This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents
either are products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons,
living or otherwise, is entirely coincidental.
New Bus Stand, Pondicherry, 10:28 PM, Jan 8, 2011
Fuck! I forgot my train tickets at home .You stay here with my bag, I’ll go home and get the print out. I told my brother and prepared to leave. My home was just a ten minute ride away from the bus stand but I wasn't concerned about time or distance. I had already left late (according to my parents) and my dad had given me the angry eye. I rang the doorbell and asked mom for the tickets. My dad uttered something but I grabbed the ticket from my mom as fast as I could and fled the scene .It would be at least three months before I next see my dad .I rushed to the bus depot because I had to travel 40 km to board my train to Mumbai. I reached and my brother had found a bus which was about to leave in fifteen minutes. He had also bought two Kingfisher beers .We gulped it down and bid goodbye to each other. Thank God for younger brothers. I got on the bus and settled down on the last seat of the bus near the window. The radio on the bus played old Tamil classics and there is just something about those classics late at night.
I had a slight buzz going on, a combination of beer and adrenalin, which was surprising because it was just one tin. The thing with traveling alone is that we get time to rewind and watch your recent past in your head and really see if it was worth the trouble. And my recent past had not been pleasant, to put it mildly. Dramas, heartbreaks, new college in a new city, the last six months were a roller coaster. As I continued thinking it made me very angry at a lot of people and my beer buzz faded away. Damn. I looked around to see what was going on. Three men boarded the bus and sat next to me. One of them was considerably older than the other two so I figured he was the father. They started talking and it turns out that the two younger men were brothers and the older man was their uncle. All three men were drunk, which was not surprising because any late night bus from Pondicherry on a weekend carries at least a few people who will pass out before their destination .For those wondering why; Alcohol is much cheaper in Pondicherry and available in abundance when compared to the neighboring hypocrite state of Tamil Nadu which is a topic I don’t even know where to begin. The three men seemed to have an animated conversation but I was too preoccupied with my own thoughts to pay attention to anybody.
Suddenly, one of the three men called someone up and asked them to have food prepared and informed them that they would arrive at three in the morning and would have to leave by five .I wondered why someone would want food prepared at this hour ans what would happen if I made a similar request at my home. I began paying attention to their conversation. One of the men had married a girl in secret against his family's wishes with the help of his brother and his uncle. It had resulted in a feud with his father ending up in hospital. They had not been allowed to see their father when they had tried to visit him in the evening by their relatives, who blamed the three of them for the whole fiasco .These three didn't want to create further drama and left the hospital. They then got drunk and were now heading back home to carry food for the patient and the relatives hoping that their anger would have cooled down by the next day .What a mess!
My destination would arrive in about ten minutes. The bus was overcrowded and I was running late. So I started my preparations to get down a bit early. I looked under the seat to find my luggage trapped between two big sacks. I tried very hard but I was unable to pull out my bag from under the seat because there were so many people blocking it .I panicked for second and pulled my bag with some force and activated Murphy's Law. It got stuck in a position where I could neither pull it up nor push it down. I remembered my dad's angry eye again. How pissed would he be if I rang the doorbell at 2 am and said Dad, I missed my train because I was unable to pull the bag from under my seat. Do you have something to eat? Just then, two of the three men got up, cleared a few people out of the way and pulled my bag free in a matter of seconds. They said I would not be able to get down from the bus with such luggage, so they would give it to me through the window after I get down. One of them held on to my 20 kg bag for ten minutes on his lap, till my destination and finally handed it to me through the window after I got down. I said thanks Anna a couple of times and crossed the road.
Here I was auditing my problems which didn't even exist and getting pissed at people for no reason at all while these three men, in a space of fifty minutes, showed me that the bridge between boys and men exists for a reason.
New Bus Stand, Pondicherry, 10:28 PM, Jan 8, 2011
Fuck! I forgot my train tickets at home .You stay here with my bag, I’ll go home and get the print out. I told my brother and prepared to leave. My home was just a ten minute ride away from the bus stand but I wasn't concerned about time or distance. I had already left late (according to my parents) and my dad had given me the angry eye. I rang the doorbell and asked mom for the tickets. My dad uttered something but I grabbed the ticket from my mom as fast as I could and fled the scene .It would be at least three months before I next see my dad .I rushed to the bus depot because I had to travel 40 km to board my train to Mumbai. I reached and my brother had found a bus which was about to leave in fifteen minutes. He had also bought two Kingfisher beers .We gulped it down and bid goodbye to each other. Thank God for younger brothers. I got on the bus and settled down on the last seat of the bus near the window. The radio on the bus played old Tamil classics and there is just something about those classics late at night.
I had a slight buzz going on, a combination of beer and adrenalin, which was surprising because it was just one tin. The thing with traveling alone is that we get time to rewind and watch your recent past in your head and really see if it was worth the trouble. And my recent past had not been pleasant, to put it mildly. Dramas, heartbreaks, new college in a new city, the last six months were a roller coaster. As I continued thinking it made me very angry at a lot of people and my beer buzz faded away. Damn. I looked around to see what was going on. Three men boarded the bus and sat next to me. One of them was considerably older than the other two so I figured he was the father. They started talking and it turns out that the two younger men were brothers and the older man was their uncle. All three men were drunk, which was not surprising because any late night bus from Pondicherry on a weekend carries at least a few people who will pass out before their destination .For those wondering why; Alcohol is much cheaper in Pondicherry and available in abundance when compared to the neighboring hypocrite state of Tamil Nadu which is a topic I don’t even know where to begin. The three men seemed to have an animated conversation but I was too preoccupied with my own thoughts to pay attention to anybody.
Suddenly, one of the three men called someone up and asked them to have food prepared and informed them that they would arrive at three in the morning and would have to leave by five .I wondered why someone would want food prepared at this hour ans what would happen if I made a similar request at my home. I began paying attention to their conversation. One of the men had married a girl in secret against his family's wishes with the help of his brother and his uncle. It had resulted in a feud with his father ending up in hospital. They had not been allowed to see their father when they had tried to visit him in the evening by their relatives, who blamed the three of them for the whole fiasco .These three didn't want to create further drama and left the hospital. They then got drunk and were now heading back home to carry food for the patient and the relatives hoping that their anger would have cooled down by the next day .What a mess!
My destination would arrive in about ten minutes. The bus was overcrowded and I was running late. So I started my preparations to get down a bit early. I looked under the seat to find my luggage trapped between two big sacks. I tried very hard but I was unable to pull out my bag from under the seat because there were so many people blocking it .I panicked for second and pulled my bag with some force and activated Murphy's Law. It got stuck in a position where I could neither pull it up nor push it down. I remembered my dad's angry eye again. How pissed would he be if I rang the doorbell at 2 am and said Dad, I missed my train because I was unable to pull the bag from under my seat. Do you have something to eat? Just then, two of the three men got up, cleared a few people out of the way and pulled my bag free in a matter of seconds. They said I would not be able to get down from the bus with such luggage, so they would give it to me through the window after I get down. One of them held on to my 20 kg bag for ten minutes on his lap, till my destination and finally handed it to me through the window after I got down. I said thanks Anna a couple of times and crossed the road.
Here I was auditing my problems which didn't even exist and getting pissed at people for no reason at all while these three men, in a space of fifty minutes, showed me that the bridge between boys and men exists for a reason.
3 comments:
the bridge between boys and men - :) :) should i categorize you for a boy for worrying unnecessarily or as a man for being mature enough to see this proverbial bridge ?
This was a few years ago ! You can put me in the former category .
The kindness of strangers is truly remarkable sometimes. Nice narration mate!!
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