Hitchhiking in Hooghly

           Murphy’s Law says: ‘Anything that can go wrong will go wrong’. My friend, Wiki P adds that this phenomenon is caused by the ‘perversity of the universe’. After 42 years on this planet, of which a large chunk was spent suffering under the yoke of this ‘perversity’, I feel sufficiently qualified to add a corollary to this theorem. I call it “Aibee’s Corollary to the Murphy’s Law” and it goes thus: ‘If you had the temerity to think that nothing can go wrong, something will!’

Recently, we (i.e. the Other Half and me) had an early morning flight to catch from Kolkata to Delhi. Since we were not based in Kolkata proper but at one of the numerous Bong-towns that cluster protectively around Kolkata, we decided, that instead of taking the risk of blundering around at unearthly hours of the morning, we would prudently move to the airport the night before and camp at the airport itself for the night. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, we had booked the bus tickets well in advance, packed a ‘dobole’ bed sheet for the ‘camping in the airport’ part, squeezed in a tiffin box with luchie and aloor torkari (a Bong food staple for journeys), pushed in a polythene bag with some last minute fish fries and bundled ourselves onto the five pm South Bengal State Transport Special, direct for Airport Gate No 1.

Right at the beginning of the journey, something unusual happened, a portent of the things to come that I confess, I had totally missed. As I settled down into my seat (it was No 23, the window-side half of a two-seater), a young man who had been hovering in the background announced to my Other Half, “24 is mine!” Other Half, in a manner that was suspiciously and uncharacteristically mild, suggested that a relook of both their tickets could clear the matter. As for myself, after a quick & covert once-over of the young man in question and deciding that he was too “shondesh”y for my tastes, I joined in the ticket-‘re-look’. Strangely, both his and Other Half’s tickets clearly said ‘No 24’ and ‘five pm’, leaving all three of us flummoxed. So Other Half handed over the ticket to the final adjudicating authority, the conductor. The conductor after cursory look dismissed the whole matter with a deprecating nod at the young man, “This ticket was for yesterday!’  In silent triumph, Other Half promptly re-claimed No 24 as the young man retreated into the belly of the bus, duly subdued .

Soon the bus took off and as I snuggled back into the seat, I could not help but wonder “What if it had been our ticket that was of the wrong date?” With the successful resolve of this initial snag, things seemed to look real good for the rest of our journey. The inside of the bus was warm even in this chilly winter evening, the seats did not lack comfort, our luggage (all 80 kgs of it) was snugly secured and the bus which was now hurtling through the darkness with the comforting speed of Harry Potters’s ‘Knight Bus’, promised to drop us at Airport Gate No 1 well within the next three hours. So as I closed my eyes in complete satisfaction at the state of things, I made the fatal mistake of thinking, ‘Things are moving so smoothly, nothing can go wrong now!’ and therefore set the stage for invoking of the Aibee’s Corollary..... Unbeknownst to me, the Universe was already smiling its perverse smile......

Soon we had crossed the halfway mark, and were now zooming through the busy highway, the driver manoeuvring the bus like it were a sleek 2 wheeled Yamaha RX 100 rather than the 200 kilo ( ...I think) giant on 4 wheels. I must have dozed off when the bus came to an abrupt stop, dangerously close to the stately behind of another State Transport giant. ‘Jam, biraat (huge) jam,” announced one Mr Know-it-All, who had just returned after emptying his bladder by the roadside and consequently had had a look at the extent of the jam.  “Will never clear before three hours,” added another gentleman. “Could be even till morning!” came an ominous rejoinder from a monkey-capped, mufflered Nostradamus, declared through clouds of portentous cigarette smoke. So we waited, patiently at first but as the clock ticked and as the prophesies grew more sinister, both of us became increasingly worried. Visions of missing our flight and having to fish out additional 20 grands each to book seats on the next day’s flight, danced in both our heads.

And before I knew it, I was jolted out from my comfy seat by a peremptory, “Get off!” from Other Half. Dazed, I found myself scrambling down the bus with the few pieces of luggage that I could carry and straggling after ‘Other Half’ as he hauled the heavier pieces on the highway towards some unknown destination. He settled me down in the middle of the jam of vehicles, between a huge car-carrier and a largish truck and returned to lug back the remaining luggage. So there I stood, like a zombie, right in the middle of the highway at nine o’clock on a really dark and chilly winter night, too dazed to even wonder of what the subsequent plan of action was. But Other Half was in his element. Returning victoriously with the remaining luggage, he gestured to the driver of a Matador van that was standing on the edge of the road. Immediately the cleaner of the vehicle began picking up our luggage like they were match boxes and hurling them onto the vehicle back. Before I could protest, Other Half had boarded the driver’s cabin, and dragging me in behind him, he happily announced to the driver, “Chalo Bhai.” And we were off.  No, that was an understatement. We were not just ‘off’ we were ‘offfffffff’, flying that is! The matador driver seemed to be some kind of a speed freak and he wove the van through the traffic like a maniac, sometimes wavering so close to the sides of the trucks and buses that I could spot the mud stains on their paintwork, sometimes wildly careening off the road onto the katcha side walk, sometimes shooting across to the other side of the road , right into the face of incoming traffic........, punctuating all this deathly acrobatics with his van’s horn whose guttural shriek punctured my eardrums and turned me temporarily deaf. Oh and did I mention how the moment we had boarded the van the till then impenetrable jam had cleared like a miracle and our South Bengal State Transport giant had simply shot across the road, giving us absolutely no opportunity to re-board it?  Other Half was however ready with his explanations for me, which he delivered at the top of his voice over the shriek of the horn and the rattling of all 80 kilos of luggage at the back of the truck. Fearing we could miss our flight because the jam did not show any signs of clearing, Other Half had requested the van driver if he could try and manoeuvre his van through the jam, his vehicle being small and lithe, and kindly drop us at the nearest town so that we could take a cab from there to the airport. The man had agreed without hesitation and so that was why we were where we were now, racing through the traffic. Of course, Other Half had not envisaged that the jam would clear in a jiffy the moment we had boarded the van! But I could explain that part quite confidently: Aibee Corollary!!!!

