DAY 209 (I am a Spartan...!!)
Okay..I know you all have been through this but still no one stops wondering. What is with this bus passengers? ..err..co-passengers I meant !
Government has made a bus stop but no..!! Either they all stand ahead of it or behind of it. Sometimes I double check whether the roof on my head and the bench behind me is actually a bus stop or I am in Inception!! And these bus drivers..they pay heed to the crowd. They'll stop where there are more tickets.
Anyway...I get on it finally. Then, I feel like being one of the taporis of a Salman Khan movie and being punched from all the sides in all the angles. When I boarded, I could see 4 seats empty but there are ninjas who boarded too!! I blink my eyes and they are sitting there like they live there.
I pity on my self and ask a lady to please keep my heavy laptop bag beside her or under her seat. She stares at me in the first look as if I commented on her fat ass or her bulging breasts!! Then in the second look..."young lady..get a little older and then ask for it". When I am still holding my bag staring back to her with puppy eyes, she snatches it from me and dumps it with a big "BAM" beside her. I just pray that the laptop powers on today!!
1 stop, 2 stop, 3..4..5..6..7 I lose the hope of sitting. Then suddenly the staring lady gets up. Its her stop. I feel so relieved that finally...I can sit for 2 stops and she gets down. I climb to sit and what I see..that half-dead-one-bone college student had put her handkerchief under the fat ass lady. I literally want to kick her off to her college.
I start counting reverse .. 100, 99 , 98 ..... (Grandmother says that is the best way to control anger!)
Well..I am praying for the red lights to change their mood now and wiping my sweat off. I am worrying about my bag and looking at it every now and then. I see it being kicked, being dusted all the way through but I love my shoulders more so I live with it.
And there it is...my stop! Everyone else with the same stop gets down. But when its my turn to finally manage to come to the door..the bus driver closes the door off. I yell at him but he is busy in Kannada news broadcast. I beat his side partition and then he looks at me. He yells back at me...for missing the stop. I don't know what he is saying but he is cursing me. And all I want is to get down without missing another stop. He stops at some 300 meters ahead of where I was supposed to get down. And I get pushed out like a beggar.
I risk my life again by crossing Bangalore streets and there I am finally...in my office!
And this is a war that I fight everyday. Is it any less than a border war and am I any inferior than a war-soldier?!! If you think so...see you in a Bangalore bus then..!!
Government has made a bus stop but no..!! Either they all stand ahead of it or behind of it. Sometimes I double check whether the roof on my head and the bench behind me is actually a bus stop or I am in Inception!! And these bus drivers..they pay heed to the crowd. They'll stop where there are more tickets.
Anyway...I get on it finally. Then, I feel like being one of the taporis of a Salman Khan movie and being punched from all the sides in all the angles. When I boarded, I could see 4 seats empty but there are ninjas who boarded too!! I blink my eyes and they are sitting there like they live there.
I pity on my self and ask a lady to please keep my heavy laptop bag beside her or under her seat. She stares at me in the first look as if I commented on her fat ass or her bulging breasts!! Then in the second look..."young lady..get a little older and then ask for it". When I am still holding my bag staring back to her with puppy eyes, she snatches it from me and dumps it with a big "BAM" beside her. I just pray that the laptop powers on today!!
1 stop, 2 stop, 3..4..5..6..7 I lose the hope of sitting. Then suddenly the staring lady gets up. Its her stop. I feel so relieved that finally...I can sit for 2 stops and she gets down. I climb to sit and what I see..that half-dead-one-bone college student had put her handkerchief under the fat ass lady. I literally want to kick her off to her college.
I start counting reverse .. 100, 99 , 98 ..... (Grandmother says that is the best way to control anger!)
Well..I am praying for the red lights to change their mood now and wiping my sweat off. I am worrying about my bag and looking at it every now and then. I see it being kicked, being dusted all the way through but I love my shoulders more so I live with it.
And there it is...my stop! Everyone else with the same stop gets down. But when its my turn to finally manage to come to the door..the bus driver closes the door off. I yell at him but he is busy in Kannada news broadcast. I beat his side partition and then he looks at me. He yells back at me...for missing the stop. I don't know what he is saying but he is cursing me. And all I want is to get down without missing another stop. He stops at some 300 meters ahead of where I was supposed to get down. And I get pushed out like a beggar.
I risk my life again by crossing Bangalore streets and there I am finally...in my office!
And this is a war that I fight everyday. Is it any less than a border war and am I any inferior than a war-soldier?!! If you think so...see you in a Bangalore bus then..!!
By reading this post on Bangalore's bus traffic I recalled my student days in Bangalore. What most of the students used to do is to board the bus which is more crowded and hide themselves in the behive of people. If they are not caught by conductor till their stop arrives they travel free and if they caught then they used to say to conductor "Next stop" and he used to charge minimum ticket amount from them.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, travelling in the public bus either in Bangalore or Noida/Delhi especially in the office hours is like going in a battle and coming out of it.