Roads, airlines and kingfisher

I have been traveling to and fro, from  Bangalore to Chennai and Coimbatore the past two weeks. The journeys were by car mostly along well laid out toll roads with the attendant petrol stations, refreshment joints et al.  During one of these road journeys (I am still on the road) I was transported back in time to early 1960s to my days at the boarding school in Kannur.

The school was about 30 miles from my house. The mode of transport was by a modified Willys Jeep / Hindustan car / Bus. Mid-term travels to and from home were almost always by bus. There was no direct bus between Kannur and Kallachi (my town) necessitating a transfer at Tellichery at the mid point of travel. The interesting part of the travel was between Telllichery and Kallachi where we had to  cross a perennial river – in those days the rivers in Kerala were overflowing all through the year! What lend an adventure tone to the bus journey was there was no bridge over this river then. The bus along with its disembarked passengers was ferried across the river on a raft!!! The passengers debussed on the near bank and while they had a typical and tasty cuppa  while the bus was ‘loaded’ on to the raft. Depending on the current in the river, the raft took about 15-20 minutes to reach the far bank. The connoisseurs had the option to partake another cup of tea before the bus was readied for the second half of its journey. As an alternative route one could take the coastal road traveling for an additional couple of hours, an extra 15 miles alongside the sea and an additional 10 miles inland. Both journeys afforded an experience of a verdant country side and my favourite ‘ocean’, The Arabian Sea.

‘Seventy three rupees’; it was the driver announcing the charges to be paid at yet another toll gate we had cross.. The drive of about 350 kms took us about six hours. A major change from my school days. The bridge over that river came up when I was in the IMA. That was about the time,  possibly, when Vijay Mallya was burning his father’s hard money racing in racy cars on a disused airfield on the outskirts of Calcutta (now Kolkotta) (refer a forward from Bhadana on this matter). Because of some people like us Mallya’s inherited liquor business is flourishing. Frankly, with my knowledge of business et al as on day, I feel any of us would have done a lot better inheriting that business  - that is in itself is saying a lot.

With toll roads like the ones I travel on. a lot of air travel between B towns can be reduced and finally eliminated. Probably India can do without ‘Kingfisher’ – the airlines !!!