Two bags in hand, he walks frantically up and down the Kempe Gowda bus-stand here, hoping to find a bus that will take him out of the city and towards his son, who is admitted with grievous injuries in Tanjavur, Tamil Nadu.
The searing noon heat gets to him and he seeks shade, where he may spend the next five hours until bus services normalise.
For S. Mohan, the captain of the Tamil Nadu team of athletes that competed at the Masters’ Athletics championship in Vasco, Goa, the transport bandh on Thursday turned into a complete nightmare.
On the last day of competition at Vasco on Wednesday, Mr. Mohan — who is a 3,000-m steeplechase medallist — was informed that his 15-year-old mentally-challenged son had fallen off the third floor at his hometown. “I immediately took a bus to Hubbali, and from there, came by bus today morning. I didn’t know about the bandh,” he said. Before dawn, he travelled twice between Majestic and Shantinagar, hoping to find a Tamil Nadu-bound bus.
Through the morning, he traversed between the railway station and outstation bus-stand. Frantic phone calls from his wife had an ominous tinge to it. “The trains are only late in the evening. There are no buses too… I am running out of money. I can do nothing but hang around while my family is living through a nightmare back home,” said Mr. Mohan.
The story reverberated through the central bus-stand, where hundreds of passengers getting out of the Central Railway station or outstation buses were welcomed with deserted bus-stands and over-priced autorickshaws.
Hundreds of workers, who arrived from Assam, lined the bus-stand. A family from Gujarat struggled to get a taxi to take them to the airport before their flight. A worker from Odisha seemed flabbergasted at Rs. 600 being asked by an autorickshaw driver to reach Marathahalli.
At Shivajinagar bus-stand, Ayesha S., a resident of Koramangala, waited for over three hours. “I have a job interview at Malleswaram, so I have no choice but wait. Autos are too expensive.”
