I reach the wide opening of the entrance bay for the buses. On my left is the spiral Indian Coffee House building. Its door remains shut. I wish I could get a cup of coffee from them. As I scan the premises, I see black fumes rising from beyond the coffee house. I turn my scooter and hurry up to where the smoke is coming from.

The black fumes are coming from a tea shop. These shops have their tea-making setup right at the entrance. People stand adjacent to it and have their beverage fresh and hot as it gets made then and there and served in glass tumblers. They always have the stove on in order to boil the water and keep the milk hot. These containers have burned out. The smoke is emanating from them. They haven't caught fire though. The gas must be still on. I get out of my scooter and tread carefully to the shop. Through the smoke, I can see the flame on the burner. The milk container has deformed very badly. It isn’t stable anymore.

I walk into the shop. The smoke hits me. It is suffocating and has started to burn my eyes. I have to kill the stove from the inside. I take a deep breath, keep a good distance between myself and the stove, extend my hand and turn off the knobs one by one. The flames die out. The crackling sound of the containers being destroyed by the flames slows down. The milk container shudders to this. I back off from the shop and come outside. The fumes should die out soon.

If my memory is correct, this shop has been here for a very long time. It caters to the hunger needs of the passengers throughout the day. The shop doesn’t close. They have a shift system or something like that, I don't remember. I read about them in an article a long time ago. Thanks to them, one can always find something to drink and munch on. The glass cupboard housing the snacks have turned black with the smoke. I can see a few items in it. I am thinking about whether I should get one for myself. I chuck it.

The line of shops here hasn't changed a bit. They have kept on providing their services for a long time. For a weary traveler, this is more than enough to bring about a smile and a dash of energy needed to continue on his journey. They fall under the category of places that have remained oblivious to time. The very establishment they serve has transformed over the years. Yet they remain constant. I keep on saying that change is the only constant in life and that it is inevitable. I guess there are a few exceptions to it.

Thambanoor bus stand underwent a major makeover after I passed out from college. The government invested a good amount of money to develop it into a bus terminal that matched up to the standards of international ones. A multi-storied curving building was built here to replace the old terminal. It has a grand entrance that lights up beautifully after dusk. The building was designed and executed with the provision to house a lot of shops. It was intended to be the next shopping center with a plethora of shops that catered to every need of the traveler and the common folks. It didn’t work out as expected. The ground floor is filled with bakeries and tiffin joints, shops selling essentials, and looking out for the needs of a traveler. The floors above them are mostly vacant. Businesses didn’t come in as expected. They remain mostly empty. There was a good scope for making this into a transportation hub. I guess it didn’t work out.

Keeping that factor aside, the new terminal was a boon to travelers. They now had a solid space to sit and relax. All their traveling needs were met inside the complex itself, without having to wander around much. The whole setup was neatly organized. Each bus route had its own bay. There was a good order to how things functioned. The first step towards setting a high standard had been taken. More has to follow.

From where I stand, I can see the workshop garage. It is huge. A lot of buses are parked in and around it. Their maintenance and repairs are done here by their in-house technicians and engineers. Once when I was traveling to Kottayam at midnight, the bus I took developed a snag in its gearbox the moment it exited the bus stand. It traveled for a kilometer or two before the driver decided to turn back. We hadn’t taken the tickets. In ten minutes, I was back in the stand. The next bus was half an hour later. We all waited patiently for the next bus. Ten minutes later the same bus was standing in front of us, urging us to get in quickly. The problem was solved, but now it had to make up for the lost time. We filled it as quickly as possible. The bus left immediately. By the time it reached Kottayam, it had made up the time. I had slept through the journey like a log.

I hear a sound coming from the workshop. After listening to it for a while, I think it is an air compressor. I am familiar with sound in my workplace. I contemplate going into the workshop and having a look. But I dismiss it. I get back on my scooter and drive into the path for the bus entry into the terminal. A few meters in, I enter into the shade of the building. A couple of buses are lined up on their bays. Up ahead a bus lies perpendicularly on the path, blocking my advance. I come to a halt in front of it. It seems the bus was backing out from its bay, or coming into it. It is empty, just like the other buses. There isn’t anybody anywhere. A couple of dogs are sleeping on the floor. One of them wakes up when I kill my engine and get out. I walk to the front of the bus and have a look at the signboard. ‘Thrissur via Kollam, Alleppey, Vytilla Hub’ is written on it in Malayalam. I realize something.

