Where buses fly...

The Thamarassery ghat in the Indian state of Kerala has long been a great tourist attraction. Off late, the wooden valley down the hill along the ghat road is also proving to be a magnetic attraction for vehicles passing through the area. Buses and bikes are said to be showing an intense temptation to break the barricades and jump off the cliff while they reach here.

Last week, three of my Bangalore friends - Raghu, Vimali and Eureka – went to Kerala to attend a marriage function. The Karnataka state bus they boarded was to go through Waynad district of the state, touching the Thamarassery ghat, and they were excited to experience the natural beauty of this part of the God’s own country.

It was past midnight when they reached this beautiful place and, like all other passengers, they were almost asleep. Suddenly, at around 3 am, the bus abruptly halted, or so it seemed. And Raghu, half asleep in the front seat, was thrown out of his seat and banged against the front door. Cursing the driver for disturbing his sleep by applying such a sudden brake, he tried to crawl back to the seat. But to his dismay, he found it very difficult, if not impossible, to get back to the seat which was just near him. The more he tried to approach the seat, the more it retreated back, as in fear. Raghu shook his head to make sure it was not a dream. When he looked at the fellow passengers sitting in the back seats, they seemed to be in a balcony of a cinema theatre. He also noticed that the front wheel of the bus was turning despite the vehicle standing still.

Slowly things became clear to him. He realized that the bus was in a perpendicular position, its face stooped down in a jungle and ass hooked up on the edge of the road. And that his seat was not retreating but he was skidding backwards.

An intense fear and helplessness gripped him. He suddenly jumped out of the bus through an open window and stopped with his boot the still rotating front wheel, which had lost its touch with the earth. He called out for the other two friends in the back seat and was relieved to see that they were safe. The bus had not gone much deeper because of some trees. Had it not been for those trees, it would have been a free fall for the bus till Adivaram, a small town located in the extreme bottom of the hill, saving the bus driver a 13-kilometer horrible maneuvering through that badly maintained mountain pass.

Thus, the first ever Kerala trip of these three people turned out to be a nightmare. Instead of them attending the marriage, some doctors in the Calicut medical college attended to them – Raghu had some minor injuries. This is not a single incident in this ghat. At times, this mountain pass bears witness to some minor accidents. A badly maintained road is the bane of this area. During the monsoon season, it rains here heavily and water, overflown from the drainage channels, flows through the road, warranting a special attention from the officers of the Public Work Department. But who cares when there is no money in protecting common man’s life?

The road is not the lone culprit. Careless and sleepy drivers cause accidents too. In this case, the driver must have been asleep. Sometimes back, it was due to sheer carelessness that a friend of mine jumped off the cliff here with his bike. He was showing his two friends around as they came for sight-seeing in this high range. My friend was leading the way, occasionally looking at the rear view mirror to make sure the other two bikes following him have not lost their way.

In a fatal moment, he forgot that he was looking in the mirror and was duped to be thinking that the wide and long road he sees in the mirror was the road ahead. He gave the full throttle and the bike broke the fence along the road to fly off to the rocky terrain down the hill. However, he was so lucky that there was a single tree standing on the flying route and he perched on one of its branches, even as the bike crashed on a rock, half a kilometre down from the road.

He went to coma, but some good doctors did not allow him to proceed to ‘full stop’.

I feel that due to some divine intervention, not many lives are lost in accidents reported from this area. In the aforesaid bus accident also, there were only some minor injuries. However, there is always a looming threat of death lurking across this mountain pass.

Now I am confused as to whether I should add to this blog a sentence like ‘It is high time the authorities took the necessary steps for the reformation of this road.’ But there is no point in getting into a reproaching mode as there is no point in shouting into deaf ears. Let the Indian bureaucratic juggernaut run on as it did so far. Because, some bureaucrats are the backbone of Indian democracy and its political system. I think it is this bureaucratic system that inspires many to be a politician in India. Who wants to be a politician if there is no nepotism, corruption, red-tapism and scopes for scams in the system?

Let’s take to streets and shake buckets for the welfare of these bureaucrats and politicians. Let them have as much as they want. Let them drink to the lees till they drank up all the resources and essence of this country and leave it as a desert. That is the inevitable fate this country, along with its political system, is going to meet up with.

Anyways, I think I should take Raghu and team for a safe trip to Kerala next time when they are free.