The Cheap Traveler.

I was one of those protected child- having a home near schools, travelling in an auto with a bunch of louder and more obnoxious children than me. (Yes, more obnoxious than me!) And, all I ever wanted was to be that kid, who comes by the school bus...Oh Oh Oh! Do I even have to tell all of you about how cool it is to come to school in a PTC bus?; barging into the class after the teacher has come and be that kid who tells us all these “bus stories” – about how a boy and a girl sat together in the bus *sarcastic gasp*, a catfight between two “enemies”, and all the “He was looking at me from the back seat, pa” stories. I. Was. Jealous. As a socially awkward kid, you can only imagine- how much I wanted this... to be popular.  I wanted to be that kind who barges in late to class, who has these weird travelling stories and oh oh oh! To travel by PTC!

So I got all my wishes granted, at the same time- I travel by PTC buses, I have weird “bus stories” to tell, I barge in late to class; I have this very weird relationship with God- he gives me everything I want, but just at the most inopportune times.  It is, as if, he is saying, “Shobitha, you asked for it, now stop complaining and be thankful that I give you everything you want.”  Who am I to question things?  I am digressing, coming back to what I really wanted to write about: my cheapness.And all I ever wanted was as a little kid was to travel. To cross the Gemini flyover, to cross Anna Nagar (In my defence, to be in one particular place for 14 years does start to suck, after a point; if all my schools, “hangouts”, tuitions, shopping- everything at one place, you kind of start hoping to break- free.), travel across the heavily congested Nugambakkam and *gasp* to cross Loyola College (which, by the way, is not so great. The sheen of Loyola College wears off after you see a bunch of guys smoking pot near the college; I have zero respect for any guy who smokes pot, just a bloody excuse to be a bad ass). Oh, the joy of being a grown up. 

 My master’s degree could  possibly be the worst thing that could’ve happened to me, it is making me doubt - my career, my sanity,  my happiness, my spirit, my health; the need to strangle everybody who talks about economics like they know it all ( very petty of me to feel this way, I know. But, I can’t help it. There are some super know-it-all kinds that have to ruin my good days!); but through it all, I have my travelling, my-pain-in-the-ass (literally and figuratively, pain-in-the-ass) travelling.   Last year, I’ve been travelling long distance to college- I’ve wasted all kind of money for autos, autos and more autos. Indians are very good with this bargaining stuff, because this is what we do- argue with auto drivers: A quintessential Chennai experience. So this year, I wanted to switch things up; I wanted to travel by buses, mostly. 

I present to you, my guide for travelling across Chennai through buses for a long, long, very long time:

·         Carry a hand sanitizer with you, all times. (You will not want to know what they do before boarding the bus!)

·         Carry your bag like it is your  child

·         AC buses are humbug. You pay a bomb to stand in a bus with sweaty, irritable and very uninteresting people who make it a point to let you know that they are sweaty, irritable and very uninteresting. So take the regular bus, instead. At least in that way, you get to meet sweaty, irritable and very uninteresting people for a cheaper fare.

·         Carry headphones- my defence mechanism. When they see me with headphones- they.leave.me.the.hell.be.  Auto drivers ignore you; people...ignore you, and the best part: you can switch off your music player, I-pod or whatever, to eve’s drop on school girl gossip, boy-talk amongst college girls; all the while they assume, I don’t understand a word of Tamil. (Apparently, all we women ever do is talk about boys, which is sick. Considering, that they don’t deserve all the talking about. Nevertheless, makes for good gossip, “study of human behaviour” and countless times, I’ve controlled the urge to turn around and advice them, but who am I to advice them about relationships?

·         Take a bus from a bus depot, always. Last thing you will ever want to do is get into the bus midway. People who are in the bus before you, look at you, like,  look- at- her- strutting- into-the-bus- looking- for- a- place- to -sit –when- I- was- here- first  look on their faces.

·         Good Idea: Carry a book/magazine/paper to read when you travel.

·         Bad Idea: Sitting next to a working mother with hot lunch boxes, which will burn your skin and you do not want get into their bad books. They will lecture you like 2^nd standard class teacher.

·         Carry loose change with you, all times. Conductors are weird that way. God forbid! You hand the conductor a 10 rupee note for 4 rupees ticket! Oh, what hell!

·         Do not try and help old people carry their bags. For some strange reason- they think, we want to steal their bags. True Story.

·         Kids in public transportation are pure nightmare. Really. I do not wish to sound like a children-hater, so I don’t wish to comment further on this. All I’d like to, kids are trouble!

·         You just start getting used to the eve teasing, people spitting ugly red slimy paan on the road and oily haired women with pungent jasmine flowers adorning their hair. That never gets tiring.

 As painful as the above guidelines may seem, but it sure as hell beats travelling in an auto with a cribbing, complaining, bargaining, perverse auto driver. At least, people in buses are people. How else do you feel the pulse of the city, unless you travel by the public transportation? Like a marriage, you have to stick to your public transportation, for better or for worse.