My Contemplation

Going to Expressway

Have you ever traveled from Ahmedabad to Baroda (Vadodra, as it is pronounced). If not, you at least must have heard or read that there is an expressway connecting both these cities. The name itself signifies its purpose, expressway - Dhooooooooooooooooom. Expressway have made traveling very fast and you can reach from Mumbai to Pune in 1 to 1.5  hour and similarly from Ahemdabad to Baroda in 55 minutes. If you read name of express way in Gujarati, they write it as "Durgati Marg." I never felt it as durgati marg till the day, but yes after my last visit I have experienced why it is called durgati marg. Anyways, the point is that as we all are aware that Ahmedabad to Baroda is only a 55 minutes run, at the max one can take 3 hours, right? Wrong. My last drive from Ahmedabad to Baroda was among the longest journey I ever had on road, even though I have driven from Surat to Pune many times. Can you guess what time I took to reach Baroda from Ahmedabad while driving a car? I am sure, you will have to make a wild guess. It took us 12 long hours to reach Baroda from Ahmedabad and there we spent a whole night on expressway - one of the most memorable night of my life.

We went to hospital on S.G. Highway to meet one of our relative. At 9.00 P.M. we left from the room in hospital and went to cafeteria to have dinner. We were told that cafeteria have one of the best foods but my luck was not along with me. I saw a menu and asked my cousin "what will you have?" He was being formal and replied "whatever you like". So I ordered Pav Bhaji and he ordered some Masala Dosa. The cafeteria was full and again unfortunately nothing interesting was there to kill time, except our talks. I have read and heard that good hospitals usually have beautiful and sexy nurses and female doctors, but as my luck I could not see any of them in Cafeteria. Possibly our timing was wrong. In last second sentence I had to specify "female" ahead of doctors because now a days government has created trouble for straight people like me, by approving "GAYS" relationship. 

I waited for almost 20 minutes for my order and still there was no sign of our token number on sign board.

I went to the waiter and asked "Pizzas are delivered free if they are not provided within 20 minutes. Does it applies to this cafeteria as well?"

To its reply he told "Definitely not sir, it is because the Pizza costs 3 times more than what you have ordered here, and that is the reason why you are here and not in Pizza hut few meters away from here." I was dumb and had no answer; that was the first time I realized why people call Ahmedavadi's as stingy (chingus). In surat, people prefer more costly hotels and restaurants and SURTIS give no chance to anyone to insult themselves in the matter of money. This was the first time I felt insulted and I immediately went to my table trying to avoid any eye contact with that person; at least he was right, up to some extent.

5 minutes passed and our token number was there up on sign board, I heaved a sigh. 

"Thank God, he managed to give us today" my dad said. 

All were starring at me and expecting to go and take the order. I was worried to face him again. I asked my cousin to take the order. He immediately took and went to the counter to get our order. 

My dad sensed something wrong from my gestures and asked "What happened, something wrong with order?" Immediately I looked away from him as if I was finding something and replied "No, nothing just wanted to wash my hands" and moved towards the wash room before any further questions are fired on that topic. 

I was waiting eagerly for Pav Bhaji as I don't even remember when I had Pav Bhaji last time. To my surprise my cousin came back only with two dish both with Dosa and one coke bottle. "Pav Bhaji will take few more minutes" said my cousin. 

This time I got agitated and went to him with red face full of anger as if I was going to bang his counter. I saw a waiter carrying single Pav in a dish and that made me control my temper as that was a sign that my Bhaji will be next. He pressed my token number and stylishly placed a dish on counter in front of me; not to forget he had a smile of success on his face. 

"Where is Bhaji?" I asked audible only to him and other people standing in close proximity.  

He winked and shockingly asked "Bhaji?" As if I ordered only Pav for my dinner. He looked at my face and felt some sense of mistake and started to review an order receipt. 

I also didn't want to give him another chance of insulting me and so checked the Pav Bhaji order in an order receipt and bash that on counter with confidence, saying or rather shouting "Am I going to have a single Pav without Bhaji?" Almost everyone turned back to have a look. My cousin came running to me over the counter. 

He immediately took the receipt and went inside. He returned back with expression of a looser and replied politely "Sorry Sir, but Bhaji is not available, I request you to order something else in same range." Now it was my chance to insult him, it was a time to take a revenge and I felt shouting on him saying that would again take another half an hour and I will be screwed up for one more hour in this cafeteria where there is nothing much of interest. But looking to his pitiable face and people around staring at us, I asked him for Uttapam without creating any more scenes. I wonder why I cannot shout on people, that is a bad quality in me. Finally, he managed to serve us food by 10.00 P.M. and we finished our dinner at 10.30 P.M. Almost one and half hour passed and there were no girls in cafeteria, I kept wondering where those sexy and beautiful nurses and doctors have gone, why this happens only to me.

It was now time for us to rush to Vadodra as early as possible, it was already too late to drive on highways. I kept cursing the person for delivering us food so late; I had no option it was after all the question of my self-esteem or my EGO. We hopped in the car and started our journey with a hope of reaching Vadodra in two hours max, i.e. at 12.30 A.M. 

My fortune was very upset with me, we had not even traveled 2 kms and car suddenly started vibrating or pulling on one side. It was very unnatural, I was tensed and so I reduced the speed but there was no improvement, vibration was growing and so was tension. I changed the gear and still there was no improvement in vibration. I was confused, I had to know what is happening before anyone else sitting in the car finds out and adds more to agitation. I was on my toe and was driving almost 20 km/hr on Sarkhej - Gandhinagar Highway (S.G. Highway, part of Ahmedabad), even a cycle would have overtaken us. 

My mom asked "what happened" and I felt as if they have started feeling vibrations. I ignored her and continued driving. I was sweating and had know idea what to do, stop the car and tell them something unusual is happening and try to find out or continue driving in this situation and wait for something worst to happen. Suddenly, the vibrations increased to the level which was unbearable and uncontrollable. 

I was almost wet now due to sweating, I cursed the leather seat covers applied by my maternal uncle on the car I was driving. I felt as if something is wrong with wheel, I peeped out of the window to find out and tried to check`the wheel which was rotating at 10 km/hr but vibrating at some unmeasurable frequency. 

I forced myself more to peep out of the window, while holding the steering straight and found that the front wheel was punctured. It was 10.50 P.M and the wheel of our car was punctured on S.G. highway, no mechanic no service station, where to go? what to do? As usual I cursed my fortune and everyone from their end were suggesting various ways to get out of this problem.

Story continues in next post, keep reading ....................