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I turn back and look into the terminal. I find what I was looking for - the information counter. I walk towards it. Right on top of the wall housing the glass window of the counter, bus timings are written on a huge whiteboard. It is divided into sections. I go to the one showing buses leaving for the north. In it, I narrow down to the buses to Thrissur. There is a bus leaving fifteen minutes past midnight. The route mentioned is the same as the signboard. This must be the bus.

I think I have narrowed the time frame of the phenomenon. Taking a buffer of fifteen minutes, the disappearance must have occurred between midnight twelve and twelve-thirty. Time is displayed on a large LCD panel on the window of the counter. It has been nearly sixteen hours since then.

I don't know how to take this fact. I look at the board once again. There it is once again, the bus that shone a light into the day's proceedings. I sigh. I don't know what to do now. The time frame seems really long. I don't know what has become of Anna or if she would survive whatever she is going through for such a long period. My gaze remains fixed on the board. I feel exhausted.

Slowly I stop staring at it. I start reading down the rest of the timings. I come across something that has brought back my full attention.

There is another bus that leaves for Thrissur at four in the morning. I immediately comb the route it takes. It is the same one as the one on the bus. Oh, dear! There are two buses leaving for the same destination in a gap of three and a half hours. I can’t be sure which of the two is the one standing there in the middle of the road.

The time frame has to be extended now. It has become midnight to four fifteen or four-thirty. I don't know if the four-hour gap would contribute much to the turn of events. I really don't know.

I take a stroll inside the terminal premises. I see a shop with a glass window displaying backpacks, rucksacks, and other stuff. They are mostly curated keeping the traveler in mind. Looking at the backpacks on display, I come across one similar to what I had. It tore away from my frequent use. The shop is closed. Only a few shops serving tea and snacks are open.

I am an avid traveler. I traveled a lot when I had the opportunity. That opportunity came because of my job. Even though I hated it, I was thankful for it. I would calculate my off days after a stint at work and plan my trips accordingly. Sometimes I directly left for my travels from my workplace and returned to resume where I left off, skipping my holidays to go home to my family or friends. Those trips would last for three or more weeks. I would be on the road, hopping from one place to another, like a true vagabond. As they say, I was bitten by the travel bug.

This is when I got a camera. Dad gifted me one before my Ladakh trip. I learned the basics and tried my hand at clicking pictures along the way. It wasn’t that easy. I knew I had just started and had a long way to go. From then on, my travel backpack always had my camera. It has been my steady companion throughout all my journeys. I have tried my hand at all kinds of photography. The one that excites me is landscape photography. My pictures found their way into my Instagram profile. It soon became the medium through which I shared my pictures.

The two years of hectic traveling and exploring finally slowed down when I was given my new assignment. This required more input from my side. My pattern also got constricted a bit. I could have continued with my travels. But something inside me said I needed to slow down. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t traveling. I was but in a local capacity. My besties came together and started a hospitality venture in Varkala. Whenever I was coming back from my work, I would visit them and spend a couple of days in their company. It deepened our friendships and the amazing bond we had. We would go to the nearby beach in the evening and have discussions on the obscurest topics as the sun set into the sea.

In short, my traveling style changed. I was happy with the four-hour journey I had to take to be in the company of my friends. We drank and danced, followed by game nights that stretched through the night. From time to time the group grew. Everyone came and left with great memories.

This had become my routine. Whenever I packed my bags, my mom knew where I was going. She would remind me of taking extra clothes for the sea. It came to an abrupt pause with the advent of the pandemic. Things had flipped in a matter of months.

Having done a very long stint at my workplace owing to the successive lockdowns imposed in the country, I found myself in a world bereft of traveling. Everyone was experiencing the same feeling. We were all huddled in our four walls, staring into the different black mirrors we had placed around us. I had to undergo a two-week quarantine in my home. It was mandatory at that time. We have a small house near our hometown. My parents bought it a long time ago. I told them to keep it ready for me. If I stayed with my family, I would be confined to a single room. I didn’t want that. I wanted to freely roam around in the house, take a small stroll in the backyard and sip my evening tea leisurely sitting on the verandah. They brought me food from time to time, kept it at the entrance, and left.

Thinking back to it now, it wasn’t a bad time. I had all the time for myself. I read some books, watched some movies, and spent my time going deep down the youtube rabbit hole. I was having a good time. Sometimes I did feel lonely. But thanks to technology, I was always connected to my family and friends. We did group video calls, shared funny memes and posts on Insta and laughed together, shared music and videos, and talked about it over long phone calls. I didn’t feel alone or isolated. In fact, compared to my current situation, that was nothing. This is isolation. This is loneliness.