Diary of a Daily Traveler - The Morning trip

Gone were the school days when one had to wake up early in the morning, pack your bags and stand in the chilling winter waiting for the school bus to arrive. Gone were the days were you will be fiddling around, as the bus went round in circles picking up all the folks and finally arrive for the pick-up/drop.

Those days were history (or so I thought !) when we joined the professional world. Now we had the regulated 8:30am (Bangalore) ITPL shuttle to office. But then the life has it's own share of surprises. Things changed (Change is good) and I moved on from Bangalore to Delhi. The posting was at Gurgaon (Haryana) and I was on the other side (no ! not the Dark Side ] of Delhi - located almost near Noida (U.P). This meant that I would have take a shuttle (daily driving the length-and-breadth of Delhi is a strong NO) to reach the Gurgaon office.

A few pages from the diary of a daily traveler - The Morning Trip.

The shuttle is scheduled to arrive at 7:22 AM. Hey ! That's almost at par to the timings we had to follow for school. So started the day. Getting up early in the morning (you don't want to miss the shuttle and drive all the way to office !!) and reaching the pick-up stop in-time. It's quite a wonder we (the working class) standing along with the school kids waiting for their respective shuttle's to arrive. Add-on to that the chilling Delhi winter...7.5 deg. Celsius (just for reference).

The chill is good enough to have any 'chai-wala' (tea vendor) a budding business opportunity. Come to think of it - there lies an opportunity (business scope) the 'chai-wala' to go around (maybe in a cycle) handing out a hot sizzling cup of tea in a earthen cup to the chilled out souls waiting for the shuttle. Ahh... the aroma of hot tea served in the earthen cup is enough to make any person reach out for a cup.

Time flies - and finally our shuttle arrives (Route No: 13). We sincerely hope that none of the co-passengers (past/current or future) suffer from Triskaidekaphobia.

We board the bus and pick out our cosy seats (what ? did I hear some one if we had a/c in the bus to keep the shuttle warm ! yeah - In your dreams !!), cross-check that the windows are slammed shut.

We ensure that not a whiff of cold air can find it's way inside the shuttle. Thus the count down starts as we weave our way picking up the rest of the folks and heard towards Gurgaon. After the initial exchange of pleasantries - most of the co-passengers glide into their morning hangovers.

Some doze off to sleep (well ! we have not heard snoring yet !), some will switch on their personal music players, some of the literate kind will update themselves with the morning news (by reading the newspaper) and off-course some of the more adventurous type will discuss on how to maintain world Earth peace (a.k.a general gossip :-) ).

The shuttle chugs it's way across Delhi (well ! it is almost like Dilli dharshan) towards Haryana. Expected time to arrival is usually 60-90 minutes. Well, that's on a day when the odds are favorable, there are no traffic jams and the shuttle can just slide past.

However, on a not so great day (waving hands !!), the E.T.A to office is a variable that has an unknown value and is dependent on more variables, that are dependent on more variables.

So if we get stuck in a traffic jam (variable x) - the best thing to do is close your eyes and go to sleep. Surely, someone will wake you up when you arrive at Office !!

A bit of maths, back of the envelope scribble:
- for Route 13 it is approximately 65 Kms (40.3 miles) from home to office (Gurgaon)
- at this rate, per day we are covering ~130 Kms (80.7 miles)
- in a year (~22 working days), we will cover ~34320 Kms (21325.4 miles)
- a traveler doing this for ~12 years would have covered 411840 Kms (255905.5 miles) !!!

The average distance from Earth to Moon is 384403 km (238857 miles).

What say - which seems more preferable ? As we drive through the foggy chilly Delhi winter morning, I switch on my music player and start listening to 'Its the Final Countdown' .......

We'are leaving together

But still it's farewell

And maybe we will come back,

To Earth, who can tell ?

(Next the Evening trip back home - Did I tell you about the 'resident' mouse ?)