Are all KPN Buses safe to travel?

Recently I happened to travel from Karaikudi, Tamilnadu to Bangalore in KPN travels. The bus started from karaikudi around 8:30 pm. The journey looked smooth in the beginning. But around 12:15 am the bus stopped in the middle of some deserted place. The engine was still on. There was nothing around except few trees. The only thing we could see is a railway gate far away. To start with I felt that it was OK because stopping in the middle was common in KPN buses. 45 mins had passed away but the bus was still there. I felt something was wrong and told my friend Vignesh to check what was happening. He went and tried to open the cabin door, It was locked. He banged twice on the door but nothing was happening. Then, he came back to his seat. We decided to wait for another 15 mins. Most of the people in the bus were sleeping only few thought something was wrong but were still hesitant to find out what it was? Only one lady in the front got up and started banging the cabin door from where there was no reply. Looking at this me and Vignesh felt something is really wrong. We started banging the door hard. At last the cleaner guy opened the door. He looked so tired and sleepy, he dint even know that the bus was on a halt. Further to our surprise we found the driver sleeping on the seat. We tried to wake him but failed. We realized that the driver and the cleaner were drunk. We dint know what to do for a while. Then we called up the KPN customer care. They wanted to talk to the driver who we could not even wake up.
Meanwhile 2 people on a bike where passing by. We stopped them to find out the place where we were. We were shaken when they told that they saw the driver in a bar in Karaikudi. The 2 people woke up the driver. The first thing the driver said was
"This is not my bus and I dont know who you people are".
We were shocked to hear this. Then, people told to switch the engine off, for which the driver replied its off only. We pour water on the drivers face. The KPN customer care told to somehow manage till Salem with the drunken driver and then we will provide an alternate driver. It was a 3hrs journey from that place to Salem. We had no choice, we decided to keep an eye on the driver while he was driving. We reached Salem safely. The KPN authorities denied an alternate driver as they stated the drunk driver has brought us safely till Salem. We were not in a position to argue as many people wanted to reach Bangalore soon. Then we traveled with so much fear. The bus stopped in Adayar Anandha Bhavan near Krishnagiri. We got another driver there. Then, at last we reached Bangalore safe around 9:45am. The bus was late by 3 hours. It was a dramatic experience. The only thing the KPN authorities did was to call every 2hours asking where the bus was.

August - Month of Birthdays

This is August and the month of Birthdays has already begun. There are 9 birthdays from my class, 2 seniors as far as I know and a school friend celebrating their birthdays in this very month. And putting a little mathematics into it its 1 birthday every 3 days. There will be bunch of mail threads flooding into my mail box. Hope there will be few parties too. Gonna have a exciting month..

My Life @ Present

How technology solves

Recently I traveled from Erode to my home which is a small village after Dharapuram. I went in a government bus. The conductor had an electronic ticketing machine. I was watching the conductor so closely as I was quite surprised that even these buses that don't connect big cities have such technologies. As I was thinking so, I noticed the conductor checking the machine after every stop and counting the number of heads in the bus. Then, suddenly in the middle of the journey the conductor said that two people have not taken the tickets and asked them to get the tickets immediately. Nobody responded to it. Then, he asked the driver to stop the bus and asked everyone to show their tickets.And very soon, the conductor was able to track down the two people who did not purchase the tickets. It was the machine that was able to track and tell the conductor how many people were inside the bus between two stops. Traveling without a ticket has become impossible now. Thanks to the simple technology thats able to solve everyday problem.

A small story

Lord Buddha used to travel to many villages preaching his philosophy along with his disciples. During their journey, they don't carry any food with them. They usually beg for food on their way and eat it. Once he and his disciple where on their way to a small village. As usual Lord Buddha asked for some food to a lady outside the village. The lady got very angry and started scolding at Buddha very badly. But Lord Buddha did not utter even a single word. He silently left the place. The disciple was very much surprised by the behavior of Buddha. He immediately asked Buddha, why he dint react and told that he should have shouted back on the lady. Now Buddha wanted to teach a lesson to his disciple. So he put his hand into his bag and took a handful of rice and gave it to the disciple. The disciple immediately received the rice in his hands. Now Buddha asked him to return the handful of rice back. The disciple gave the rice, but Buddha never lifted his hand to receive it. The disciple told Buddha to lift his and receive the rice. But Buddha did not move. Then, slowly Buddha enlightened the disciple saying "I never put anything into my heart that makes me angry or unhappy. Its always under my control to take things into my heart. I did not take into my heart what the lady scolded. And that's why I did not react". That day, the disciple learnt a beautiful lesson.

Sunfeast Majja Run 2009

The twitter is so fast... as gmail goes down...

Today being a friday afternoon I wanted to relax apart from my usual work at office. I wanted to check my inbox in gmail. I was logging into my account but unfortunately it showed a server error. I tried 3 or 4 times but my efforts were in vain. Immediately i wanted to find out whether gmail is down or there is some problem with my account. Now twitter was my only hope. Opened twitter searched for gmail down and to OMG i found more than 20 tweets saying gmail is down.. below is the snapshot from twitter