It happened around 35 years back! During that time I was working for a paint company and in this particular winter trip arrived in Gudalur late night after a hectic coverage of Ooty and Coonoor markets. Next day morning I had a quick meeting with Gudalur customer and rushed to Kotagiri. The plan was to finish the Kotagiri meeting early and board on an early evening bus within 6 pm so as to avoid chill weather of the hill country. Everything fell in place perfectly but the time! I did board the bus by 8 pm only – the last bus!
As usual the descending was an uncomfortable experience for me and I started counting each hairpin bends and about to sleep and suddenly heard the screech sound of breaking. When I woke up from the slumber I found the bus was in thick forest area. Few seconds passed and the driver switched off the engine! My initial thought process was of elephant blockade or breakdown of a truck (which was normal in that route with old over loaded trucks). Few of us got down and walked ahead to understand what went wrong. I was awestruck to see a toppled acid tanker from which concentrated acid was leaking. There was dense fumes and penchant smell all over the place.
It was a time without mobile phone and to reach next available land line phone we had to travel 15 kms. Even if the oncoming vehicles willing to help by returning to inform the authorities, rescue operations can start only next morning. We all returned to the bus and discussed what to do next. Few people started readying to get into deep sleep! Someone in the bus offered to guide us to the next town –Mettupalayam by walk through a 10-12 km stretch amidst forest, provided we are willing to take the risk (of walking in an unknown terrain with darkness coupled with immense danger of wild life encounter!). Guide was confident – if we go as a group, we may avoid the risk of wild life encounters and reach Mettupalayam within 2 hours.
Keeping in mind the possible anxiety of my family members, I decided to join him first and also convinced few fellow passengers to accept the idea and started walking. The path was full of trees, bushes, thorns, stones and slippery. Along the route we encountered variety of sounds – of birds, insects and may be of wild or not so wild animals, chilled breeze and accidental falls due to nature of the terrain and darkness. Nevertheless we all walked with cent per cent confidence on the guide with non-stop hearing of our own heart beats! By god’s grace and great knowledge of the unassuming simple looking guide’s help we arrived at Mettupalayam by half past midnight.
We all assembled in a tea-shop and thanked the guide several times who just smiled and vanished without even waiting for a tea! No words to explain the help of god sent messiah – my heart is full of gratitude every time I remember that night.
I was able to get a transport by early morning and arrived home at Coimbatore by 6 am to rejoin my family who were tensed entire night due to lack of any kind of communication. Interesting, thrilling walking experience of primitive infrastructure/communication facilities of yester years.
