A Visit to Mysuru

 

When on 23^rd June of 2025 I embarked on my official tour to Mysuru -the heart rendering images of the recent  Ahmedabad air crash in which, besides others, more than  260 passengers had lost their lives, was in my fresh memory. It was getting further fueled by news in which dream liners were being grounded for inspection of  some technical snags in their engines. A few  emergency landings of Air India flights had a more compounding effect. Due to this scenario I intended to cancel my air tickets  and  instead  travel to Mysuru in a train. My dear friend and colleague  who had to make his sudden plans to visit Mysuru due to the same reason also inclined to perform the journey in train as we were hopeful that we would get train tickets. This could not materialize due to non- availability of seats. Hence the journey had to be performed in air as planned earlier.

 Anyhow there being no other alternative I gathered courage to fly. I thought thousands of planes take off and land in different parts of the world 24x7. My first Principal, Mr Balraj Darolia, had once said during 1990 that air travel was the safest mode to travel. A miraculous escape of a passenger in the referred air crash also accelerated my spirit to fly.  My frailing courage got a booster dose.

 My flight from Chandigarh to Banglore  took off as scheduled at 8:10 am. I had a sigh of relief when it had a smooth take off and reached the required height. Airhostess served Hyderabadi Biryani along with a cup of hot coffee( a unique combination indeed) which I relished on board. Throughout I read a book but  occasionally I would venture to look out. I could only see clouds and clouds. Some dark-some gray and some as white as cotton flowers. Some appeared running against the air craft. No patch of earth was visible. Frequent turbulences created hair-raising effects. After 2:45 hours the plane softly touched international airport at Bangalore. I felt as if  I had conquered a war in the skies.

 The air in Banglore was cold, clean and refreshing. From Terminal -I, I had to catch a   shuttle bus   to reach Terminal-II to further board a bus from its  basement to Mysuru. The bus had to depart at 12:55 hours. I had 50 minutes at my disposal which I spent on doing walk in the waiting area. Exactly at 12:55 KSRTC Volvo  bus arrived. The journey from  Bangalore to Mysore was of nearly 4 hours. Almost more than one hour the bus spent inside Bangalore city  due to heavy traffic. Nearly after two and a half  hours  the bus stopped at  a road side kiosk near a public convenience. The passengers got down. Some went to public convenience  and others  started buying some snacks and coffee. Many passengers, like honey bees,  were huddling together to fetch snacks and tea-coffee. One kios-keeper and his only helper looked helpless as everyone wanted to be served first. I also got tempted  to have a water bottle and a hot cup of coffee.

After buying snacks and coffee passengers  again started boarding the bus. I was standing to one side of the kiosk and grabbed a water bottle and a cup of hot coffee. I handed over a Rs 50/-currency note and was expecting him to return the balance  of Rs 20/-. The helper of the shopkeeper fetched a ten rupee note and was desperately counting coins of one-two rupees. He caused inordinate delay to search the needed coins. I was increasingly finding it difficult to hold water bottle under my one arm pit and coffee in my right hand. By that time all passengers had boarded the bus and it had  started moving slowly. The driver had understood that all had boarded back whereas I was still expecting Rs 20/- to be returned. I was there at the mercy of the helper.  Also had a sip of coffee. When I saw the bus gathering acceleration I threw the cup of coffee in the air and signaled the bus to stop. I had completely forgotten Rs 20/- which I was waiting to be returned. The callous kios-keeper even did not signal the driver to stop. One passenger saw me running towards the bus and he asked the driver to stop. Had that passenger not seen me through the window I would have missed the bus which would have been a huge inconvenience to me as my luggage was inside the bus.

 The landscape on both sides of the road leading to Mysuru from Bangalore is quite enchanting. One could find huge granite mounds protruding  from lush green vegetation of paddy and sugarcane fields which had thick growth of  coconut, banana, peepal, neem, eucalyptus and so many other trees. The land holdings appear to be  small. Golden patches of paddy fields ready for harvesting under the murky sky of June presented a spectacular view. This got permanently painted on the canvas of my memory. The bus arrived Mysuru at 4.30 pm. Got an auto and reached hotel.

 The view of Chamundi Mountain partially covered by clouds with a thick green wilderness at foothill  from the window of my room got permanently marked in my memory. A hot cup of black coffee in my room in hotel reminded me irritably of the coffee which I had thrown in the air couple of hours back.