As I look back two days from now, I wonder whose fault was it. Was it the England -Germany match or probably some other thought or was it just because I had nothing else to do or because my bus mates weren’t watching a movie that day. Whatever it was, it began this way.
I was innocently sitting in the bus with a bottle of water and busy with my aforementioned thoughts, sipping water. The bus had not even crossed the Greater Noida stretch and I had unknowingly drunk 500ml of water already. As the last sip was going down my oesophagus, Chander asked me, “Hey, you are from IIT Roorkee. Aren’t you? ”.
I said yes.
“So.. uuhh.. do you know Robin Bajaj?”, he asked.
“Ohh yes, I know him very well... u know, we are in the same hostel”, I replied.
Well, those were probably my last words which were correctly pronounced as starting then I could feel it down there. And the bus had barely entered the Noida Expressway. I quietly sat down on my seat and put on my earphones. The truth is no matter how hard you try to forget it, believe me you cannot. It comes right back at you. There is a limit to which you can hold it and that limit is equivalent to the time it takes from Noida Expressway to AIIMS flyover. I had already travelled that distance.
I said yes.
“So.. uuhh.. do you know Robin Bajaj?”, he asked.
“Ohh yes, I know him very well... u know, we are in the same hostel”, I replied.
Well, those were probably my last words which were correctly pronounced as starting then I could feel it down there. And the bus had barely entered the Noida Expressway. I quietly sat down on my seat and put on my earphones. The truth is no matter how hard you try to forget it, believe me you cannot. It comes right back at you. There is a limit to which you can hold it and that limit is equivalent to the time it takes from Noida Expressway to AIIMS flyover. I had already travelled that distance.
I had to go, there was no choice. “God, why don’t they have loo in buses”, was my first thought. Of course, there was the option of asking the driver to wait and meanwhile I would put Delhi walls to best use. But that would be so embarrassing. Moreover, the intern girl from Manipal was also there, in the bus. I couldn’t have made a fool of myself in front of her.
Creepy thoughts were coming to me. First being the thought of doing an American Pie stunt, but being an AC bus there were no openable windows. Then I glanced back at the last seat and I knew that this definitely was my golden chance. No one was sitting on the last seat and I had my empty bottle. More than half of the portions of the last seat were under the canopy the penultimate seat. I wasted no time in going to the last seat but I realized that last seat was not as well covered from the eyes of the onlookers as I had thought it to be. There was yet another option but had to think against it too because of the foul smell associated with it. As I was trying hard racking my brain, the bus was crossing DPS RKP. I said to myself, “dude, there is no use trying, just ask the driver to stop or wait till Dwarka.” Looking outside the window, I was counting, “PPC... Sangam Cinema... Sector-8.. bhai Bus chala raha ya tractor.. . What if I get down now and the bus doesn’t wait for me. There is not even any DTC bus from here.”
As the bus was waiting at the Motibagh crossing, I knew this was my signal; it generally takes around 4-6 minutes for any bus to cross that crossing. I ran towards the gate, asked the driver to open the gate and got down without mentioning anything to anyone. Right in front of me was the KV, Sector – 8 wall and what better place could I get. Along with me were some grown-ups too with their dogs. So what if that wall was made by humans, dogs had an equal right on it too. Or from the dog’s view, I was stealing his luxury. It wasn’t anything new, we humans have stolen animal luxuries in the past too or even made many luxuries out of animals, that dog should have learnt his lesson a lot earlier. His owner is to blame.After answering the call of nature I turned and the blue coloured STMicroelectronics bus was right there, as expected and rather suspiciously, it hadn’t moved an inch.
“What, they know that I have come down? Are they all at me looking from their windows”, was my reaction.
“OMG, I am dead, even she must have known by now”, I shouted loudly enough for the passerby to hear. What had happened had happened. I dragged my feet to the bus only to find out that that man at window was not the conductor of my bus, ST12. Actually it wasn’t my bus at all, it was ST13. This means, I had missed my bus. I asked the conductor that where that bus was going. He ignored me. It was probably because he couldn’t listen me so I shouted and then looked down at me gave me a look, similar only to what the French queen gave to peasants asking for bread, and kept on with his work. Authority, dear friends, is always accompanied with arrogance and his authority was over the bus gate, which he will open only for ST employees. I had to respect his authority, so I took out my ST employee card and showed it to him and only then he told me that the bus was going to Guragon and could only drop me till Subroto Park from where I can take 764.
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