Tere Mere Davanegere

This is a picture of a signboard and that is no rocket science. It is a very simple signboard, like the ones you usually notice on a highway or a road indicating places. Mostly at a four-way junction in small towns. When you see it, it is nothing but a small directional piece of junk. But on 19th September 2009, this particular signboard had played a very important part in my life. Well, some more people were involved in it too. 

Well three Red Chillies employees Nikita, Farhan and I were going on an office roadtrip from Mumbai to Bangalore. The show had something to do with IPL, so we had to stop a lot in between and shoot different stuff. After spending the first night at Belgaum, we hoped we would reach Bangalore the next night, but in between because of our break journeys at Hubli and Gadag, we got late for our next pit stop, Davanegere. Now none of us had been to Davanegere ever, our only knowledge about the place was that it was somewhere on NH4 and it's about 200 kms before Bangalore. We left Hubli around 5ish and it became dark soon. Because the road was getting repaired that time, we couldnt use the highway, like it should be used and drove at a very normal speed of 50 km/h. It was about 8 o clock when we started getting impatient and every little bit of light which we see on the way we thought it was Davanegere.

After we crossed Haaveri, there were no lights on the road, no signboard and it was pitch dark outside. We thought we will find some localite on the roadside and ask them but for one hour there was not a single human being to be seen. Nikita kept calling one of her friends, I was trying to concentrate in google maps, Farhan was trying to find a signboard and our driver Krishna was drowsy as hell. At about 10 pm, we found couple of guys on bicycles, local workers returning home after a hard days work. We tried asking them the direction, but neither of us knew Kannada nor they understood us. Krishna, who hails from Hyderabad came to our rescue and asked them the question in Telegu and what they said was "In about 10-20 kms there will be a left for Davanegere, if we miss that, we have to find our way out". Everyone were on their toes waiting for the left turn. 

30 minutes have passed and almost 30 kms we crossed, but there were no left turn. Poor Krishna wanted to pee for almost one hour. Finally around 10.30, Krishna gave up, he stopped the car and went to pee beside the road. After he finished, he came back, put the car lights to upper and in that blur light all of us shouted in joy. We could see the signboard which says Davanegere on our left. We got down, tried to find the left only to find a small village road deviating from the highway. I took this snap before leaving, we took the left and in fifteen minutes we were in Davanegere. Had Krishna not stopped that day, we would have wandered for some more time.

The picture is not just a snap, it is a memory of those three hours of my life. I will never forget the left turn to Davanegere ever. The picture made the story worth telling