So now that the jam had cleared, Other Half requested the van driver, ‘Could you catch the bus?’ Before the words had even left his mouth, the driver had already pressed down on the pedals with vengeance and we shot out of the mass of trucks and carriers to begin a car chase so thrilling and death-defying that it could put to shame the best of Hollywood action flicks. But the effort was of no avail for our SBSTC giant was far-far beyond this little matador’s ilk. Once or twice when we did manage to catch up with the bus, our friend the van driver poked his head out of the vehicle and tried to stop the bus, yelling, “Dada, your passengers here....stop stop...” but in vain. Not one to easily give up, he changed tactics. He asked me to wave at the bus remarking, ‘Seeing ‘ladies’ the driver might stop’. So I dutifully peered out of the window and began gesticulating madly at the bus, but ‘ladies’ or no ‘ladies’, the bus was in no mood to forgive prodigal passengers. By this time, both of us had decided that, no matter, we could easily get down at the next town barely 30 km away and hire a cab which could drop us at the airport in half an hour. But the van driver took the bus’ refusal to stop personally. He began devising newer strategies to force the bus to stop, each one more deadly than the next. So, driven by our instincts of self preservation, we requested the man to drop us at the next toll plaza. He generously kept his offer of dropping us off at the next town open but we were too rattled to take it. So he dropped us off at the toll plaza, generously helping us with our luggage and reiterating his previous offer. But we thanked him and plonked ourselves at the toll plaza, hoping to see our bus. That unfortunately was not to be. The bus had probably long crossed the toll plaza, given its crazy speed and we were stranded with no cab/bus in sight and no Plan B. It was then that the toll plaza guard took pity on us and flagged down another matador, this one slightly smaller than the previous one. When we requested the driver to give us a ride into the next town, his response like that of the previous man was very forthcoming and very positive. So we plonked our luggage onto the van and but this time as the space in the driver’s cabin was limited, we sat in the van’s open back, using our suitcases as seats. And so our bright green matador went on its way, rattling and clanging happily over the highway like Dickens’ ‘Ghost of Christmas Present’. We did get numerous curious looks, from the drivers of trucks travelling on the same road, from the straggly lot of late night passers-by hurrying to their homes in the cold and also from the occasional chai-wallah warming his hands on his tiny kerosene stove. I know we looked pretty incongruous, two city slickers sitting atop branded luggage on the back of a rusty matador van in the middle of the night.......And so that is how we entered Hooghly, over the Bali bridge, the lights of the Dakkhineshwar Kali Mandir twinkling at us in amusement.

And oh, we did reach the airport well in time, albeit after midnight. And so after a filling dinner of aloor torkari, luchie and fish fry, we dutifully rolled out the ‘dobol’ bedsheet over the sparkling (but cold) granite floor of the renovated terminal of NSCB international airport and went to sleep, dreaming of chasing errant SBSTC buses in flying matador vans over the quiet Hooghly..........

And I must not forget to write a special thanks to the driver of the matador van (the stunts-man, that is) for his sheer niceness and artless eagerness to help. I do not know his name but I remember his vehicle number, WB 11C 4840 (though I must confess that when I had memorised the number I had done so as a safeguard in case of any negative incident) and I would like to simply say, ‘Thank you’. I know he is unlikely to read my post. But I hope, that for those of you who do read it, it would help to reinforce/reaffirm your faith in the innate goodness of human beings.

You would agree with me that though I have tried to look at the whole experience humorously, it was not exactly that. Being alone and stranded on a highway in the middle of the night with tons of luggage is not something that can be considered safe anywhere in the world and especially not in India. But strangely and heart-warmingly, at no point of our hitchhiking travail did we experience any negativity, not from the drivers of the vehicles who gladly gave us a ride, not from the toll plaza guards who flagged down the ride for us and especially not from the truck drivers and their staff plying on the highway. There were not even cat calls except the one time when sitting atop the matador, we heard someone calling out ‘Airport, oye airport, airport...!!!’ It was our stunts-man,  the matador driver! He had probably stopped on the way after dropping us off at the toll plaza and now back on the road, had spotted us hitching a ride atop another van. He was waving and smiling in amusement, and as we mouthed ‘thank you’, he gave one final expansive wave and zoomed off into the night. Thank you, WB 11C 4840, may your tribe increase.............