Road Trip Diaries - Day 4

Another unexpected twist in the story on Day 4 was when Mr. David asked us to leave for Dumbriguda a village near Araku, where one of Samata’s partners was active. We asked him an hour more to complete the report work we had and then were accompanied to the center of Araku from where we had to find some transport to the village. No private transport was ready to come to the place then for some reason and the only option left was an APSRTC bus.

After the train-jeep-auto-rickshaw experiences, then came the bus blues. The bus came out rather empty out of the station to the center as anticipated, but then the real thing happened. Just as we were to go board the bus… people from nowhere came for the same purpose. It almost seemed that the entire population in Araku were trying to fit in the bus (to see the Gr team :P). About 5 mins later, we could get into the bus with the baggage \m/ and as we just placed our stuff inside and found ourselves some place to stand, more people started coming to the bus, as if the bus was empty making it a constant process of relocation.

The bus then started and as soon as we could find some air to breath, the bus stopped at the Shandy, we were in the morning. The already full bus now seemed to bulge beyond its capacity. No one beside us lamented about the situation, giving us a clear idea of how common it was to them and it was indeed a good example of the transportation problems, people in this area had. When this is the situation for a normal passenger… imagine the plight of the local sellers who travel about a hundred and fifty kilometres to sell their produce in the ‘Rytu Bazaar’ s of Visakhapatnam. These people had a transport support from the Road Transport Corporation quite some time ago, after which they cancelled it owing to reasons of removing a depot close to Araku. This was a part of their cost-cutting exercise to get out of a decade long ‘loss’ history despite being rated number one in India for its fleet and coverage.

The fifteen kilometres of travel seemed more than the hours of travel and we finally reached Dumbriguda. We met some members of TERDS - an organization for Tribal Education and other issues, that would plan out our road trip for day 5. We were given an idea about the programmes TERDS was into - Drinking water supply, Grain Banks and Primary Schools.

Then came a series of shocks - the first in the series of extra-ordinary events that happened was the ’supposedly’ fully furnished office we were given an accomodation in.

OMG !

one bed - three people. Half my height, imagine our plight ! Added luxury now - open air nature call answering system.

no loo for twenty four more hours \m/

we retired to sleep ‘King Size’ with this convo :

Gr member 1 : “No bath tomorrow??”

Gr member 2 : “Bath lite. Loo where ?!”

Gr member 3 : “At the grassroots.”

//  Censored part

Gr member 1 : “Good Night.”

Gr member 2 : “Sweet  Dreams.”

Gr member 3 : “or nightmares ?!”