After pestering all my wing mates and atleast half of my batch mates for one month or so, finally I decide to go to Thirupathi with whosoever is ready to come and luckily, I get 4 others(Murty, Nikil, Sheshank and Tom) to make the trip lively. The whole thing started off three days before starting when nikil suddenly pops out saying there is a serious trouble for our travel as planned. Stunned were we, to listen that his problem was that there is no A/C first class train ticket available to Thirupathi on that day. It took us almost an hour to explain him that Thirupathi is just a three hour travel and you even have something called buses, if needed. So, then it was upto me to show the exact plan of the whole trip. Except for the change in mode of travel(from train to bus) there isn't any change that we made. According to our scheduler Nikil, we are expected to start off at 3:30 PM on Saturday at the institute and reach bus station by 5 and then the rest of travel.On Saturday, by the time I wake up at 1PM, there is a message on my mobile which gives me the liberty to sleep for one more hour as our starting time has been postponed by an hour. So, I woke up, had something called Lunch and then started packing that simple luggage into my bag and to my horror the time was reading 3 45 already. So, I finished things off quickly and expecting someone to call me and yell for being late, I got ready. Surprisingly, my mobile was silent, so I just wanted to see other's status and to my horror, the scheduler has himself forgot that he got a game on that day and cant make it before 5. So, me and murty wait at the boarding point till 5 30, letting three insti buses(which lead to gate) pass infront of us. Finally comes everyone, but things aren't meant to go our way that day; Nikil's spects were missing but because he was already late, he came without them and as the fourth bus was standing in the bus stop without the driver in, we asked him to get back to his room and see if he can find any. The moment he left to his room, the bus driver made his call and he started off. But this time, we weren't willing to let the fourth bus to move on, so we four got into it leaving a message to Nikil to join. Luckily, there was one more bus right behind and Nikil got into that, and yeah without his spects.
Finding ourselves outside the institute was one big relief that we actually started our whole journey. Then we take a typical heavily loaded Chennai bus, which after an hour's travel drops us at Bus Station. By the time we reached it was 7:30, just two hours late than what we planned. There we were somehow lucky on that day (atleast till then) to get a comfortable AC bus to Thirupathi at an affordable cost. We boarded happily, hoping the bus to start by 8 and reach destination by 11, but the driver felt that was too early and started at 8:30. For the initial half hour, we started playing card games like Adanga, Literature and being an SVTC bus, may be he thought its the time to give us the real Tamil feel and started a tamil movie with full volume and as the day's luck, with main speakers right above our seat, we were compelled to stop the game and either try to understand movie or sleep. The other four preferred the second option, but I never got sleep. I try to understand the movie and was framing the story really well, until I suddenly realise, its not one movie but bits and pieces from different movies. Somehow, everyone except for tom woke up and we started talking and yeah on the topic "Love or arranged marriage". This went on till we had an unnecessary loong dinner break after which it was a short journey to Thirupathi. After reaching Thirupathi, luckily things were as planned and we got a room for five of us where there was a fan, but it was just for the sake of saying. We had to turn around regularly to ensure there is something called air to both the halves of the body.
As the whole trip went on, we again woke up late but yeah by 5 we were ready(expected was 4). We started off from hotel and in no time we got a sharing auto to Alipiri(starting point). During the travel, suddenly Sheshank shouts "My cell phone!!!!!", his phone slipped off his pocket and fell on the edge of the road, itseems. So we stop auto, murty and he run back and search, in meanwhile, Tom states "I actually saw a black thing right at the intersection, why dont you check there?" I go to search and can find nothing, we searched around, we walked all over but couldn't find, suddenly someone's brain worked and they tried calling number and the ring tone was heard right inside the auto. Phew!!! Trust me.... only if it wasnt just half hour I woke up, I would have shouted at the top of my voice, to control that relief. So, we reach Alipiri and by breaking a coconut we start our climbing.............
The first gopuram
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