The Curious Kid: Chapter 6_The City of Misery

Chapter 6

The City of Misery

[In the last chapter I had dedicated a paragraph to Thorappan. This chapter, the whole of it, belongs to Khan. When you finish reading this one, let me know if you think he deserves more.]

It kept accelerating consistently – my heartbeat. Suspense is a strange feeling; it does funny things to you. I almost lost my balance while getting into my night pants. I was in a hurry. I rushed down to their room. The ambience was perfect – dim lights and chilly air. Mahesh smiled. “Parayeda koppe…” (Tell me koppe [a Malayalam slang word]), I retorted impatiently.

Khan had forgotten to take his license and vehicle documents. I don’t remember how my face responded to the news. I couldn’t believe it. These documents were the last thing one would forget on a bike trip. Khan explained himself. He had kept the documents in his duffle bag. However, at the 13^th hour he had a doubt whether he had kept his raincoat inside the bag. He had to unload some of the stuff from the bag to dig his hands deep in and check for the coat. To his delight, the raincoat was in there. But our King Khan forgot to keep the documents back in.

When we tried a few formations on the deserted AH45… (chapter 5)

Now what? Sikkim is very strict about the vehicle documents. Besides, we were to pass through multiple states and it would be a daring adventure to ride without the docs. Khan had a plan in his mind. He had asked his friends to courier the documents to Kolkata. To whom or which address? I too had the same question. He had picked up a random hotel in the center of the city and asked the guys to courier the documents to that hotel’s address. The Blue Dart express service would deliver the consignment the next day itself. Khan’s plan was to go and wait in front of the hotel for the courier guy.

I recalled a few events from the day. Khan had been getting very many phone calls during the day. He had told us that his colleagues were contacting him for some work related stuff. As we were nearing Decathlon Kolkata, I got a call from Unni (a mutual friend of Khan, Mahesh and me, who also works in the same company as of Khan). He had tried contacting Khan and as he wasn’t responding, had called me. He told me that he was at the courier office and wanted the address to which it was to be sent. “What address? Send what?” I had no clue of what Unni was talking about. Little did I know then about the drama that was happening in the background. Unni must have sensed that I was unaware of the issue, that he cut the call.

I could connect the dots now. So Khan had asked Unni to courier the documents to ‘Hotel Floatel’ in Kolkata. He had even considered getting it couriered straight to Gangtok; thank God he settled for Kolkata in the end. Now there was another issue. The RC book (a card) had a chip in it and therefore couldn’t be couriered as per regulations. Khan went to the extreme of getting a recommendation from the MD of his company and thankfully the documents were couriered to Kolkata from Mumbai. It would reach ‘Floatel’ the next day by noon.

Khan wanted the rest of us to go ahead with the original plan and leave Kolkata the next morning itself. He would collect the documents and catch up with us in Gangtok. Mahesh and I disapproved straightaway. There was no question of letting him ride alone. It was the matter of just half a day. We could do away with the ‘rest day’ in Gangtok; but we were riding together. Khan tried his best to convince us, but in vain.

Thorappan walked in with a few kilograms of biriyani, evenly balanced in his both hands. “Nee ithu vellathum arinjo mone?!” (Did you come to know about this?) I exclaimed. I didn’t get the expected ‘surprise look’ from him (pling!). Apparently he had been informed about it, just before he left for the biriyani quest. Nevertheless, Thorappan was also in agreement to our decision to ride together.

The biriyani was delicious. Each of the biriyani box had a treasure hidden at the bottom – a boiled potato!

We woke up at 6 the next day. Our bribe (we had bribed the watchman to park the bikes inside the hotel's compound) would expire around that time (as the manager of the hotel was expected to arrive around 6:30) and therefore we had to park our bikes outside the hotel’s compound. Khan left to ‘Floatel’ at around 11. The courier was supposed to reach there by 12 PM. Mahesh accompanied him. Thorappan and I rode towards Howrah Bridge. Thorappan had the Gopro on. The bridge was huge, with its frame towering above us. We could see gigantic vessels on one side, in the Hoogly river. We crossed the bridge at a slow pace. There were footpaths on both sides; besides pedestrians, there were vendors selling snacks. Yellow Ambassador taxis plied up and down. Thus riding on Howrah bridge was off the list.

The Howrah Bridge

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Out of Curiosity

Howrah Bridge is a cantilever bridge that spans over the Hooghly river. A cantilever bridge is built using cantilevers, which are structures that project horizontally into space, supported only on one end. The bridge does not have nuts and bolts and was built by riveting the whole structure.

