The long journey home

Statutory warning : A very long post. Read it only if you have time. Oh yeah & Cigarette smoking is dangerous to health.

Since this blog has been dubbed as a Hostel blog, let me cover another important part of the Hostel life - the long trips home.
Well actually I'm pretty well off as compared to other Hostelites who have to endure journeys as long as 10 hours or even more to reach home as it takes me only 5-6 hours to reach home from Pune. But unfortunately there is no train service available so I have to go by bus. And that's the unfortunate part.
The first part of the journey begins from the hostel itself. Usually we(hostelites) have a lot of luggage which basically consists of a large amount of clothes to wash. And it is pretty hard to find a rickshaw-wallah who would take us from the hostel to Shivajinagar bus station as he earns very little from such short trips. Therefore we have to walk till the bus stop, which is good in a way as it prepares us for the hardships ahead.
If you're lucky enough, you get a bus straightaway. If not, which is generally the case, you have to stand in queue to get tickets for the bus. After a long argument with the ticket vendor, during which you fight for either a front or a window seat, he finally gives you a seat at the very back. You sportingly accept the challenge and board the bus. And by then, the next bus comes along & all the people in queue behind you get comfortable seats in that one.
But still just sitting in the bus gives you a sense of achievement. You know that now you are almost sure to get home, only He can stop you from reaching your goal(He being the bus driver). You then start planning about what you intend to do once you reach your hometown. You eagerly wait to meet your family & friends & with such happy thoughts you go to sleep.
Falling asleep on a bus journey is an art in itself, & that too such a complex art that it takes years & years of experience to master it. But to hostelites, who are generally deprived of sleep, it comes naturally. However too much sleep isn't good and the government knows this. It ensures that there are enough potholes in the road to wake up even the soundest of sleepers. So you wake up from your dreams, in which you're already watching a movie in your hometown theatre, to the harsh reality. You check your watch, it's more than your an hour since you left. But by looking around you realise that you've only reached the outskirts of the city. And then you try to go back to sleep, cursing the growing metropolis that Pune happens to be.
After a few more hours you wake up & suddenly feel thirsty. That's when you realise that you've forgotten to take a bottle of water along. This is the beginning of Phase II of the journey. In Phase I you remember only your family & friends. In Phase II you remember all the things which you should have taken along but which are still lying in your Hostel room. For me the item on top of this list is my toothbrush, I always manage to forget it. But it sort of varies from person to person. However it happens all time. Believe me it's impossible to undertake a journey in which you haven't forgotten anything. But you know that now it's too late to mend & you resign yourself to the fact that you'll have to do without whatever object you've forgotten.
People usually take their walkman or their mp3 player for the journey. Personally I never take this risk, because if I forget it at my home, I'll have to spend months at the hostel without it. It's much better not to take it along at all. I prefer to take books along, time goes by quickly & it helps you fall asleep too which I believe is the best thing to do on a journey.
But after some time, you grow weary of the songs you're listening to. Your eyes start paining due to reading in a constantly shaking bus. Then finally you take the trouble to look out of the window & enjoy the scenery around you. It makes you feel much better & calmer. Then for the first time you actually experience the feeling that you've undertaken a journey, or rather you start to enjoy the feeling for the first time. You look out into the valleys,hills, forest & lakes around you, wishing that you could spend more time here without any other worries. And then you start humming songs - not always your favourites but sometimes songs which make sense at that moment. My personal journey favourite is Turn the Page by Metallica. I don't think I've ever made a journey without singing it at least once. It's not exactly a song for the road per se but the first few lines seem tailormade for journeys. I quote them here:
On a long & lonesome highway
East of Omaha
Listening to the engines moaning out as one song
As you think about the woman or the girl you knew the night before.

But your thoughts'll soon be wandering
The way they always do
When you're riding 16 hours
With nothing much to do
And you don't feel much like riding
You just wish the trip was through.

Here I am on the road again.

For me this is the most enjoyable part of any journey. You find solitude, peace & above all some time for yourself. You get a chance to think over everything you've done, everything you're doing & everything you're going to do. You take decisions after much thinking, something which isn't always possible. To enjoy a journey one must make full use of this phase ie Phase III or the thinking phase. Once you start doing so, you never get bored even if you're travelling alone. And that's a great feeling in itself.
After Phase III come Phase IV - the waiting phase. By now, you've almost reached your hometown. You now look at not the scenery but at the milestones beside the road which show you that you're reaching home soon. You start looking out for landmarks which assure you that not much distance is left now. You put back everything you've taken out & just wait, wait for the bus to reach it's destination. Then there is a quick reload of Phase I - you again start thinking of your friends & family. And as you keep thinking, the miles grow shorter & shorter.
Then finally the grand hour arrives. After undergoing many trials & tribulations you manage to reach home safe & sound. And seeing the smile on your mother's face on your arrival, you know that it was worth not one but ten journeys to come home.