DEVELOPING GUNDLUPET AS A MAJOR RAILWAY HUB

 GUNDLUPET is a township at the crossroads of Bandipur forests some one and a half hours journey from Mysore.For good or for bad the broad-guage railway link on this sector is upto Nanjangud thereafter the railway link extends towards Chamrajnagar.

Gundlupet has a key strategic role  as buses towards Ooty and towards Calicut have to pass through this township. A broad guage railway link to the township of Gundlupet will have many advantages more than anything else it will ease the population load on Mysore Bus stand and also the Mysore railway station.Instead of travelling to Mysore interim populace could directly travel to Gundlupet  by train and proceed to Ooty or Calicut by bus. A major Government bus stand can be planned at this place with pathways and link to the Gundlupet Railway Station.

Railway links to places like  Sultan battery (Ganapativattom) and Vythiri in Wayanad through the forests can also reduce travel time to Calicut and other towns in Kerala. The Government is planning a tunnel from Meppadi in Wayanad to Anakampoyil in Calicut through the Western Ghat mountains the tunnel being some ten kilometers long..the tunnel could also accomodate the Railway line.

For reasons unknown such a project has not been undertaken as the time and expenses to lay such a railway line  would not be much considering it is level land and  could help propel  the economy of this sector.

MANATHAVADY IN WAYANAD

 

The name Manantavady rings bells in my mind.In October 1983 or so S V Giri and myself reached at around 8pm  the old Calicut bus stand to board the 9pm bus to Bangalore but the bus was full and I still remember the blunt way in which the bus conductor shut the door of the bus and the bus took-off almost instantaneously...we waited upto 2:30 am in the Calicut bus stand under difficult conditions to board the early morning Karnataka SRTC super delux bus that would reach Calicut from Ernakulam around this time. Eventually we did board this bus reaching Bangalore at around 11 am.

The irony of the situation is that at  9 pm  there were several buses parked in the Calicut bus stand bound for Manantavady. For all Practical purposes we did not know where this place Manantavady was. Many people who visit Calicut for the first time would be in such quandary and must not make the oversight that we did.

Manantavady is a town in the Wayanad district of Kerala up the Western Ghat mountains.(Kalpetta is another town close to this place). It is a town on the same axis as Virajpet or even Madikeri. The principal fact of the matter is that Manantavady is relatively very close to the city of Mysore. Manantavady has a small befitting Kerala SRTC bus station. There are two routes from Manantavady to Mysore. One through Nagarahole forests through H D Kote (HeggadaDevana Kote) which should take three hours and another route through Gonikoppal which should take some four hours. Manantavdy also has a link road to Tellicherry.

Any one stranded in Calicut bus stand can try this route too to come to Bangalore. Calicut to Mananthavady to Mysore and to Bangalore.

SONAL MANSINGH VISIT REC NIT CAMPUS

 Sonal Mansingh exponent of Odissi dance visited REC campus in 1985 or so and gave a spirited  Odissi performance for about an hour under the aegis of SPICMACAY Society for the promotion of Indian  classical music among  Youth.

The Auditorium was full and the District Collector of Calicut  along with his wife were present in the front seats. I was sitting somewhere in the middle. It was basically well attended function. She had brought with her set of musicians  and the vocalist and the violonist were simply splendid.

But for an unsavoury event. She noticed some cigarette smoke from some students who were smoking in the back row and stopped here dance to admonish them. The students put off their cigarettes in panic and then was a security staff walking around to see if any one was smoking.

There was a Question-Answer session  and  I asked her what she thought was the difference between Western and Eastern dances and she very nicely replied the basic difference in the use and spread of hands which were more prominent in Eastern dances,

I remember accompanying the Vocalist and the Violinist all the way from the Auditorium to the Guest house. I remember Lalitendu Panda was very excited because the dance form of Odissi belongs to his home state of Odisha and remember seeing him converse with Smt. Sonal Mansingh in their language.

Such events must be encouraged within Campuses which will give Students and others feel of Indian art forms and the one organised at our college of our times is truly memorable and praise-worthy.

MY ARTICLE ABOUT VASCO DA GAMA

It was in 1997 or so I got an information from Dr. Janardanan of  NIT Calicut that a souvenir was being released in Calicut Kozhikode to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the visit of Vasco Da Gama to the shores of Calicut which happened on  20th of May 1498.The souvenir was to be released by the Indo-Portugual Chamber possibly under the aegis of  the embassy of  Portugual in India.

I wrote an article about VASCO DA GAMA  which I found later was the first article in the souvenir. A copy of the souvenir was sent to me by post.Sadly later I lost the copy that was sent to me.In retrospect I believe it to be a very well written piece of  matter.

If any one who is reading this has a copy of this article from anywhere around the world kindly get in touch with me.

KSTDC...KARNATAKA STATE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

.....

...The above is a KSTDC  bus..KSTDC means  KARNATAKA STATE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION. It has an office at George Oakes Building  near City Market opposite BBMP at N R Square. The word George Oakes would need some research as to what transpired in this building in Victorian days..apparently it must have been some kind of a trading office.This building is also called Badami House.Contact Phone - ( 080) 4334 4334

This KSTDC bus station fills me with nostalgia..there used to be a KSTDC bus to CALICUT in the late 1980.s only to be discontinued later and I have traveled by these buses many times and the Calicut buses were largely luxurious and comfortable. One good thing to my observation  is that these buses are never late .

