else they could be homeless after Monday.

 

To our discomfort we realized that we were out of Gas. Even at this hour there was a considerable amount of rush to fill gas. We stopped behind the long line of cars Jude the lawyer again got into action he went to every car in the line and made up a cock and bull story that the guy in the car missed his flight and was not able to go for his wedding. As friends they were planning to drive him to the venue and were short of time. As we passed each of the cars the drivers smiled and nodded to me.

The drive out of Mumbai city was uneventful but we were in for a surprise as we reached the ghat section. We had not anticipated the Truck traffic at this time of the hour. Boy it was incredulous and with great difficulty we maneuvered through the multitude of heavy vehicles. It had been 10 hours since we started the journey. We stopped at the side of the highway for a quick bite of the food that we had with us. As the day dawned we 3 ENGINEERS realized that the LAWYER had taken us for a ride as we had made very little progress. We were nowhere near even half way thorough to our intended destination. Once the reality sunk into each one of us we understood the enormity of the task that lay ahead of us but we decided to soldier on. Jude and SK took turns in driving as I was forbidden from driving because they didn’t want to tire me out. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                   

After sometime SK’s wife called him to ensure if he had checked in for the flight on time to which SK replied that he was at the airport and it appeared to him that the flight was cancelled. He assured that he would keep her posted and disconnected the call. All of us stared at him with a look of amusement. He had to come up with something innovative to be able to explain as to why he was delayed we all deliberated on the permutations and combinations of the possibilities by which SK would reach Trivandrum on Sunday Morning. Finally after a couple of hours he called his wife and informed her that he got a flight to Bangalore. From Bangalore he would take an overnight bus and would be with her on Sunday Morning. The story sounded believable because it was Saturday afternoon now and at the rate at which we were going we would reach Cochin in the wee hours of Sunday. From there SK could take a train and reach Trivandrum by around 10-11 in the morning.

 

We couldn’t stop for a break but rather continued our journey. We were driving the entire day without a break. We had a flat tyre in between but luckily we were passing through a city so we had help at hand. As we were waiting for the tyre to be replaced Jude noticed that there was a Unisex parlour across the road. With support from Sudhi he managed to cojole me to get a facial in a bid to improve my prospects. Post the facial my face was wrapped in a towel like a jack fruit so that I could be preserved from the hard sunlight. You women will never understand what all we men go through to get hitched.

 

 

The journey continued, somewhere in Karnataka we were stopped by the Highway Patrol which seemed to us as a routine checking. After the initial checks of the license and the papers they were not very convinced about our story. They asked us to come to the Police Station so that they can thoroughly check our car.  Supposedly they had received a tip off that some contraband was being transported via road and that was the reason why they had set up the patrol in the first place.

 To be Continued……

Click here for Part 2