No Horn Please....

posted in alayam on 6/12/06

Last week i had the opportunity to go to Cuddalore (visit cuddalore.nic.in) , a small town in east coast some 180 kms down south of Chennai. It came to limelight after the Tsunami devasted this town. It became after the visits of Bill Clinton and Vivek Oberoi. Vivek Oberai stayed there for weeks and helped the people in re construction.When i talk about Cuddalore, I need to mention about its collector Shri Gagan Singh Bedi. A dynamic person, who speaks a broken Tamil, has done a lot for the district both during pre and post Tsunami period. When i hear about him i think that India does require such Civil Service peoples.I got gone there to attend a function and i was supposed to return back the same evening. I generally prefer train tavel to bus. But since bus service were better to Cuddalore than trains, i had to travel by the bus. Moreover the NH-45 had been renovated under the golden quadrilateral scheme and it does really look good (Dunno how long it will look the same). My morning trip was very peaceful without any events.But the evening trip was a horriblr one. The reason for my journey being horrible was the bus' horn. Yes its horn only. A blaring one and it crossed many a decibels above the limit of allowed sound (I really do not know if one exists, but i know for sure, even if it existed, nobody bothered to follow such a thing). And on the top of it the driver was pressing the horn every 5 minutes. I really do not know how he could hear it daily. He should be driving that bus atleast once a day to a maximum of 3 trips. But he seemed to enjoy pressing the horn again and again. The vehicles had to give way for him, else he would keep on pressing the horn. But still he took the same time as the other buses do.

But when i came to know the reason, why he was using the horn, I was more horrified. The driver very calmly n coolly said "eppapo thookam varutho, appapo horn adipen" (Whenever i feel sleepy, I press the horn). I just could not say anything.