Anand Nataraj

Posts Tagged ‘toll’

Yesterday I booked tickets for the movie 180 at AGS Cinemas, Navalur… We were at the Perengudi toll by 9.30 PM & 1 way toll costs Rs.19… When I gave him Rs.20 the person in the counter asked me to collect the balance next day… That puzzled me as how can I collect the balance next day as I had no proof to claim… But as a commonman I igneored it as it is just Re.1… But I wondered inside;

Why on the earth the Toll company hasn’t rounded the tariff as Rs.20??

After watching the movie we went to Shollinganallur toll to exit by 1.15 AM… We were asked to pay again as the toll time gets over by 12 AM… I got annoyed as how come someone get a toll for just 3 hours… But to my surprise it is all well written in the toll receipt and I had to pay again…

That moment I got annoyed at me as I didn’t take the initiative to read the toll receipt… Then I thought why I ignored Re.1 which had to be paid back.. Why I’m not taking the initiative to write petitions, use RTI (Right to information) to understand how system works & why i’m not fighting for a cause…

The concern was not loosing Rs.20. or Re.1.. It is why there is no professionalism;

• Why didn’t they have a change to give back as they very well know everyone cant carry Rs.19…
• Why didn’t they round the fare to Rs.20?
• Concept of cutting their timing by 12 AM sounds irrational…

I’m fed up of showering my frustration as blogs & ignoring issues… Now I’m on my way to Perengudi toll to collect information & I’ve decided to take them if there are exploitation of the common man…

Reached home early in the morning after a boring Saturday party and straight away went to bed. Then I slept till the afternoon and had to wake up for two reasons;

• Firstly it was my father’s birthday and had small party.
• Second is I’ve fixed an appointment for second half of the day.

My sister woke me up to celebrate my father’s birthday. I must thank her for talking all these initiatives as I’m very bad at doing things like these. She has brought a cake as surprise and this is the first time we are celebrating my father’s birthday as he has always stayed away from us and I think this is the birthday where in he has stayed with us and we all as a family were at one place.

Since my father is a person who has very less desire we had nothing to gift him. So we thought of buying him some shares which he trades.

After the birthday party I rushed out to a place called Vedal near Periyapalayam to see a piece of plot. Again it was a finest drive which I longed for. We drove along old traditional roads of Tamil Nadu which were not affected by the expansion of highways. Then we travelled through a stretch of forest and finally came the spot.

I’m not sure if this place develops immediately or not. I’d love to buy a piece of plot as it is within my affordability and its been 3 years since I purchased a land. Also there are small mountains and it would be a perfect place to have a small bamboo house and spend peaceful time or also we can party hard as it doesn’t disturb anyone.

From there we went to the famous PeriyaPalayam Amman temple which is visited almost 15 years back and a lot have changed since then. Since it is a normal day temple was not crowded and we had a nice darshan.

Then while driving back we spent all the money and neither of us had a single penny. After a long time my bank account has gone empty and I’ve been living with credit card for last 10 days.  While returning we didn’t realize that there was a toll. Then we were thinking what to do and one of my friends asked me to get all the old toll tickets in hand. We thought we can elope by the time the toll keeper checks the right ticket.

To our surprise the toll has a barricade where in we can proceed without paying. Also the toll rate was Rs.31 and we didn’t have anything other than credit card. Then with brave face my friend gave all 5 toll tickets to the toll keeper and asked him to check which the right ticket is. Without even checking he opened the gates asking us to leave. We didn’t know if he realized if we were conning him or he didn’t have patience to check all the tickets.

It was a thrilling experience and for long I wanted to explore things without any money on hand. I always thought of putting myself in such a situation and it happened today. I’m thankful to god for creating such an opportunity and I want to be on similar situations even in future.

Over all it has been a very interesting and heart filling day as; 

• I celebrated my father’s birthday.
• Went for site visits to buy land which is one of my hobbies.
• Went to a temple which I use to visit as a kid.
• And for the first time I experienced a situation to manage without money.