The bridge was commissioned in 1943 and it links the two cities of Kolkata and Howrah. In 1965, it was renamed Rabindra Sethu, after Rabindranath Tagore.

******

After crossing the bridge, we didn’t have anything to do in particular. Thorappan wanted to go another round, to get the video from another angle. After Howrah Bridge round 2, we decided to have tea. Google Ammachi asked us to take a left and we did so. Suddenly a traffic policeman stopped us and said something in an unknown language (Bengali obviously). He pointed towards something behind us at a distance. We turned back and saw a couple of cops standing in front of a traffic booth. We were signaled to go there. People around us were looking at us curiously. “Pettenna thonnunne… (looks like we are in trouble)”, I mumbled to Thorappan. We turned our bikes and went towards the traffic booth. A young officer was standing there; he had a well maintained physique and he wore sunglasses – basically he had an air of Bollywood. He spoke to us in English, informing us that two-wheelers weren’t allowed on that road. He enquired about our trip and told us that he had an admiration for riders. Thorappan and I were relieved. When we told him that we were from Kerala, he was excited. He was planning a year-end trip to ‘god’s own country’. Another officer too joined the conversation. They advised us not to take the main highway to Gangtok, as the roads were in bad condition; they gave us a few alternate options as well. When we told them that our fellow riders were waiting for us at ‘Floatel’ they gave us the directions to reach there. But we wanted to have tea before that. There was a parking lot beneath an over bridge and the cops asked us to park our bikes there and have tea from the nearby shops. However, we were a little hesitant to leave the bikes there with all the luggage on them. So we crossed the Howrah Bridge to look for tea shops on the other side. The day was getting hotter and we were already feeling tired. We ended up having cake and energy drinks from a roadside shop.

Crossing Howrah Bridge

We contacted Khan and Mahesh. They were waiting near Floatel. Khan had tipped the watchman of ‘Floatel’ and asked him to inform him when the courier guy arrived. They had then parked their bikes in a taxi stand and taken cover under trees. The taxi guys were giving them company. They even told them that they had seen a Pondicherry registered bike and another bike passing by in the morning. Apparently, we were the talk of the town (exaggeration alert!). Thorappan and I proceeded towards Floatel. We had to cross the Howrah Bridge again – round 4.

Floatel was apparently a floating hotel on the Hoogly river. Khan and Mahesh were camping a few meters ahead of it, near the Calcutta High Court. The taxi drivers arranged parking space for our bikes as well. One of the drivers’ face seemed very familiar to me. I had to rattle my brain for a few minutes to retrieve the video file (stored in my brain) that featured him. While riding towards Howrah Bridge in the morning, there had been a minor traffic jam at one point. A car was attempting to make a U-turn and the other vehicles didn’t seem to give it the time and space to do so. Then, a young man walked to the middle of the road, stopped the traffic from both the sides and allowed that car to turn and go. I had taken note of that man’s kind gesture. That kind, young man was the familiar-faced taxi driver. (A pat on the back for my brain.) Perhaps, this was when the other drivers had seen my Pondy registered bike as well. Besides taxi services, their major business was providing parking space for cars and guiding the parking. They seemed to earn a good deal of money out of it.

As we sat there waiting for the courier, it started drizzling. There were many street shops on the pavement, with make-shift tarpaulin roofs. We took shelter under them. The shops sold tea, pav bhaji and other local snacks. We had hot tea in mud cups – authentic Kolkata tea. Thorappan had four cups in a row. It felt good to experience the heritage Kolkata.

Our bikes parked in the taxi stand…

Meanwhile, we tried contacting Blue Dart. Their toll free number wasn’t reachable. The tracking system showed that the courier had reached a nearby Blue Dart office. We searched online for the contact number of that office and surprisingly found one. When we contacted on that number, a guy told us that the delivery had been already attempted once and since they weren’t able to contact Khan, they had returned it back to the office. We had to pay a fee of INR 3, for them to attempt delivery again (yes you read it right, three rupees). He then sent Khan an SMS with a link to a Google Form. It had Blue Dart’s logo at the top. He had to fill up the form and sent it back within a minute. The conversation with this guy went on for a long time - almost 30 minutes. Thorappan lost count of the number of teas he had. Khan seemed irritated. Khan then told us that the guy had asked for his Google Pay PIN. When Khan refused to share that, he asked for the ID, which Khan shared (as there was no apparent danger in sharing the ID). We felt something fishy though. Khan then got a call from another guy who told him that he was waiting in front of ‘Floatel’ with the courier. Khan went and collected it. This was when we realized that the guy whom we had contacted previously was a fraud.