How star-gazing saved my day (night actually)

This was an incident that happened sometime in the summer of 2010. A fun personal memory.

I was coming back to Princeton from Bethlehem. It was a pretty long distance to cover. Some 50-100 miles I guess. I had lent my GPS to a friend of mine, but I had my iPhone, which had an excellent 3G connection, the most upgraded version of Google Maps and a really really bad battery. My friend and I drove to PA and I headed back by myself at 11/12 in the night. I got lost after 15 mins into the drive. My battery had died. I drove further hoping to find a rest area on the highway where there will be some maps/guides to get me back to NJ. I couldn't find any. I really missed the paan-ka-thelas like in India at that point.

I stepped out of the vehicle after driving for about 30 minutes. I stretched and looked up. Orion was at the horizon. That's as close to the zenith it gets at those latitudes. The hunter, Orion, stands with his feet towards the south and head towards the north pretty squarely. I decided to drive towards his right. It would be east. Got to some strange junctions and took a bet on the next turn. A few bad turns later I was headed due East. I knew this would take me to NJ. I stopped again and looked at the sky to be sure. I often used to end up at strange places thinking the road is going straight while the road is actually curving in some direction. Contour Rd. in Gokulam, Mysore is one of those roads. No matter what direction I went in, I ended up at this strange junction called Doctor's corner. I usually had to call my friend Yuvraj to get me out of that place. So I checked the sky again and I saw that Orion had set. Leo had risen completely from the East, which was straight ahead on the road. I went on.

As expected I reached NJ turnpike which is a North-South highway a while later. I could figure out my way from here. It was just a matter of taking Exit 9 towards Route 1 and go straight to Princeton. I finally made it at about 3:00 AM. It was quite an adventure to be on alone. With most of the streets deserted and no passer-by to guide you, the stars are one entity you can turn to.

Sometime in the future... or so I dreamt

I'll drive a hybrid from Mysore to Bangalore in an H2 powered car. To avoid the car getting too humid from the water vapor generated by the car after controlled burning of Hydrogen fuel cells, I stop at the service area of the 12 lane NICE road (which was completed after years of controversy when the politicians grabbing land were booted by the general public) somewhere near the Maddur recreational rest center. It would be about 30 mins since I left Mysore as I kept well under the speed limit of 200 kmph.

As I drive through the humpless NICE road (people would have agreed that 'nice' is the right name for this road, for it does not have any humps on it), I reach the ORR flyover that connects to Mysore road - a maze of flyovers that allows for smooth traffic flow between East and West bound traffic on the ORR as well as tolled and non-tolled traffic on Mys-Bang road (which would be an 8 lane road, except in Mandya where it still is a 2 lane road as it was in 1975) and NICE road. Getting to Hebbal would be my next goal, but, in Bangalore would be quite a challenge if you try to drive all by yourself. So I park the car in one of the several multi-storeyed parking spots, that are available for every short distance (and keeps all stationary vehicles off the road). With the development of the instant car finder, parking the cars in these places takes a few seconds and getting them out takes no more than a minute. With the car parked, I walk to the nearest Metro which arrives in another minute and I reach Majestic in about 10 minutes. I transfer to another metro which takes about 12 more minutes to reach Hebbal.

Sanitation in Bangalore would be privatized to 'Ugly Bangalore', one of the most successful private sanitation awareness industry, which charges people a minimum amount of money to keep the roads and sidewalks clean.  Being a Monday you could see the Yellow and Green trucks picking up garbage from the doorsteps and apartment complexes. 'Ugly Bangalore' also got an award for encouraging everyone on Bangalore to go for H-Fuel cell cars and covering the dust-producing areas in Bangalore to reduce the AQI from 8 to 1.2.

After I reached Hebbal I could hear one of my co-passengers talk about the journey. "Yen maDadu saar... Nobody cares about the general public. Its been almost 1.5 hours of travel from Ballal Circle to Bangalore, Hebbal. Things will never improve with these politicians. Yavaaglu hinge. Uddhara aagalla nammuru". I walk upto my friend's house hoping the Metro, KSRTC and the roads around mysore and bangalore will improve at some point in the future.