TWO JOURNEYS

By

K.

Journey 1.
a.k.a
The Adventures of a Furious Character

It is 21:00 hours. V graciously agrees, with cig in hand, to keep me company till my bus comes. He puffs away. I wait. Four, five buses go by. None of them is mine.

Then V sees someone on the other side of the road. With a muttered ‘Excuse me’ he rushes across the road, weaving in and out of the traffic. He accosts a woman. I hope he knows her. (Sorry V, if it was a close friend, I didn’t know.)

And then it comes, my bus, with about 42 people hanging out of it. Like a pack of ghouls, those of us waiting for that bus rush forward, pushing, to get in. We get in.

The smell is unbearable, the heat suffocating. There is barely place to stand. People converse around me loudly. There are many people who are drunk, and they converse with almost anyone who is next to them, equally loudly. There is a very drunk, very old man near the door, mouthing obscenities at things only he can see, doddering. I wonder when he will fall out.

And suddenly, through the clutter, I hear a clearly Bihari voice scream into a cell phone, “Arre main abhi Orr Tee Nagger Bolisse Stasan mein utharne wala hoon! Haan haan! Mil gaya!”

And someone from behind him taps him and asks, very Kannada accented-ly, “Yakoos me! Vere you are geddown?”
The Bihari replies, “Orr tee Neggar.”
To which, the Good Kannadiga Samaritan says, “Too stapps. Wait. I tell.”
“Thenks.”

The bus lurches to a halt, loud curses erupting from everyone around. The conductor comes running from the front, getting in at the back, screaming for more and more people to get in. A villager gets in, crounches on the floor. Every stop he gets up with a jerk and asks the person next to him, “Idhu Hebal stop-aa?” He finds out the answer is no, and sits down, dejectedly. sorry, crouches down.

The completely smashed old man screams something unintelligible. Then he clears his throat loudly, hawks and spits. Immensely pleased by this, he starts off once again, screaming curses into the cold night air.

“Aur aap? Yoo arr vheyarr?”
“Lufthansa.”
“Achcha! Call centre?”
“No no.” A hand swoops upwards in the air, palm outstretched. “Flights. Plane. Bengaloor to Frankfurt. Yoo know, Germany capital.”

More people get in. Outside it is dark. The conductor screams and rushes forward again.

“Idhu Hebbal stop?”
“No.”
“Aiya.”

Two more drunk students get in and proceed to talk very loudly about some girl. I pity them and her. The conversation behind me continues:

“Yoo get tha normal ticket, it iss fiu thousand, ekksekyuteeu class is more costly. But serviss iss good. Drinks and all.”
“Achcha? How much eet ees? Exxeccutteu kilass?”

We pass a playground where some kids are playing volleyball under the harsh pool of light cast by a roadside lamp. The scene is somehow peaceful. I smile; it is nice to see these innocents, playing a serious game in a school playground at nine thirty at night.

“Yoo vatch verld cupp? Germany. Aaliver Konn. Grate player! Vat yae goal he keeping. He did nat play this tayam, but he is great player.”
“Hanji. But Jidane lost his touch.”
“Ya ya.”

The tottering old man steps off. He screams at the bus, and the passengers, some of them, scream back at him. He totters off, slowly. I wonder where he goes to, or even if this is his stop.

“Saar, yoo are geddown heeyarr.”
“Aji shukriya.”

We pass a series of bakeries. Their names are terribly funny. The first is called ‘Just Bake’, the second, ‘Al Bake’. I think of the Kannada equivalent and the bilingual pun makes me smile. The Bihari gets off. He screams into his phone,

“Abey sun na! ab main uthar gaya hoon! Bollisse stasan pe…” And he is gone.

“Idhu Hebbal stop-aa?”

“Illari.”

“Aiya. Thoo.”

The conductor comes back up. He smiles at me, and then tells me confidentially, “I have to keep going off front. You see, the driver doesn’t know the way…”

My spirits sink lower. There is still an hour’s journey left. And I have to keep standing, thinking all this stuff, till…
A finger jabs my shoulder. I turn around. The Lufthansa employee grins at me. He says:

“Yasskoos me. Vere yoo arr geddown?”

Uh-oh…