Bandar To Bezawada In Just 24 Hours
Bandar To Be
zawDoes this sound insane?....Well..May be....But that was how it used to be till the very early years or the first decade of the twentieth century.....My grandfather himself,who was born in the year 1900, was a witness to it ..and at that time it was much more comfortable in his opinion, than by going on tortuous roads and bonebreaking carts... ...
You see,.. A major canal called Bandar kaalava starts from the krishna river ,just few yards from down the kaleswararao market in vijayawada, wends it"s way through the fertile lands of the delta,and as it reaches machilipatnam,flows through the chinthaguntapalem (a suburb of mtm),turns left and takes an inverted T turn at a place called chuttu bomboyi...The straight line of the T empties into the sea...while the left channel flows towards karagraharaam and is called Bomboyi kaalava from now onwards......A kind of waterway traffic island exists here ..where the boats and launches take a turnabout to start on the return trip....A giant hydraulic pumpset stood here to pump out the canal water to the nearby traveller"s bungallow...a beautiful old world structure set in the midst of well kept gardens...Just opposite to this T.B stands The Machilipatnam railway station..a terminus...
We had , and still have our ancestral home at this chinthaguntapalem...At the foot of the bridge on it"s left banks....It fell into neglect after the family shifted to buttaipeta and is now all weeds and rank growth around few coconut trees which survived the routene annual storms.......a cobra or two play around the bushes these days,and the neighbourhood houses use it as they like...sometimes as a dustbin...sometimes as a lavatory...
But in those times as i have said it used to be a bustling home stead full of kids and visitors..They used to watch the boats , as the white lords (thella doralu) sailed past the house in their shorts and gowns.....these offiecers used to camp at the traveller"s bungallow, spend the night there (in orgies of drinking and debauchery, people suspected) and returned next morning...again sailing past the house...
The passenger launches and boats used to dock at the chuttu bomboyi...and around 10 or ten thirty at the morning gave out a boooming siren call..To announce their departure....Ofcource,as we all know, sirens and whistles mean nothing to us,leisurely indians....My great grand mother, ( i only saw a very faded photo of her once, that too taken in her old age) hurried her brunching kids to make haste...you see 10 was our meals time...,By the time she cleaned the kitchens and locked the door, the boats would be in sight, wading along langorously.......They would stop on seeing a lady with her brood of kids and just like our city buses, inched in near the banks......She would settle in,and.....yes..by the next morning same time they reached Bezawada...
Funny as it may sound,,that was how it used to be and Bandar got a bus srvice only around 1916 or so....And it was a great day for them when a bus reached to a stop at the bridge at chinthaguntapalem...When it turned around on it"s return, with a mighty horn and in midst of a cloud of dust,,, a bunch of youngmen ran after it in excietment, shouting as if they were triumphant soldiers indulging in war cries...One of those youngmen in the group was my grandfather...
...Slow they might be,but waterways are very useful and fun too that i wonder why they have not been developed and taken care of these days...At the least they would ease the burden on other traffic modes,.. and can carry cargo that did not need urgent disposal......In competition with the faster means of transport they fared badly and lost their importance...Not only that...They have been neglected too..By sucsessive govts who never had a comprehensive outlook... .
A funny song on the advent of the introduction of bus was used to sung by my father when he was with his friends..Everybody went in to splits of laughter on hearing these wailings by a proffessional cartman, who lost his livelihood with the BUS...
...bussu puttindoyi babu bussu puttindoyi
bussu putti, bandolla kadupu kottindoyi
An elderly cartman laments that a new conraption called bus has born and hit the cartmen directly on stomaches
munsab gari chuttalu,meshtreetugari chuttalu, tasildari chuttalu
anthamadi chuttukunte bussu ownerlantha bichamethkunnatte
He is tickled by the fact that all the relatives of the villege offials have boarded the bus for a free ride and now owners are left with begging bowls...
Palika ramudi koduku kooda bussu drivere
mangalenkigadi koduku motordrivere
He is shaking his head at how the altu paltu youngsters, have now become drivers..
pillavadi pellikani palakonbda potunte
patha tiru pelipoyi munduku mari raleka
venaki tirigi poleka dova madhyastam lo toyyi toyyi mantaru
He is narrating an amusing anecdote about how a family party started for the son"s marriage ,had a break down and all and sundry had to push the bus shedding sweat...
