or How to Strangle a Rickshaw Driver Because He Just Wants Some Business, Tells You He Can Take You To The Pickup Place, Even Agrees On a Price but Then Gets Lost and It Turns Out He Didn't Have the Slightest Idea Where You Wanted to Get to in the First Place
or Why I've Used Up Every Single Romanian Curse Word and Phrase Known to Romanian Man While Applying Them on Said Rickshaw Driver, Especially After He Decided to Up the Price a Little (Saying He Wasted Too Much Petrol Driving Aimlessly Around), and Therefore, Thought It Wise to Express My Displeasure and Disagreement
or Trying to Not Lose the Bus That Cost Me About as Much as Two Nights in Some Hotel Because Some Rickshaw Driver Thought it Funny to Fuck With My Frustrated Self
And that's just the end of my stressful day in Hyderabad, but quite enough for a post title.
if you're ever in the mood for a rushed and hectic trip through a little rising star of the Indian hi-tech urban clusters, try Hyderabad and the suspense of its unknowables.
Because four hours of fussing, turning and commuting from one railway station to another (and, trust me, it's not like the next one is just around the corner, except maybe when the corner is 3-4 km away), yes four (4!) hours is not enough to settle the mere matter of purchasing a train ticket for the same night out of the damned place to another place.
People with experience in Indian Railways matters will surely laugh at my gullible hopes in imagining that such an endeavor can easily be solved! I cannot begin to emphasize how these people pretend to know stuff but are, in fact, clueless. After several visits to his counter (and lots of waiting in line at other counters and not getting there because I realized mid-queue that it's useless to still wait at said queue), this particular employee tells me in a hushed you-did-not-hear-this-from-me voice to go to the main train station in Hyderabad to maybe get a special, last minute ticket (this whole discussion having taken place in Secunderabad, obviously, Hyderabad's hapless relative).
So, after countless checking if Indian queues actually work (which they sort of don't), the Chief Reservations Supervisor tells me to go to yet another station in Secunderabad, where somewhere on the first floor there will be somebody who can maybe help. If you think this sounds complicated, reality was something like putting on your favorite prepubescent shoes and running around the block in them. I have no doubts that, sometime after the sixth hour things would have fallen into place, but my nerves got the better of me and I decided I'd prefer to visit something in this place.
Meaning: I took my backpack and away we went in the heart of the city to the Andhra Pradesh State Bus Stand, where I was informed that there is no direct bus going to the required destination and, if I wanted, I could get a private bus to take me there. Only, as I've already mentioned, that bus fare's price kept changing from one minute to the next and ended up costing about a week's accommodation in Hampi, or what I wouldn't give to see a Ştefan Bănică Junior concert (III category ticket). Still, we shook hands on it and then I proceeded to inform the employee that I intended on visiting Ramoji Film City before my bus left. After he changed some facial colors like you would flick through a menu, he firmly forbade me to go. Because it takes two hours by local bus to get there, minimum four hours to tour the entire thing and another two hours to get back. I might just pull it off if I were to take a taxi (that is: not rickshaw, but a full-sized car) for about as much as i would have given for a byron concert - twice! I tried explaining that I still have six hours to go, if not more and, if he would just let me go, I would not waste time with discussing it but actually doing it, but all was useless. I eventually broke loose and started pedaling towards the local bus station.
Let me tell you something about this matter of the film city: apart from Bollywood, there are other capable companies that can provide nourishment for Indian television aficionadoes, one being the Ramoji company. Its film city has been acknowledged by the Guinness World Records as the world's largest film studio complex. Get ready to experience larger-than-life entertainment, thrills, fun rides, food and excitement! - or so their flyer states. So it's obvious that I wanted to get a piece of the (movie) action!
It did take an hour to get there and I spent about three inside and it was quite enough, as it basically is a half-breed between an actual movie studio and Disneyland and it's a favorite holiday destination for thousands of Indian families. So, me and this crowd of Indians had a 4D experience in the Ramoji Towers, where they simulated our ascent in an elevator and the disaster that followed, complete with noises, flickering lights, rain and a free fall, which plucked an assortment of squeals of joy out of the Indians' throats.
Up next was a sort of merry-go-round that took us through various toy countries with waving toy people, from Ancient Egypt to the present UK, with llamas and penguins being the undisputed highlight:
The really interesting bit followed next and it involved the actual making of a movie, Indian nonetheless, as it is, just like real Indian flicks, obviously made out of layers slapped onto one another. There was this girl from the audience that got on a makeshift carriage in front of a green screen and, with the help of a guy, who doubled as the rocks on the road (by shaking the carriage left and right), ran away from her subsequently added followers.
The clatter of hooves and jingle of bells was added by getting some kids to rattle some keys and play with halves of coconut shells on gravel.
And, with the right soundtrack, the girl became a real life Indian movie star, or at least she had the grin that said so and everybody clapped until their hands were on fire.
