Life - A series of (Un)fortunate events.
These (Un)fortunate events-Breaking the drudgery of living an otherwise (Un)eventful life.
I have realized that many times in the course of our living, certain small joys resoundingly overtake the seemingly bigger exultations. There occur incidents which are pleasant to memory at the time, but become even more so, when a random moment becomes reminiscent of them.
Recently, I was reminded of one such incident that a friend and I experienced many years back. There's no plausible cause for the recollection of that particular event, but this random occurrence did allow for a pleasant few hours post the fleeting moment of remembrance.
(BTW, i am sitting in office and listening to iron maiden as i write this. Why i choose to mention it is because i am still hungover the maiden concert that i went to a couple of weeks back :) My first international concert...it's all happening!!! )
Without being too judgmental about how this incident will go down with the select few who might actually read about it, i wish to recount it...and recount it i will.
Some years back, a bunch of us were returning from delhi university after taking one of the many BIT exams that we took there. Because we'd had a relatively early day that day, we decided we'd go to CP and while around our time at Starbeans (which has since been closed down..we had nothing to do with it) after which all of us would go our separate ways to our respective places of destination.
So then, we did while away our time at CP, i don't remember much of that part...the later part of the day wholly overshadowing every other goings on of that day. Anyways, the two of us took our 620 to IIT, and we were both delighted to have managed a DTC at that, empty DTCs being somewhat of a luxury and far better than the death loving bluelines.
It was proving to be another one of the numerous journeys that the both of us had taken together on various occasions...those in which our discussions of life, music and all things forming the basis of our lives a t that point in time, would blur out the rest of the humanity that might/might not have surrounded us.
Around mid-evening, the hour when it seems the day is unable to decide whether to plunge into complete darkness or stay on with the light a little bit longer, around this moment of confusion for the day, when the bus made an unscheduled stop...not an abrupt halt...it just started to slow down all of a sudden before coming to a complete standstill and everyone inside knew that there was something wrong...cannot yet comment on the gravity of the situation.
This 620 was being driven by a relatively elderly person and the conductor was also not much younger/older. Amidst the irritated rantings of the "harrowed" passengers, both the driver and the conductor got off the bus to ascertain what had gone wrong. Eventually, all of us alighted the bus, and with new formed alliances, decided to wait on the road for the 2 men army to give us some piece of information about the onward journey that awaited us. A few minutes passed by without yielding much, and the crowd started to wither away, bit by bit. We hung on. Some more minutes passed, and the 2 men army took upon the task of finding transportation for the remaining 40 stuck passengers. In some time , nearly all had left and it was just the two of us standing there. And the conductor beckoned us to get board and carry on.
" Shall we get on that bus?"
"What do you say?"
"...I'm not sure i want to go in any other bus than the one we started the journey on..."
"Neither do i. "
"Shall we wait"
"I guess we can wait a little bit longer.."
And both of us shook our heads.
The driver said " maloom nahin yeh gaadi chalegi ya nahin".
We said " koi baat nahin, hum yaheen hain"
By this time, the day was literally holding the daylight by a thread whilst the darkness had almost won in forming the envelope of black, which it is so apt at. Both of us were smiling and talking, clearly understanding that there was no rationale behind us staying back but just knowing that there was no way we could have left.
Stood there for about 45-60 mins, found a piece of rope i remember, played with it for a while. And talked.
Then the driver said,
ok..we'll try to make it go, it cant go fast, but it will go to its destination. we'll take it there.
And then 4 understanding smiles were exchanged and we began our onward journey towards iit, once again sitting at the back, once again in DTC, this time with a couple of people, who had earned our respect.
It travelled a speed that slow walkers could beat, but it traveled all the way. It picked up more people and dropped them off, somehow nobody seemed to mind its speed.
We reached our stop and got off. Both of us instinctively turned our heads towards the bus and then we saw.. the conductor looking in our direction and waving goodbye. :)
Must the evening be explained more appu? :)
