If it weren't for the last nano second....

It's been many many Decades now. A little short of four since the time I started leaving home every day - to go to Kindergarten , to go to school, to go to college, to go to work, to go to B-school.  

This is to share my transportation story through these decades. In short , the story of my journey from base camp - every working day . 

Kindergarten - 

I started off with the school rickshaw- a semi-cylindrical tin roof mounted on a three wheeled, cycle rickshaw . Children were packed in like sardines in a can , with an iron mesh covering the sides. My mother and sister used to walk with me upto the point on the road where the semi-cylindrical spaceship would call. Most unwillingly, I would get in; I would often cry. The 10 minute journey from home was an ordeal. The way back was much better - the enthusiasm of getting back home provided the energy to not bother about the sub human conditions inside the rickshaw . The 10 minutes that seemed like 100 on the way to school passed away in a flash on the way back.  It was truly a strange transport . 

When my sister started going to school ( a couple of years after i did ) , the onward journey became much better. She was not just a fresh nursery student , she was also my mother for the journey to school and back. 

Grade -1

Things changed. I was five and half years of age . I had to graduate to the big league - to the big school. As I joined Kendriya Vidyalaya, an army truck , which was used as a school bus, was the way to get me to school . Dark, heavy and bulky it was. It had students from Grade 1 to 12 and I was the tiniest, puniest of the lot. I was Often bullied on the way - the truck was a nightmare , and not just for the horrible noise it made and for the diesel smell that characterised it. 

Grades 2 to 4 - 

Life had turned. We shifted cities, and moved to Calcutta. The school was in the same community ( estate) where we lived. So no more transportation . It was supposed to be a 7 minute walk away from home. More importantly , I was in the afternoon shift - school starting at 11 am and ending at 4 pm. The usual time I woke up for the 11 AM school was at 10.40. Once, I woke up at 10.30 and declared it as a 'world record'. On account of this timely 'awakening', the school that was a seven minute walk away turned changed distance. It became a five minute run away. Lugging a bag full of heavy ICSE textbooks, the run was a fitness trainer's dream. 

Grade 4 to 7 - 

We continued to live at the same place. However , I and my sister joined another school - another Kendriya Vidyalaya - located in the same compound . The main difference was that school started at 9 Am - how would I ever get up to make it on time at this unearthly hour ? Running skills continued to improve and I was beginning to think of myself as the next Ben Johnson; until the time he was shamed at the Seoul Olympics , two days after having set a world record 9.79s in the 100m finals . 

Grade 8 to 12 

Two times a Change of residence , and a change of school meant that my sister and I were back to the army bus ( which was an army truck ) to get to school. The nature of my running endeavours changed slightly . Instead of home to school, it became home to truck stop . There was another boy who used to board the same army truck from the location we boarded - every day morning, my mother would wake me up saying - "He is on his way to the truck stop. At least NOW you wake up". That was the clarion call - the next couple of minutes would be a tsunami of activity at home followed by the sprint to the truck stop - my father running along with me and my sister. From a distance we started waving frantically at the truck driver who had already spent a few minutes at our stop . Most of the time, we would make it ! Over time, the driver understood the pattern and started budgeting a few extra minutes for our stop. 

Even upto grade XII, Papa or Mama would come to drop me and my sister to the truck stop and make us cross the road , holding their hands . End of school and This was certainly not the greatest preparation for life on the road ...

The Engineering years - 

Location changed, a professional course started . But getting up in the nick of time did not change. Out here, it was 7.30; yes 7.30 AM that one needed to be in. I needed the maximum impact my Hero Impact bicycle could make, every single day, to get me there. The terrain prepared me for the Tour de France as I had to achieve the optimal combination of speed and control - speed to make it by 7.29.59 and control to ensure that co-inhabitants of the road ( and that included four legged bovines) were not required to go to hospital. Control was also needed to ensure that my toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving cream and razor did not fall off the small pouch strapped to the bicycle. Once I got in by 7.30, I would use the inter-class breaks to brush, shave and answer to nature. By the fourth class, I was a different person - not recognisable from the one who pedalled in by 7.29.59. 

The   return journey was a lot less exciting and I used it to practice my skills in one handed cycling, and a few months later- in no-handed cycling. While riding a bicycle with my hands off the handlebar, there was an extreme need to control the machine with the mind - so , just before a turn, I would start talking to my Hero Impact to turn and boy , it never let me down. 

Work 1 - 

Home was again close to work so it was a short walk- the only problem in making it on time for the 8 AM morning meeting was that there was a railway level crossing on the way. I had to be on the other side of the level crossing by 7.58.30, else, there would be a couple of trains that would pass by for which the gate would be closed. The sprint this time was to a nearer flagpole - if I made it before 7.58.30, I would make it at 8. 