By this time I had had enough and, after strolling around the 'city' only to find some troublesome statues, I was on my way back. Not before I saw young Darth Vader, who really convinced me to join the Dark Side (which I did, later in the story, when I ran into my wonderful rickshaw driver):
My way back would have been much easier if I had found something to come back with, but the juice seller next to the station assured me that there will be a bus coming my way at around 4.30 (I had to get to the pickup place at 5.30), but it was too close to my deadline. My salvation materialized in the form of a Nepali girl, who gathered all her courage and asked me where I was going. She helped me get to the right bus station in time but from there to the actual pickup place was still a way to go.
Enter the rickshaw driver! My nemesis, my foe and my reason to contemplate murder, because we drove round and round, asking the entire hoi polloi of rickshaw drivers where this godforsaken place is, I even handed him my cell phone with a puzzled private bus company employee at the other end to get some reference points and still he did not get it.
If you're on the edge by now, let me calm you down and tell you I did not, in fact, miss my buss. Mainly because it did not leave, as stated, at 5.30 PM, but at 7 PM.
India's quirks - my mental spasms.
So, after countless checking if Indian queues actually work (which they sort of don't), the Chief Reservations Supervisor tells me to go to yet another station in Secunderabad, where somewhere on the first floor there will be somebody who can maybe help. If you think this sounds complicated, reality was something like putting on your favorite prepubescent shoes and running around the block in them. I have no doubts that, sometime after the sixth hour things would have fallen into place, but my nerves got the better of me and I decided I'd prefer to visit something in this place.
Meaning: I took my backpack and away we went in the heart of the city to the Andhra Pradesh State Bus Stand, where I was informed that there is no direct bus going to the required destination and, if I wanted, I could get a private bus to take me there. Only, as I've already mentioned, that bus fare's price kept changing from one minute to the next and ended up costing about a week's accommodation in Hampi, or what I wouldn't give to see a Ştefan Bănică Junior concert (III category ticket). Still, we shook hands on it and then I proceeded to inform the employee that I intended on visiting Ramoji Film City before my bus left. After he changed some facial colors like you would flick through a menu, he firmly forbade me to go. Because it takes two hours by local bus to get there, minimum four hours to tour the entire thing and another two hours to get back. I might just pull it off if I were to take a taxi (that is: not rickshaw, but a full-sized car) for about as much as i would have given for a byron concert - twice! I tried explaining that I still have six hours to go, if not more and, if he would just let me go, I would not waste time with discussing it but actually doing it, but all was useless. I eventually broke loose and started pedaling towards the local bus station.
Let me tell you something about this matter of the film city: apart from Bollywood, there are other capable companies that can provide nourishment for Indian television aficionadoes, one being the Ramoji company. Its film city has been acknowledged by the Guinness World Records as the world's largest film studio complex. Get ready to experience larger-than-life entertainment, thrills, fun rides, food and excitement! - or so their flyer states. So it's obvious that I wanted to get a piece of the (movie) action!
It did take an hour to get there and I spent about three inside and it was quite enough, as it basically is a half-breed between an actual movie studio and Disneyland and it's a favorite holiday destination for thousands of Indian families. So, me and this crowd of Indians had a 4D experience in the Ramoji Towers, where they simulated our ascent in an elevator and the disaster that followed, complete with noises, flickering lights, rain and a free fall, which plucked an assortment of squeals of joy out of the Indians' throats.
Up next was a sort of merry-go-round that took us through various toy countries with waving toy people, from Ancient Egypt to the present UK, with llamas and penguins being the undisputed highlight:
The really interesting bit followed next and it involved the actual making of a movie, Indian nonetheless, as it is, just like real Indian flicks, obviously made out of layers slapped onto one another. There was this girl from the audience that got on a makeshift carriage in front of a green screen and, with the help of a guy, who doubled as the rocks on the road (by shaking the carriage left and right), ran away from her subsequently added followers.
The clatter of hooves and jingle of bells was added by getting some kids to rattle some keys and play with halves of coconut shells on gravel.
And, with the right soundtrack, the girl became a real life Indian movie star, or at least she had the grin that said so and everybody clapped until their hands were on fire.
By this time I had had enough and, after strolling around the 'city' only to find some troublesome statues, I was on my way back. Not before I saw young Darth Vader, who really convinced me to join the Dark Side (which I did, later in the story, when I ran into my wonderful rickshaw driver):
 |
| The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the force!!! |
Enter the rickshaw driver! My nemesis, my foe and my reason to contemplate murder, because we drove round and round, asking the entire hoi polloi of rickshaw drivers where this godforsaken place is, I even handed him my cell phone with a puzzled private bus company employee at the other end to get some reference points and still he did not get it.
If you're on the edge by now, let me calm you down and tell you I did not, in fact, miss my buss. Mainly because it did not leave, as stated, at 5.30 PM, but at 7 PM.
India's quirks - my mental spasms.
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