...Well...more on buses later...ada In Just 24 Hours
zawDoes this sound insane?....Well..May be....But that was how it used to be till the very early years or the first decade of the twentieth century.....My grandfather himself,who was born in the year 1900, was a witness to it ..and at that time it was much more comfortable in his opinion, than by going on tortuous roads and bonebreaking carts... ...
You see,.. A major canal called Bandar kaalava starts from the krishna river ,just few yards from down the kaleswararao market in vijayawada, wends it"s way through the fertile lands of the delta,and as it reaches machilipatnam,flows through the chinthaguntapalem (a suburb of mtm),turns left and takes an inverted T turn at a place called chuttu bomboyi...The straight line of the T empties into the sea...while the left channel flows towards karagraharaam and is called Bomboyi kaalava from now onwards......A kind of waterway traffic island exists here ..where the boats and launches take a turnabout to start on the return trip....A giant hydraulic pumpset stood here to pump out the canal water to the nearby traveller"s bungallow...a beautiful old world structure set in the midst of well kept gardens...Just opposite to this T.B stands The Machilipatnam railway station..a terminus...
We had , and still have our ancestral home at this chinthaguntapalem...At the foot of the bridge on it"s left banks....It fell into neglect after the family shifted to buttaipeta and is now all weeds and rank growth around few coconut trees which survived the routene annual storms.......a cobra or two play around the bushes these days,and the neighbourhood houses use it as they like...sometimes as a dustbin...sometimes as a lavatory...
But in those times as i have said it used to be a bustling home stead full of kids and visitors..They used to watch the boats , as the white lords (thella doralu) sailed past the house in their shorts and gowns.....these offiecers used to camp at the traveller"s bungallow, spend the night there (in orgies of drinking and debauchery, people suspected) and returned next morning...again sailing past the house...
The passenger launches and boats used to dock at the chuttu bomboyi...and around 10 or ten thirty at the morning gave out a boooming siren call..To announce their departure....Ofcource,as we all know, sirens and whistles mean nothing to us,leisurely indians....My great grand mother, ( i only saw a very faded photo of her once, that too taken in her old age) hurried her brunching kids to make haste...you see 10 was our meals time...,By the time she cleaned the kitchens and locked the door, the boats would be in sight, wading along langorously.......They would stop on seeing a lady with her brood of kids and just like our city buses, inched in near the banks......She would settle in,and.....yes..by the next morning same time they reached Bezawada...
Funny as it may sound,,that was how it used to be and Bandar got a bus srvice only around 1916 or so....And it was a great day for them when a bus reached to a stop at the bridge at chinthaguntapalem...When it turned around on it"s return, with a mighty horn and in midst of a cloud of dust,,, a bunch of youngmen ran after it in excietment, shouting as if they were triumphant soldiers indulging in war cries...One of those youngmen in the group was my grandfather...
...Slow they might be,but waterways are very useful and fun too that i wonder why they have not been developed and taken care of these days...At the least they would ease the burden on other traffic modes,.. and can carry cargo that did not need urgent disposal......In competition with the faster means of transport they fared badly and lost their importance...Not only that...They have been neglected too..By sucsessive govts who never had a comprehensive outlook... .
A funny song on the advent of the introduction of bus was used to sung by my father when he was with his friends..Everybody went in to splits of laughter on hearing these wailings by a proffessional cartman, who lost his livelihood with the BUS...
...bussu puttindoyi babu bussu puttindoyi
bussu putti, bandolla kadupu kottindoyi
An elderly cartman laments that a new conraption called bus has born and hit the cartmen directly on stomaches
munsab gari chuttalu,meshtreetugari chuttalu, tasildari chuttalu
anthamadi chuttukunte bussu ownerlantha bichamethkunnatte
He is tickled by the fact that all the relatives of the villege offials have boarded the bus for a free ride and now owners are left with begging bowls...
Palika ramudi koduku kooda bussu drivere
mangalenkigadi koduku motordrivere
He is shaking his head at how the altu paltu youngsters, have now become drivers..
pillavadi pellikani palakonbda potunte
patha tiru pelipoyi munduku mari raleka
venaki tirigi poleka dova madhyastam lo toyyi toyyi mantaru
He is narrating an amusing anecdote about how a family party started for the son"s marriage ,had a break down and all and sundry had to push the bus shedding sweat...
...Well...more on buses later...ada In Just 24 Hours
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