Yes you read the title right. It took me 20 hours to reach Bangalore from Hyderabad. I am sharing my weary experience here and hope this doesn't happen to any of you. I was coming back to Bangalore after a lovely weekend with my wife. I had booked my tickets for the trip well in advance so that I shouldn't be running around for tickets at the final hour. I was happy to get the ticket in Airavath, the luxury fleet of buses Karnataka Government has to offer, but little did I know, what was in the store for me. I made it sure that it was the first bus to leave for Bangalore as I had to go to the office the next day. The bus was scheduled to reach Bangalore at 5:30 in the morning the next day. When I reached the Hyderabad MG bus stand, I was happy to see that the bus at the parking bay and was ready to leave at the scheduled time. I got my ticket checked and boarded the bus. As always there was some regional movie running on the television onboard which I never understood. The bus started at 18:00 Hrs and just as it left the city limits, I feel asleep listening to my favorite play list on my iPod. My sleep was disturbed by the yelling of fruit vendors. The bus has stopped for dinner at Hotel Munawar, 100 kms from Hyderabad. I was not hungry, so just had cold drink. All the passengers boarded the bus after their dinner and the driver started the bus. To his surprise he found that the headlights were not working. The conductor told that there is some problem with the battery and they will fix it. They tried for nearly two hours and finally said that they cannot fix it. Then they said they will arrange for another bus and we had to wait. We waited till 1:30 at night and finally our replacement came. It was an ordinary bus, but no body complained as everyone had to reach Bangalore. We continued our journey and in the morning some 50 kms before Chikballapur the bus came to a stop. Nobody had a clue, what had happened. Now the new driver told that there is no diesel left. What an excuse! People got frustrated and began scolding the driver. He said he will get the diesel as soon as possible and again we waited for about an hour and the driver came back with diesel. On the way they went to a bus depot at Chikballapur and filled the tank. I prayed to God; “No More Stops, Please”. I was totally exhausted and hungry as I had skipped the previous day’s dinner. Finally the bus reached majestic bus stand at 14:45 Hrs. It took nearly 20 hours for me to reach Bangalore from Hyderabad. I was very angry and asked the driver where to lodge the compliant, they said there is counter for registering complaints but none of the other passengers were ready to come with me. Some of them had to go to Mysore, rest of them said it’s already very late and they had to go. I came home and registered a complaint at the KSRTC website, but as I knew, nothing happened. I wonder is there anyone who really cares for the complaints that come in. I hope this to be the last time I had to travel like this and never again happen to me.
