Jalopy ride

 In 1996, it was one of the regular business trips to meet my clients in Bangalore while I was the regional incharge of treasury business at a Bank. My travel bookings were with a budget airline that had to close down its business and this experience was a good enough indicator of the airline’s future.

The meetings went off extremely well and after a comfortable overnight stay at a hotel, I was to take the return flight at 3 pm. I reached the airport only to realise that the flight has been cancelled. Mobile phones were still rare during those days and was not made available at my level of hierarchy. I had to get back to Chennai in time for some important early morning meetings and the airline could not offer any option. I tried some name-dropping that had no effect at all. There was no hope of getting a comfortable berth in the overnight train. I had to do something and I called up the CEO of the airline, whom I had a professional acquaintance with, from the pay phone at the airport and got a generous offer of the airline arranging for a car to get me back home. A car was arranged to pick me up and one rolled in at around 06 pm. It was an Ambassador car which used to be the most comfortable car in those days.

As I sat in the car and travelled less than a kilometre, the driver informed me that he will have to take a detour to fill fuel at a fuel station where he thought the purest form was available. The car was being driven at a very slow speed in peak hour traffic. Bangalore was known for its traffic woes even in those days. I requested the driver to make a stop at Woodlands restaurant for dinner before we hit the highway. I intended to sleep my way to Chennai so that I can be rejuvenated and ready for the next day’s work. 

I noticed in some time that our car was moving at a very slow pace and requested the driver to speed up. He told me that he was a very careful driver and that he will increase the speed only after we cross the city limits. Safety being the concern, I decided to play with his sense. I dozed off for some time and then woke up to find us on the highway. But the car was still running like a tortoise. It was then that the driver revealed that the car can only be driven slowly as there was a mechanical fault in the car. I decided to accept my fate and await arrival at my destination. I slipped into sleep and after some time the driver told me that he will have to look for a mechanic to repair the car as it had stalled. I checked my clock and it was half past midnight. The driver asked me to wait in the car and set out to find a repair man.

There was no sign of the mechanic or the driver for the next 2 hours and I was getting very impatient. I had to find an alternative. I checked the driver’s seat and found that the car keys were still in the ignition slot. That would mean that I can open the hold and retrieve my carryon bag if I can find another way to reach my destination.

It was then that I saw a luxury bus coming towards me. I showed my hand to request the bus to stop and it did. It was a bus going to Chennai and it had an empty seat which was available. I looked around and found no sign of the driver. I took a decision to abandon the car and get into the bus with my bag. Mission accomplished, I slept all the way and reached as the sun made its appearance over the Bay of Bengal. 

Once I was done with my meetings of the morning, I requested the administration department of my bank to pay the airline only for one way of travel and refuse to pay for the car. I do not know till this day if the driver was only faking a mechanical error and was sitting just a few feet away from the car watching all that transpired. 

It was an experience that I would never forget as the scenario could have been anything. I could have been robbed on the highway or the car hit by a fast moving truck with me sitting inside.