Work 2- 

Without a doubt, this was the most challenging phase of my journey to work. 

The reason - I was going to work in a vehicle - the vehicle had one more passenger - my boss. It would pick up my boss, then me, and then take us to work. It was a 10 minute drive from where i lived and in order to reach by 8, I would not have started a second earlier that 7.49.59. My boss, though , was a thorough planner and liked to factor in all uncertainties . On my day 1, I was surprised to see him in the vehicle, outside my house , at 7.35. Would you believe it, 7.35 ? I was in my pyjamas , taking it easy as it was 15 minutes to go before zero hour. I was in the process of getting off from the bed as I saw him outside the gate - hell froze over and I had to leverage all my learning and experience of two decades to get into the vehicle by 7.41. 

This was undoubtedly a massive challenge ; the only question was how much could I push my Boss' patience. Over time, 'he' adapted and he would patiently wait for me till 7.48 before he started getting impatient . I had made him appreciate the metamorphosis of a perfectly normal , easy trip into a race against time. 

Work-3

This was in the big city, and I was very close to work - about 2 kilometres as the crow flies. The only problem - there was a river between where I lived and where office was. The river would be crossed by ferry, and there was one every 15 minutes . Experience always came in handy to make sure the jump on to the ferry, just as it was pulling out of the pier, was long enough to get on board and not fall into the river ! 

The ferry was my Ferrari . 

Work 4- 

This was the farthest I had lived from work, and the fastest way to get there was to avoid the road . My strategy to get the fastest, and therefore, sleep the most , was therefore the following - 

Walk + Metro train + taxi / hitchhike + run. 

Adrenaline continued to flow right from morning - it was the metro train ride that I loved the most. Getting in was the main issue - once in, I would love the 18 minutes it took on the train . It was cool inside the train, and there was a constant flow of people , I would check the time between stations and the timing of the announcements. All of it made for a very lively setting and made for good preparation by calming the mind to get to the next mode of transport . 

B-School

Class was a few hundred yards from the hostel. A massive distance . I used my time at B-school to optimise on my running skills. Fortunately , the classroom had some space behind the last row where I could keep my toothbrush and toothpaste. In the second year, when there was a choice of subjects , I used a simple criteria to choose what I wanted to study - something that would go well with my sleep. Marketing , Finance, Operations , Strategy - these things mattered little - none of these were more important than sleep . And therefore , a random choice of subjects ensued - almost by serendipity , it gave a flavour of a little bit of everything .  Regardless of the subjects, I continued to get better and more experienced in the race to the bench . 

Work-5: 

Work was just 2 kms away. That had never been the issue, though. The yellow coloured auto rickshaw was the mode which got me there. My workplace, and my wife's , we're both in the same direction . Our everyday breakfast was in the auto - usually Maggi noodles. The 2 km distance was just enough to complete the Maggi Tiffin box . The last stretch involved a U-turn and an additional journey time of 3 minutes. Often, I would incentivise the auto driver with an additional 10 rupees if he could cover the distance in 2 minutes. 

Often, it was not enough. Reading the writing on the clock , I would stop the auto-rickshaw on other side, jump over a high pavement and cross the road by dodging speeding cars in the other direction to make it on time to office. 

Work 6- 

The morning routine was to drive and drop my wife  ( who was carrying that time ) to her workplace and then go to mine. She would sit on the navigator seat in the car and keep putting breakfast in my mouth as i navigated some seriously notorious traffic. 

Then, a few years later, I would first drop my son to school and then go to my workplace. I found it strange that He just did not enjoy the adrenaline rush I provided to him every morning . It was the generosity of the school that kept him from being barred as there wasn't a day when we were not running in at the stroke of the school bell. 

Work 7- 

The madness of traffic made a serious dent on my sleep. So I decided to ditch driving . Thank God that Uber had been invented. In no time , I became a Platinum category customer for Uber. Some habits did not die - I would time the Uber to make sure arrival time was the nano-second prior to start of work - sometimes, things would not go as per plan. Then I would optimise the route by constantly running data analytics on the map - I would run the google map, run the apple map, and keep pestering the poor driver for constant improvisation based on whichever map was shaving a minute off the journey time . 

Work 8- 

It was what I did yesterday that prompted  me to write this travelogue on my everyday journeys . The metro train got inaugurated in Hyderabad , where I now live. I decided to go back to my favourite mode of transport to work. It was bliss . The kind of bliss that homecoming provides. I was free of the constraints of the road . And the map. I would love to write more, especially about my experience of catching long distance trains, buses, flights, cable cars.

But for now , the train announcement is for the approaching next station. 

Mine. 

So the story of catching long distance modes is for another day. 

for now, it's Sayonara. 

My parting comment to all ye who reach early - your life choices are denying you from appreciating the worth of that last split nano-second. 

Cross over . It's an exciting world out here !