On the 14th of August 1986 I was travelling from Calicut to Bangalore in a KSTDC bus....there was a junior male student alongside and Sheela Furtado and a junior architecture female student who lived somewhere near Cox town were seated in the front seats. Somewhere as the bus approached the Bandipur forests trucks and buses approaching from the opposite direction were constantly warning us of a lone tusker somewhere adjacent to the road. Many a times I have encountered Elephants on this route in the day-time but this was in the night around 2 -o-clock and I being of a more inquisitive variety moved into the drivers cabin and could see the tusker on the road almost into half of the road but the driver of the bus who appeared to be adept to such occurrences did not halt but deviated around the elephant in a quick swirl and sped ahead.

I must have traveled by these buses many times..and remember learning to draw a pin-type insulator sitting in the waiting hall of this bus station and noting to my charm that the same question appeared in the Drawing Exam next morning.

I don't know how the Services are now...KSTDC regularly conducts various kinds of tours. Please visit the web site  http://www.karnatakaholidays.net/      and travelling by them at-least once is worth-the-while.

NOTE:THE NEW LOCATION OF THE HEAD OFFICE OF KSTDC IS IN THE BASEMENT OF YESHWANTPUR  BMTC BUS TERMINAL CLOSE TO SOAP FACTORY METRO STATION.THE NEW WEB ID OF KSTDC IS kstdc.co  AND CONTACT NUMBER (080)4334 4334.

The KSRTC bus stand at Calicut

The KSRTC Kerala State Road Transport Corporation bus stand of Calicut fills me with both agony and ecstasy considering the various hits and misses of Buses while travelling out of Calicut. This bus station is a small L shaped structure that can handle some six columns of buses with congestion. A announcer constantly announces on the microphone the buses parked at the bus stand and those about to leave. KSRTC buses are a genre by themselves and a marvel of Maintenance ; most of them being old buses but refurbished from time to time and made highly road worthy.

By the way the best bus station I bear evidence of surprisingly is Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh. This bus stop is spacious and elegant in design with a well maintained dorm in the first floor and I have found the general behavior of the staff of APSRTC more courteous and considerate.

I mentioned "hits and misses"  above..this means that I narrowly missed boarding some buses in a hurry by a whisker and rarely on being at the bus stand got a bus inadvertently. Calicut city of our times in the mid 1980's had two bus stands..the KSRTC bus stand and a private bus stand at Palayam junction. A new bus stand at the end of Mavoor Road came up in 1987 and was designed by Dr. Vincent Paul of the Civil Engineering Department of REC they say.

My earliest brush with this bus stand and its affairs was in 1983 when somewhere out of the blue Giri my room mate and myself planned to visit Bangalore and reached the bus stand planning to take the 10:00PM bus which is also called the Paper bus meaning that this is the bus that brings Malayalam newspapers to the city of Bangalore and we has also bought coupons for the same but could not board the bus as it was already full. I beseeched  the conductor using many ways possible to let us inside but leading to no avail. Both of us could not hide our disappointment. This means waiting until 3:00 Am in the bus stand for a deluxe bus that comes from Ernakulam and bound for Bangalore via Calicut. I cannot forget this sordid experience hanging around in a bus stand just walking up and down trying to while away five hours. At around 2:45 I noticed the bus entering the premises and jumped into it at the earliest opportunity and I found there were many contenders for the few seats in the back. Previously having had experience jumping in and out of the BTS buses of Bangalore the experience came handy. I seized seat number 23 and reserved 24 for my friend and both of us felt relieved when the bus finally crawled out of the stand reaching Bangalore at 12:00 PM.

The second ordeal was few years later reaching the bus stand in the night from Ernakulam well after the last bus to REC had vanished. This means waiting up to 4:00 AM from 10:00 PM a full six hours or so at the stone benches of the Calicut bus stand. I find one thing very good at this bus stand and I appreciate it and request that the same trend be maintained...namely the punctuality and rigor for schedules. Some kind of Six Sigma works here unlike some other bus stands of our country. I reach REC Calicut at around 4:45 AM when it was unearthly and quiet . The nights are ruled by Jackals in REC and I found myself encircled by a few jackals one of them howling at me and I howled louder than them and within some seconds found no trace of them. Few months later I missed the 3:00 AM bus I was talking about by a whisker seeing the bus make a quiet exit from my Auto and I could do nothing about.

My senior David from Coimbatore and myself share a common experience waiting in the bus stand for about  two hours early in the morning ...I having reached the spot from Bangalore by the 6:00PM Ernakulam bus and he having reached from Coimbatore and both of us walking to our respective hostels from the bus stop of REC.

This is the Kozhikode Calicut bus stand of our times and an important nerve center for students of our college ...REC buses coming at the right end of the stand and the ticket costing Rs 1 :65 to REC and some Rs. 35/- to Bangalore..the green color express bus..the red colored Fast passenger bus..some white colored Deluxe buses..the drivers clad in khaki uniform with their shirts partially unbuttoned occasionally puffing a beedi ..the continuous announcement on the public address system ..the tea and fried banana in the tea store at the corner..some foreigner tourists asking for the route to Mysore or ooty..the inquiry counter constantly grappling with schedules and the bursting sound of a suddenly cranked engine the Calicut Bus stop of KSRTC had them all.