Journey to Aravankadu - The little heaven....

Aravankadu is a small town on the NH67 (SH 6 in 1988) between ooty and coonoor in the nilgiris. This place is a heaven on earth to me - I spent close to 20 years in this little place. I have a lot of fond memories here and a few bitter ones too. The bitter ones are negilible compared to the fond memories here... My first journey to this place itself is a fond memory..

It was in July 1988, a warm sunday (I dont remember the date exactly - probably July 10), few days after island express met with a tragic accident on a bridge over river in kerala and it was on this sunday episode of "Ramayan" that Ravana was killed by Rama. We left for aruvankadu from coimbatore in the afternoon...

It was strange in the bus stand that people stood in queue and boarded the buses.... the buses were smaller than the buses i had seen before and had only one entrance that too in the rear end. The bus looked cute with red/green single stripe over a cream paint and it belonged to "cheran transport corporation". This again was a different site to me as i had known only blue coloured large "Anna transport corporation" buses.

I sat with my dad in the front seat and behind us were mom and bro... Half way through it started raining heavily and I remember dad woke me from sleep and put my sweater on... After sometime there were no coconut or palm trees seen, instead lot of other fat and tall trees...The bus was no more fast like those anna transport buses and I felt the bus was crying... (while climbing up the hill)... The whole journey was exciting as there were so many turns and bends with bridges over small waterfalls - i always enjoyed the steering wheel being maneuvered continuously and change of gear!!!! Rain and mist all along made it a great sight...

The most exciting scene was the sight of railway track, a little unusual one...there was a "tooth" like 3 rd track in between the two rails... In one particular place the track went into a tunnel and it was only the first time I saw a railway tunnel... Not seeing a train on the track was a disappointment...(Dad had already told us that there the engine was at the rear end of the train instead of front)...

By the time bus reached coonoor the rain had stopped and sun was out again (evening)... For the first time since afternoon the bus stopped for few minutes and started moving slowly (crying!!) again. The sight of coonoor railway station and the glimpse of few blue coloured different railway coaches are still afresh in my head. Soon we got down at aruvankadu just after a main gate.... it was chill but was feeling good... there was this huge main gate of "Cordite Factory" and either side of the gate an ancient "cannon rifle" was parked. We were to stay in a guest house, a few minutes walk from the main gate and on the way there was a big childrens park with slide, swing etc... We stayed in Room no 8, a room that appeared like a suite...

Later that night after dinner dad took us to for a walk and showed us the school where me and my bro had been given admission.. The school was neither double storied like SCSM (where i studied LKG/UKG) nor had a big playground!!!!;instead it looked like some houses together... later i came to know it was indeed group of unoccupied houses that became school/classrooms....

This place had very tall trees with nice smell (I could never pronounce the name EUCALYPTUS then), had place to play, the school was small, so were the buses, blue coloured train with a cute steam engine in same colour, roads were clean, no muddy roads, people spoke tamil!!!!, houses were not in cliff as i had imagined and we were staying in a nice place..(I didnt no the guest house was temporary). But it was only from the next day i knew the real "Kaadu"!!!!!!!!!!