After sleeping for 14 hours I got up and left for the Sangam, Allahabad.
Now, i had sufficient options to go to Sangam. a) I could have called the company cab. b) Could have taken a rickshaw c) Could have gone on my friend's bike d) could have walked.
But.. my brain was playing tricks on me. I decided to take a bus.
I'm pretty sure none of my blog readers has ever been on a UPSTC Bus. Its the shortest piece of metal you can ever get into. I have seen not-height-friendly buses in Jaipur, but this was 'heights'. I was bending over, literally :D
No one was travelling light. Light was struck a 100 times to light a 100 beedis. Smoky, as the scene was, it seemed like the insides of a dream sequence-All that was missing was a 'chamiya' to dance to our tunes and her gyrations.
Some fellow travelers were transporting hens & other birds, some had stuffed gunny sacks with vegetables, other were travelling in the bus with their cycles. It seemed that everyone in Allahabad was shifting his/her house.
I could here the conductor saying: “Everybody out there…get in. I want nobody on the footboard.”
Nobody else but I moved. Guess, I am just too obedient :D
While trying to get in, I brushed against a lady in the crowd. Not intentionally of course. The lady turned back angrily but when she realized that it was I – a young handsome man - who had by mistake brushed her, she cooled down and turned away. My guess is…if only I had not been handsome; she would have created a scene-Slit my throat with the axe she carried in her 'blouse-pocket' and cried Rapist! Rapist!
Inside the bus, I smelt onion, garlic, molasses, rum, hooch, Domex, Savlon, Liril, Rasna, lemon rice and rotten eggs. Not to mention all the other smells that I could not identify.
As I gasped for air and looked out of the bus, the outside world seemed good. For a change I was loving the Allahabadi air. Very comfortable. But many things that work outside of the bus don’t work inside it. For example.. your credit card, which the conductor won’t accept.
I hung from the top rails as the bus meandered through the traffic. Some around me were standing yet sleeping. Perhaps, that is why I managed to rush to a vacated seat and yet get it. The moment I sat on the rickety seat, I regretted. Three pretty school girls – I think they were in their 12th grade – smiled at me and said: “Uncle, can you please hold our school bags?”
Before, I could get over the shock of being called an uncle; I had three bags on my lap. First had a leaking water bottle, second a lunch box that had opened and the third had a frog in a glass bottle – perhaps for the practical.
I had to get down at the next stop. I signaled the girls to take back their bags. As I got up, I offered one of them the seat… but they refused. I wondered why, because when I was 20 year old gabru jawaan, girls would rush in to sit where I had once sat.
As I was leaving, one of the girls said: “Thank you uncle.”
That hurt. That hurt good.
