Footloose programme - "Cauvery Fishing Camp", Part II

For Part I follow this link:
Footloose programme - "Cauvery Fishing Camp", Part I

Nov 26, 0640 hrs

I reached the office 5 minutes earlier to the not-so-expected-departure-time. As it always happen some of the people haven't yet turned up and one of them is a project manager. And the result, we gotta wait for them. There were 2 buses one a full sized one and another a mini. Our big boss also turned up b4 the scheduled departure time and still the manager is not in sight. After sometime we decided to get our places in the bus and van.

I went to the van since most of the people whom I knew entered the van. I was sitting with a guy who started sleeping even b4 the bus started. I didn't wanna sit there anymore and was finding a place to change. And a row b4 mine a gal colleague of mine was sitting all alone in the 2 seater van. She too wanted some company and she was praying that our big boss should not sit with her. Fortunately our big boss spared her and took a seat alone in the front and I ditched this guy to get seated with that gal colleague. I felt bad ditching him but anyway he didn't mind that and went into descent(sleep) again.

After an hour or so the person whom we were expecting turned up and the time when the buses started was around 0830 hrs. Good! Atleast the buses moved atlast. Everyone in the buses were very hungry and I could feel rabbits in my stomach. The bus left before our mini and somewhere near the Hosur Road it stopped and the people in that bus bought biscuits and fruits. We too got some from them. So the snacks will keep us quiet till we reach the place by 1100 hrs. Oh!!! I missed one main thing that happened in that small halt the buses took. Another pretty colleague hopped in to our mini from the bus. She didn't find a gal company in the bus so she changed the vehicle. Here in this mini she didn't find a place to sit except for the lone seat which I left ditching the guy. She sat in that place and I didn't feel bad since she is still very close to my seat.

The travel again resumed. Myself and my colleague next to me were just chatting about all the things in the world. Right from movies to places. I didn't want to doze off as I feel giddy whenever I take short naps. The distance between our office and the place is 135 Km and the roads were too bad. So we expected to be there by 1115 hrs. The travel was not so pleasant except for the company I got. She reminded me of the song "Yuhin kattu jayega safar saathu chalne se" from "Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke". Atleast I was enjoying the company, I don't know how she felt ;) I was giving all my abnoxious fundas to her.

And in between there were some Antakshari going on in the mini. I was singing for both the teams. I wud say I was humming for both the teams as I don't know all the words in those hindi songs. Some of the songs were so old I never heard of them. This way we reached the place which was 135 km by 1125 hrs. We felt relieved when the bus entered the cottage compound there. The place is "Cauvery Fishing Camp" but in Bheemeshwari. None of us knew that there were 3 "Cauvery Fishing Camps" around Bangalore. Our coordinators were waiting in "Cauvery Fishing Camp", Galibore. To add oil to our emotions there was no network in any of the phones we got. Fortunately the place had a land line and we called and enquired the coordinators. We found that we were off route by 80 km. Thats too huge in that hilly place.

After a 20 min break, the bus and the mini started again. We were sure that this one day trip will be over even b4 it will get started. All were feeling hungry and our big boss cracked a stale joke of cannibalism. None of the people in mini laughed. But I shud admit that she always taught us a lesson wherever she could. She said we shud plan properly at the beginning of the trip and shud follow similar things while starting a project too(Afterall its a team building exercise!!). I became the unofficial photographer of our group. I was taking all sorts of pix wherever I found it interesting. After 45 min from the resumption, the buses stopped abruptly in the middle of the road. A road block.... Some one cut a huge tree and put it across the road. Now we were double sure that we gonna pack our bags back home. Our big boss was full of hopes that she waited near the tree and expected the people who were working on it to remove it off the road asap. I took some snaps of the tree trunk across the road and the people working on removing it.

To all our surprise the road block was removed in minutes. And we were all ready for travel again. But some of our colleagues slipped out for smoking and were not to be seen. The mini travelled back in search of them and myself got into the bus with my big boss and some other colleagues. The bus seemed to be empty. Then only we realized how many people are missing from the scene. Our bus stopped so that the mini could catch up. After 5 min the mini turned up and the people standing in the mini got down to the enter the bus. The mini carried twice the amount of people it carried earlier. And all the people who belonged to the mini returned back.

After a painful ride of another 2 hrs, we reached the expected place by 1300 hrs. Wait Wait... the coordinators said. We haven't reached the exact place yet! We gotta travel another 9 km inside to reach the river banks. The authorities in the Fishing camp had their own vehicle to transport people as the road is too bad and only their drivers could drive there. They didn't have enough vehicles to transport all 55 people. So they were doing trips again. I was fortunate that I went in the first trip itself. It is another 30 min trip in that bumpy road. Atlast we(the first set of people) reached the place by 1325 hrs.

Rest in tomorrow's post....