We started from Hyderabad on the morning of 11th July, 2010. It had rained heavily throughout the night and the morning was colder. Me and my family had planned to travel down to Bangalore and experience our first long drive on our vehicle which is a Maruti Alto - The 'lets Go' car!
....From Hyderabad to our House at Bangalore its around 600Kms....The highway for most of its part is very good...except for some small diversions (60-70 kms stretch). We started at 7 in the morning and reached our home in Bangalore by 6:30 PM.......it took us 1:30 hrs to wade through Bangalore traffic! ...
The travel through the highway i.e NH7, was an amazing experience. Recent monsoon showers had opened up in front of us lush green mountains, with picturesque green farmlands and it seemed so tranquil away from the city noise....Remember this was the sceneray that we saw while driving at 90-110 Kms/hr!
After reaching Bangalore...we all took some rest...and went for dinner in night at 9:00 in one of the Bengali speciality restaurants in Kormangala.
So at this point you might think that my narration of the whole episode should end, but there was more masala (spice) to it.....
While returning, one of the front tyres got punctured around 100 mtrs from our house at around 11 in the night (fortunate that it was near our house)...so me and my brother-in-law changed the tyre and then we bought the car to our apartment ...it was 11:45 by then...but that wasn't how the ordeal ended....the final cherry was put when we locked the key inside the car, the duplicate key resting peacefully in Hyderabad at my in laws home....though we had the option of going to bed and forget about it till next morning, but unfortunately we had kept the stereo and lights on, which would have drained the battery overnight and would have added to our woes in the morning....it was 12:00 in the night!
We tried what ever we could,...and then a bright idea came to me..I called up the Maruti roadside service and to my surprise they came within 25 minutes...and everything came to an end by 12:45 in the night...fortunately my wife served us with hot tea and then we watched the FIFA worldcup final till 2:30 in the morning.....!!
So the saying goes.....the journey matters and at times its exciting till the very end.........
