17th November 2017, Phoenix Bay
I woke up before my 3 am alarm and was ready at 3:30 am. Paranoia began to set in and so, I left for Phoenix Bay. I rode in the dark by the aid of my new headlight earlier than necessary. It started to rain a little near Manjery, but I braced myself and kept going. By about 4:30 am, I had reached Bathu Basti, where I stopped to withdraw money. Chandni (our coordinator back in Bangalore) felt bad about my funding being held up and wired a little bit over to me for the time being so I could buy ship tickets for my scooter and me. Street lights began coming on around then, although I wondered why they’d turn them on now only to switch them off half an hour later.
[If you're not sure of what's happening in today's post, read about Day 8 here.]
I got to Phoenix bay before 5 am but discovered I wouldn’t be allowed inside until 5:15 am. I had to patrol restlessly outside till then while the two cops on duty tried to figure out why I had bothered coming so damn early. They wanted to know why I came all the way from Wandoor myself at an ungodly hour when I could have paid someone else to do it for me.
The ticketing business opens up all kinds of job niches. There are people you can hire to stand in line physically for you until they’re nearly at the counter when you can take over from them. There are agents you can employ to pull a bunch of shady strings to get you the seat you want. There are sneak-approach individuals who will make their way through the entrance when the counters open and plead with the first few in line to buy an extra ticket for them. Apart from these, there are the supporting figures who come by very early to sell tea and water to those in line. The counter opens at 9:00 am. At first sight of the guards/policemen/policewomen who open up the main door at 8:30, riotous excitement bubbles from within the three queues (women, men, elderly).
The human rush this time around was not as much as my last couple of attempts. I was, however, stuck behind a slightly older woman in a thick nylon kurta. She reeked. To the high heavens - of sweat far too potent to be fresh. To top it off, fumes of saliva and tobacco hit me in waves every time she turned towards me. It was a bad day to be downwind. I put my head down and tried to focus on my book and umpteenth cup of chai. Three and a half hours after the absolute assault to my senses, we were let inside where the B. O. diluted into a large volume of cooler air.
The room we’re let into for ticketing is quite spacious with multiple air conditioners (all functioning on ‘fan’ mode, so it’s more breeze than coolness) and 10-15 different counters. Each counter deals with a different travel route, further divided into the same three categories of age and sex. To be fair, the cops controlling the crowds alternate between the men, women and senior citizens when letting people into the sought-after counters.
The race for a place in the ultimate line inside the room is a battle of wits, experience and human resource. Families will bring out their biggest guns to secure a bunk for their members. These guns are often the most frail of their elderly, made to stand in the shortest of the three lines and thereby, reach the counter first. I’ve seen 40-somethings in their worn sarees and cracked spectacles trying to wiggle their way into the ‘Senior’ queue only to be caught and sent to the back of the other overflowing lines.
At precisely 9 am, they decided to turn on the computers, but the computer at my counter wouldn’t come on. A gradual congregation of employees assembled around the CPU, muttering incoherently to each other, muffled by the thick glass between us and them. They were laughing, cracking jokes, looking at their phones and passively hitting the power button over and over again to no avail. Finally, one of them went off and returned with a screw driver. He took the cover off of the CPU and then… began hitting the power button once more, only now with the hood off. Watching this unfold after four hours in queue made my knees angry. Another fifteen minutes of them pretending to fix the issue, they opened up the next counter for us and I got a ticket! I always have a relieved-yet-deliriously-happy smile on my face after getting a ticket. Few other endeavours are as fulfilling in the end.
Now that I had a place to lay my head for two days at sea, I had to buy some cargo space for the scooter. I knocked against a closed glass door behind which I could see people drinking tea and reclining leisurely for a while before I was attended to. They didn’t realize that Coral Queen would be sailing on Sunday. Once they confirmed that this was the case, they handed me all the paperwork to fill out in triplicate (how much does a scooter weigh? Without any internet, I had to get a friend from mainland to Google it and tell me it was about 110 kg).
Got out of there in a victorious flash. Stopped at Bathu Basti for breakfast and then went right back to ANET. I indulged in a rare but well-earned afternoon nap and slept through lunch. It was wonderful.
When I woke up, I took the scooter down to ghumai and caught up on some phone calls. Things were finally falling into place - I was leaving on Sunday and it felt good to have a concrete plan. Scary, but good. I’m going to miss everyone.
Over dinner, I was very seriously asked to come back intermittently, saying that I’d get unbearably lonely if I didn’t. Maybe they’re right.
