MY TRAVEL EXPERIENCE

Sounds like an essay topic given to 7th grade students in school to recount on their fascinating experiences of their recent visit to their favourite hotspot. Believe me, I have not copied this from any of my cousins who are still in school writing essays on the same topics which I have written few years back during my school hood. The education system has not changed yet, I guess. The English syllabus is still the same. LOL! And I don’t want to kindle your curiosity unnecessarily by exaggerating on the topic. I confess, I haven’t been to any of ‘My Kinda place’ as you wrongly guessed. My travel experience is only about my everyday journey from home to Mount Road for more than a month now. May sound funny for city dwellers but for the one who lives in the suburb of Chennai called Greater Chennai, the one who pridely proclaims herself as a Chennaite (yet nobody still believes it and make funny faces when they hear the name of the place where I live), it bears a significance as it takes a considerable portion of my time.

And I believe nobody would have given a one paragraph explanation for having chosen a topic for a blog post. This is due to the lingering effect of giving Anna University Exams, the tradition which I have developed of late.

After receiving the darling buds of May for my first post, I didn’t want to leave my blog in the lurch with nobody visiting it. After a pretty serious post, I wanted to write a cheerful one. Neither could I write about rocket science which I dare not even think about nor on any attention-grabbing topic which my very seasoned instinctive blogger friends have already attempted. “Travel Experience”, is all what you could expect from a poor reverie blogger who is still an infant practising the first steps in the shore of the ocean called blogosphere. Thanks to Sowmiya for christening me with a new name Reverie-blogger. I love being called so.

It has been an incredible experience to travel to Mount Road, the heart of Chennai. The public transportation can be awesome if you prepare yourself for it. I have had really tough times with it, a few bad experiences too. I thought that travelling with this premonition could really make my life miserable. I was wise enough to make note of the time when the bus starts from my place and there was no need to make a beeline to the bus stop. I always chose the window seat. You have the option of choosing the seats when you get into the bus before even the driver and the conductor gets in. I made sure that I have a book to read during my travel, a fully charged cell phone, not because I get calls often , rather I own it for a very important purpose (listening to songs).

After getting the ticket, I open my book, read it for half an hour wearing the anti-glare glasses (to give a ‘getthu’ look to my fellow travellers). It serves two purposes. I get the satisfaction of well spent time and the other is a funnier one. I can pose as if I manage my time effectively. Once that is done, I get the ear-plugs of my cell phone, hop between FM stations to listen to my favourite numbers. Though I own Nokia 6030, one of the oldest models, now I am head over heels in love with it. First things in life will always have a niche in your heart. It is one of them.

With Yesudas and S.P.B in the background, rendering their golden voices to the well written lyrics, I, as a casual observer, listen to the petty conversations and the rantings of a few lady office-goers and delve deeper into the thinking mode on variants of human behaviour. Now that I have oodles of ‘my time’ still left in my hand before getting down, I peep through the window to get the flashing scenes of happening Chennai. Needless to say, Chennai has become the most happening place and has transformed into one big celebration with a cosmopolitan heritage. The modern side of the city with plethora of big buildings, posh shopping streets, and designer boutiques with fashion articles in the display makes my heart race and it’s really appealing. Sitting in the bus, I felt I can still explore the city and immerse myself in its colours and feel the smell of it. Thus my 90 minutes travel, you may call it a journey though, was carefully proportioned.

And now that it is all over and I am back to square one, I thought I would express my tribute to the small things that made my journey beautiful. After all, Life will be beautiful when you want it to be.

“Life is a succession of lessons…”

According to Ralph Emerson “Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood.”

I never thought I would write a blog in my lifetime. I am happy that I could present an incident or accident (whatever you may call it) which taught me the life’s hardest lesson as a debut post. Though I am happy about this new venture of mine, I contradict myself saying that it makes me feel sad to present death as a subject to start with.

I can’t help but mention that I haven’t witnessed a death until I was 20. I was in my third year of Under graduation. It was one bright Tuesday afternoon. It was the last day of my mid semester examinations. I was pretty tired after a few sleepless nights (busy preparing for exams), spent burning the midnight oil. I have no regrets to say that I still continue to burn the same …You could very well imagine the feelings of a person (a daydreamer .absent minded....refer to my blog URL) like me immediately after the exams. I was lost in thought. I had a mixture of feelings then, feeling of joy that I could enjoy that evening without studying, a feel of contentment that the toil is over and of course a feel of fear about the results. I was busy preparing the schedule of sleep during my travel from college to home. I was happy that I can be free at least for the next few weeks before the next exams crop up. Exams, I would say is the nightmare of most students (I plan to write one about exams in the near future).Yours truly (An exceptionally good average scorerJ ) is no exception.

Getting out of the bus I walked straight towards the pedestrian walk. As it was not a busy hour, the G.S.T road was then as silent as a grave. I then cursed myself for describing the road with the adjective “grave” because it turned out to be one. I have learnt that accidents happen on busy roads. But I was wrong. It happens in not much busy roads too. I was merrily walking without giving any damn serious thought about life, about worldly events .( I live in my own world with custom built definitions of life, exclusively created list of principles.) A passer-by who looked like a peasant in looks was also walking, say a few yards before me.

The worst part comes now. A bus which was speeding towards Trichy suddenly lost control and changed its direction towards the pavement where I was walking. It took a zigzag motion and everything was over in a matter of a few seconds. The bus didn’t come to a halt even after The inevitable happened. Death. Yes, it eroded the life of the person who was just a few yards ahead of me. I stood there motionless. The reflex action did not take its normal course. All the science theories proved wrong. I stood there, still, witnessing the aftermath of a collision. By aftermath, I mean all the unpleasant and horrible things that accompany a road accident.

I came home with a sort of bewilderment. It took me a month’s time to recover from the shock. You could imagine the plight of a girl who was happily daydreaming being stopped only by the witness of a death. The incident helped me to give a serious thought about life and its value. The deceased would have least imagined that he would become the victim of the accident. What if he wasn’t there walking before me. I felt myself very fortunate for having survived the accident. The days that followed were a bliss thinking of the life’s countless blessings and it still continues to be. I feel dejected for variety of reasons but immediately the thought of a sudden death without achieving anything in life would help regain my spirits. I started feeling fortunate for all the physical and mental faculties still vibrant in me to enjoy the life that God has given, to enjoy the pleasures of the mother earth. God has put me into this earth for a purpose and I am in search of it. Sometimes the search is also like a never ending melody. Hope this blog stands as a testimony to my favourite tagline “Life is Beautiful”.