M just back from a tiring one day tour from Patna....n the round trip is more than compensating for the blast I had at Rakhi at PomPom's...
Sorry for beginning my post as abruptly as dis, but the enormous baboon of emotions zipped up inside me were threatening to burst out in an alarming act of insanity, exampli gratia: smashing a glass tumbler, or maybe, tearing away my newly bought pair of Mangoes, et al...whatever, I hope u get the hang. So as soon as I reached my spider infested room in H9, I slammed open my laptop(i hate to call it a lappy...dunno why, just hate it), keyed in www.r, clicked on the first link that appeared in my browser's me-friendly address suggestions (ie. the name of this blog) and began typing at a perturbing speed, much to the chagrin of my roomie, as she, not unlike Sheldon Cooper, is strictly against manhandling electronic stuffs. (Incidentally, she is a female reincarnation of Cooper, just in case, for future references).
I am warning you, dear reader, this post is going to be all about the gory details of a puke-inducing, nose-wrinkling bus journey undergone on the roads of a state I would not name, lest I get a lawsuit of "maanhaani" slapped upon me by the torchbearers of progress of that state (two states actually, it was a cross state-border journey :P :P). I hence disclaim myself from all responsibility if my post adheres you to your Kara bags everytime you plan a jpurney out. :D. Just to get into the feel of the post, I behest you to close your eyes for a second, and picture a non-Volvo, non-A/C state government funded-cum-managed bus "facility". Remind yourself of the grease-smeared couches, the umpteen-times-used covers. Ah...now you get the hang, the Mango-destroying instinct should now be justly justified. And kindly don't mistake me for a spoilt and pampered brat with a high nose who makes a fuss of travelling in non-air-conditioned facilities...no, I just make a fuss when I have to travel in a wet weather, with sweat-stunk strangers as the sole companions.
""
Its raining heavily. (Moron grey). I have learnt to despise the overt kindliness of Indra quite on the contrary of the feelings I used to nurse for him. The early pangs of wondrous excitement these Indrajaal had managed to induce in me have been long faded into oblivion, leaving only utter apprehension when these rains don't show even the faintest signs of stopping before a bus journey I have to undertake.
I got a seat somewhere in the middle of the aisle (aisle is too posh a word for that murky piece of world, aisle reminds me of a marriage aisle, or on a lesser romantic note, of airplane aisles). Hardly anything to mention about, unlike, as it would have been if I got the front seat or the big five seater right at the back. I settled down for a blissful, ignorant nap, with undecipherable murmurs and ramblings of my co-travelers. Until I finally grasped the impossibility of this unworldly idea, the damage had been done. While I was trying my best to keep my eyes tightly shut, trying to ignore the dubious amount of mud that lay just inches away from my feet, and the ceaseless croaks of crickets and cockroaches that seemed to be omnipresent, someone (and I have a pretty good guess who) had quite conveniently managed to rampage my bag from the overhead racks to the front of my feet and my water bottle lay rolling on the "aisle", in the company of some I-bet-yet-unidentified-species of arthropodas. That was the precise moment, I resigned to the fact, I would have to be a thirsty caravan for the rest of my 8 hours on that goddamn bus. I also calculated the amount of cursed and swearing labor it would be required of me to wash that bag that now lay at my feet and further, the number of days it would take to dry in this rainy season, and the out-of-budget-expenditure those extra mothballs would cost me. I already wanted to cry, shout would have been a better option,at the man who did it. But the man looked burly, surly and was sure to know more Hindi curses than me. I shrunk away non-overbearingly.
I dunno when exactly I had my next nap, but have a horribly clear picture about when it ended, which was with the screech of the brakes of the bus that seemed to be built atleast two decades ago. As the lids of my eyes started tracing the curve it is supposed to, while opening, I scanned a lot many things in quick succession, as hence follows:
1.) At angle of approx. 30 degrees:::: scores of channa shavings lying scattered on my bag.
2.) At angle of approx. 60 degrees::::: the back of the seat in front of me had red stains that looked horribly like pan spits.
3.) At angle of (a little less) approx. 90 degrees::::the ceaseless dropping of rain on the poor, bald headed man sitting on the seat with its back, obliviously stained with red (I am optimistically not using the word "paan")...how the man could stand the phenomena that had an almost perfect resemblance to third degree torture remains a mystery to me.
Stench(of public urinals and of open-air waste disposal landpieces), I assure you, is the last thing I feel like discussing here. I am suddenly reminded of the new look of my blog, adorned with thick spined books and my favorite colors brown and orange....which doesn't deserve that.
Leela, the autobiography of Leela Naidu written by her and Jerry Pinto, then came to my rescue, and how grateful I am to PomPom for my rakhi gift, only me and my God know. It was a pity, to the tastefully garnished with selected photographs from her timeline, to read about the life and lies of that damsel, married, mother of twins, and divorced at an age of twenty, the muse and unpaid secretary of Dom Morae, the equally-at-ease-with-Indian-and-European bourgeois, amidst that environment, the book is a classic, fit to be cherished amongst the likes of War and Peace, White Moghuls, inside teak, wall-lengthed bookshelves.