I woke up before my 3 am alarm and was ready at 3:30 am. Paranoia began to set in and so, I left for Phoenix Bay. I rode in the dark by the aid of my new headlight earlier than necessary. It started to rain a little near Manjery, but I braced myself and kept going. By about 4:30 am, I had reached Bathu Basti, where I stopped to withdraw money. Chandni (our coordinator back in Bangalore) felt bad about my funding being held up and wired a little bit over to me for the time being so I could buy ship tickets for my scooter and me. Street lights began coming on around then, although I wondered why they’d turn them on now only to switch them off half an hour later.
[If you're not sure of what's happening in today's post, read about Day 8 here.]
I got to Phoenix bay before 5 am but discovered I wouldn’t be allowed inside until 5:15 am. I had to patrol restlessly outside till then while the two cops on duty tried to figure out why I had bothered coming so damn early. They wanted to know why I came all the way from Wandoor myself at an ungodly hour when I could have paid someone else to do it for me.
The ticketing business opens up all kinds of job niches. There are people you can hire to stand in line physically for you until they’re nearly at the counter when you can take over from them. There are agents you can employ to pull a bunch of shady strings to get you the seat you want. There are sneak-approach individuals who will make their way through the entrance when the counters open and plead with the first few in line to buy an extra ticket for them. Apart from these, there are the supporting figures who come by very early to sell tea and water to those in line. The counter opens at 9:00 am. At first sight of the guards/policemen/policewomen who open up the main door at 8:30, riotous excitement bubbles from within the three queues (women, men, elderly).
The human rush this time around was not as much as my last couple of attempts. I was, however, stuck behind a slightly older woman in a thick nylon kurta. She reeked. To the high heavens - of sweat far too potent to be fresh. To top it off, fumes of saliva and tobacco hit me in waves every time she turned towards me. It was a bad day to be downwind. I put my head down and tried to focus on my book and umpteenth cup of chai. Three and a half hours after the absolute assault to my senses, we were let inside where the B. O. diluted into a large volume of cooler air.
The room we’re let into for ticketing is quite spacious with multiple air conditioners (all functioning on ‘fan’ mode, so it’s more breeze than coolness) and 10-15 different counters. Each counter deals with a different travel route, further divided into the same three categories of age and sex. To be fair, the cops controlling the crowds alternate between the men, women and senior citizens when letting people into the sought-after counters.
The race for a place in the ultimate line inside the room is a battle of wits, experience and human resource. Families will bring out their biggest guns to secure a bunk for their members. These guns are often the most frail of their elderly, made to stand in the shortest of the three lines and thereby, reach the counter first. I’ve seen 40-somethings in their worn sarees and cracked spectacles trying to wiggle their way into the ‘Senior’ queue only to be caught and sent to the back of the other overflowing lines.
At precisely 9 am, they decided to turn on the computers, but the computer at my counter wouldn’t come on. A gradual congregation of employees assembled around the CPU, muttering incoherently to each other, muffled by the thick glass between us and them. They were laughing, cracking jokes, looking at their phones and passively hitting the power button over and over again to no avail. Finally, one of them went off and returned with a screw driver. He took the cover off of the CPU and then… began hitting the power button once more, only now with the hood off. Watching this unfold after four hours in queue made my knees angry. Another fifteen minutes of them pretending to fix the issue, they opened up the next counter for us and I got a ticket! I always have a relieved-yet-deliriously-happy smile on my face after getting a ticket. Few other endeavours are as fulfilling in the end.
Now that I had a place to lay my head for two days at sea, I had to buy some cargo space for the scooter. I knocked against a closed glass door behind which I could see people drinking tea and reclining leisurely for a while before I was attended to. They didn’t realize that Coral Queen would be sailing on Sunday. Once they confirmed that this was the case, they handed me all the paperwork to fill out in triplicate (how much does a scooter weigh? Without any internet, I had to get a friend from mainland to Google it and tell me it was about 110 kg).
Got out of there in a victorious flash. Stopped at Bathu Basti for breakfast and then went right back to ANET. I indulged in a rare but well-earned afternoon nap and slept through lunch. It was wonderful.
When I woke up, I took the scooter down to ghumai and caught up on some phone calls. Things were finally falling into place - I was leaving on Sunday and it felt good to have a concrete plan. Scary, but good. I’m going to miss everyone.
Over dinner, I was very seriously asked to come back intermittently, saying that I’d get unbearably lonely if I didn’t. Maybe they’re right.
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