A long journey

Sitting in my tiny seat of the bus, I started thinking about 40 years since I have started my journeys to Bangalore. That is almost 160 travels of 450 kilometres. 

40 years ago, I joined my engineering college here in this city and since then have been going to and from Bangalore. And still I don’t like this journey. 

So much has improved. The sleeper coaches are comfortable unlike government busses. The private buses pick us from different parts of Bangalore, so you don’t have to catch the bus from congested majestic area. And of course online ticket booking is of great help.

Back in 80s, I had to go all the way to majestic to reserve the ticket. And girls were supposed to be afraid to travel alone in night bus. And so I would journey during day, sitting for 10 hours. If my memory is right, the ticket price was 50 Rupees. Now on some days, we have to pay 24 times that for one ticket. 

And on reaching my home town, I would walk a kilometer with my big bag of books which would always remain unread. 

Walking was so common those days, but not as a form of exercise. It was the way of life. For my school I used to walk almost a kilometer. 4 times, as we used to come home for lunch too.

 But one thing we can conclude is, as journeys becomes more and more comfortable, we feel the need for even more comfort. Until one day, we may vehemently ask only for teleportation as a mode of travel.