Road to Ooty - Story of 36 hair pin bends

"Hey. There are two ways to go to Ooty. One is the shortest and just 36kms from the deviation near masinagudi safari cross. But beware that shortest route is very steep and has lots of hair pin curves. Your car being santro should be able to make it easily, but lesser cars do not. Also traffic is less there since buses dont ply on that route because of steepness. Anyway happy journey". These were the words of advice given to me by my friend in office. Now those exact words were ringing in my mind when we had just started our journey towards Ooty from Mysore. Unaware of this risky road ahead, my wife beside me was pretty excited about the whole journey. I never dared to spoil her enthusiasm too (For now). Somehow I had got the feeling that I will be directed towards that short route itself instead of a nice long relaxing alternate route. My adventurous mind was wanting me to take that hair pin road but my heart was thinking otherwise. Finally it came down to that safari cross where we saw a sign-board showing Ooty direction and mentioning it as 36kms away. I felt somehow that this was leading to that risky road and soon after my fear was coming true. The road was clear with no heavy traffic, infact very rarely we could see another four wheeler passing by. I had seen lot of such mountain roads before so I thought this would just be another of such types. Being confident of making to the top of hill, I went forward.

Couple of minutes later I could see some sign-boards of caution like "drive slowly", "accident zone", "Hair pin bends ahead" and "Steep curve ahead". Then finally a big board read "36/36 hair pin bends". Looking at the board, I could make out that there would be 36 hair pin bends ahead and Ooty was around 18 kms away now. First couple of hair pin bends were just like any other normal ones which I had seen lots but then when the third one was passed, I could feel some fear within myself. I thought "the coming hour does not seem to be an easy one". Eventough I was beginning to feel nervous now, I could not show that nervousness to my wife who had probably realized by now about what lies ahead. She was sitting pretty stiff now. The small chats here and there had come to a complete standstill now. With the cool silent environment outside, there was a nervous silence inside our car now.

By this time we had crossed another couple of hair pin bends and the board now read 31/36. My car engine was roaring now toggling between first and second gears, but I could not be any nice to my car because of the situation we were in now. The left hair pin bends were really scary only because they were so steep that you could not see if any vehicle is coming from the other side. But the vehicles on the descent were really helpful. When they notice upcoming cars, they used to stop until we completely cross the hair pin bend. Guess usually thats one of the nice highway disciplines among cars when driving on such difficult roads which is seldom missing in our cities.

When the board read 18/36, there was a bit of relief since we had passed halfway now. I could see my wife still stiff beside. To release some nervousness, I casually asked her to take some photographs of the scenery outside. To this she just shouted back saying, "Just look ahead and drive, dont talk please". The situation was just worse than I had expected. The roads seemed good now and my confidence of making it to the top was back eventough my car was still roaring admist the foggy mountain. In my second attempt to cool her down, I asked her, "You have been on scarier rides in wonderla and other amusement parks on which I dont even dare to go, why are you feeling so scared now?". For this she just plainly and truly replied that "Are baaba, those rides get over in couple of minutes and we still have 15 more mins on this scary ride". I did not know whether to laugh or get worried for this reply, but I realized one thing that my wife would cool down only once we pass all the hair pin bends. So without wasting any further time, I concentrated on the road ahead and on the mission to reach the top.

Finally the boards started to look less dreadful when the reading came down to single digits Then once we saw the board which read 1/36, we both gave sign of relief and looked at each other and immediately I told her that lets not come on this way during our return journey. While telling this thing to my wife, Internally my heart and mind were both saying "Not only on return journey, never again we will come on this risky road again". Surely this was the most difficult pass for me with my aging car and nervous wife in my whole driving career until now. I have been to lot of such hills and mountains before but never had I been so scared with the doubt of making it to the top of the hill. Anyway, all well that ends well. On return journey we just came on the other alternative route and the road was not a little bit scary but took an additional hour to reach our destination than that risky road. At that time I thought we could just have gone on that risky road to save some time, but then...