Sorry for beginning my post as abruptly as dis, but the enormous baboon of emotions zipped up inside me were threatening to burst out in an alarming act of insanity, exampli gratia: smashing a glass tumbler, or maybe, tearing away my newly bought pair of Mangoes, et al...whatever, I hope u get the hang. So as soon as I reached my spider infested room in H9, I slammed open my laptop(i hate to call it a lappy...dunno why, just hate it), keyed in www.r, clicked on the first link that appeared in my browser's me-friendly address suggestions (ie. the name of this blog) and began typing at a perturbing speed, much to the chagrin of my roomie, as she, not unlike Sheldon Cooper, is strictly against manhandling electronic stuffs. (Incidentally, she is a female reincarnation of Cooper, just in case, for future references).
I am warning you, dear reader, this post is going to be all about the gory details of a puke-inducing, nose-wrinkling bus journey undergone on the roads of a state I would not name, lest I get a lawsuit of "maanhaani" slapped upon me by the torchbearers of progress of that state (two states actually, it was a cross state-border journey :P :P). I hence disclaim myself from all responsibility if my post adheres you to your Kara bags everytime you plan a jpurney out. :D. Just to get into the feel of the post, I behest you to close your eyes for a second, and picture a non-Volvo, non-A/C state government funded-cum-managed bus "facility". Remind yourself of the grease-smeared couches, the umpteen-times-used covers. Ah...now you get the hang, the Mango-destroying instinct should now be justly justified. And kindly don't mistake me for a spoilt and pampered brat with a high nose who makes a fuss of travelling in non-air-conditioned facilities...no, I just make a fuss when I have to travel in a wet weather, with sweat-stunk strangers as the sole companions.
""
I got a seat somewhere in the middle of the aisle (aisle is too posh a word for that murky piece of world, aisle reminds me of a marriage aisle, or on a lesser romantic note, of airplane aisles). Hardly anything to mention about, unlike, as it would have been if I got the front seat or the big five seater right at the back. I settled down for a blissful, ignorant nap, with undecipherable murmurs and ramblings of my co-travelers. Until I finally grasped the impossibility of this unworldly idea, the damage had been done. While I was trying my best to keep my eyes tightly shut, trying to ignore the dubious amount of mud that lay just inches away from my feet, and the ceaseless croaks of crickets and cockroaches that seemed to be omnipresent, someone (and I have a pretty good guess who) had quite conveniently managed to rampage my bag from the overhead racks to the front of my feet and my water bottle lay rolling on the "aisle", in the company of some I-bet-yet-unidentified-species of arthropodas. That was the precise moment, I resigned to the fact, I would have to be a thirsty caravan for the rest of my 8 hours on that goddamn bus. I also calculated the amount of cursed and swearing labor it would be required of me to wash that bag that now lay at my feet and further, the number of days it would take to dry in this rainy season, and the out-of-budget-expenditure those extra mothballs would cost me. I already wanted to cry, shout would have been a better option,at the man who did it. But the man looked burly, surly and was sure to know more Hindi curses than me. I shrunk away non-overbearingly.
I dunno when exactly I had my next nap, but have a horribly clear picture about when it ended, which was with the screech of the brakes of the bus that seemed to be built atleast two decades ago. As the lids of my eyes started tracing the curve it is supposed to, while opening, I scanned a lot many things in quick succession, as hence follows:
1.) At angle of approx. 30 degrees:::: scores of channa shavings lying scattered on my bag.
2.) At angle of approx. 60 degrees::::: the back of the seat in front of me had red stains that looked horribly like pan spits.
3.) At angle of (a little less) approx. 90 degrees::::the ceaseless dropping of rain on the poor, bald headed man sitting on the seat with its back, obliviously stained with red (I am optimistically not using the word "paan")...how the man could stand the phenomena that had an almost perfect resemblance to third degree torture remains a mystery to me.
Stench(of public urinals and of open-air waste disposal landpieces), I assure you, is the last thing I feel like discussing here. I am suddenly reminded of the new look of my blog, adorned with thick spined books and my favorite colors brown and orange....which doesn't deserve that.Leela, the autobiography of Leela Naidu written by her and Jerry Pinto, then came to my rescue, and how grateful I am to PomPom for my rakhi gift, only me and my God know. It was a pity, to the tastefully garnished with selected photographs from her timeline, to read about the life and lies of that damsel, married, mother of twins, and divorced at an age of twenty, the muse and unpaid secretary of Dom Morae, the equally-at-ease-with-Indian-and-European bourgeois, amidst that environment, the book is a classic, fit to be cherished amongst the likes of War and Peace, White Moghuls, inside teak, wall-lengthed bookshelves.
