Boomerang

Some of the greatest joys of travel are gleaned from knowing that your preconceptions were wrong.Sometimes right.And that sometimes that you are a real lucky bum.You cant be all three of them at the same time.I must have been a lucky bum for a change,then.Unfortunately I never went to check whether the bee had developed knees.

One rather normal night I started off to my home town.Since the urge to go home had spurted only a day before I was travelling in a special bus due to unavailability of tickets in others.Trying to make most out of the 10 hour journey I settled in to sleep only to wake up an hour later to be chased out of the bus along with my co-passengers into the unbelievingly active and swarming Bangalore-Hosur highway.The 'special' bus had no inter-state license.It was to spend the rest of the night at the polices'.As a chaiwala tried to make the most out of the situation,we stood staring at the dispersing bus,unbelievingly .Some of guys who had snapped out of the numbness a little earlier had succeeded in man-handling the bus driver who seemed totally lost.Among them I noticed a guy who was a little more active at it.His gilded bride stood glowing at her hubby's heroism.

Surveying the scene I realised that there were only two other women present.The bride and another girl about my age.When the men were done with their machismo some of them went about calling the travel agency demanding them to arrange another bus for the rest of the journey.I for my part also called up the agency to notify them that women were also involved.By then it was 11 in the night.The agency was all apologies and promised to send a bus to Hosur at the earliest.By then the husband and wife were making other plans to reach atleast till Coimbatore and borad another bus from there to Cochin.They also succeded in getting 2 tickets to Coimbatore at a travel agency along the road.Yet others, unbelieving about the agency's promises were hitch-hiking at every possible passing buses which would take them anywhere near their destination.I realised that Anu(that was the girl's name if I remember right) and I were not part of any action at the moment.Now we were in a hole.We did not have the courage to jump into any passing bus.The husband offered to take us along if we were willing.Anu was game.Atleast they were a couple.I was not very interested,yet diffident about losing the company of a more seemingly mature woman.But then the agency had promised another bus.

"Lets wait for the bus.I guess we can manage this".I assured Anu,hoping I was not being a pea-brain.Much to my relief she only needed me to say that to her.She relented.We began our wait.The couple's bus came around midnight.Before departing they warned us that we girls were being silly and that no bus was to come.Nevertheless they asked us to take care.The number of people who remained was reduced from 20-something to 7.It was a freezing and intermittent winds added pain.I wondered whether I would have to enter feet first into the bus when and if it arrived.Anu and I discussed everything but about the not-arriving-bus.It must have been on a mutual understanding.Our wait did not go waste.At 2 in the morning a tempo-traveller arrived."Fantabulous!.As if not enough we were supposed to travel with the torso erect".I discussed with her.But the traveller interiors were a little more promising.The seats were plush though erect.But to our absolute horror the driver was playing tamil folk songs.The vehicle would be taking us to Coimbatore and from there another bus had been arranged to take us to Cochin.Not very confident about this proxy bus arrangement I decided not to sleep,lest I woke up changed.

With folk songs for company,I watched the traveller drive into the dawn with swimming eyes.At around 7 in the morning we reached Coimbatore.Much to our relief there was a bus waiting for us.Doing a few stretches we boarded the bus which was luckily, a sleeper.Without further hiccups we would be reaching our hometown.As Anu and I settled down into our seats we let out a sigh and exchanged smiles before trying to catch some sleep.The bus started off immediately,only to be stopped the very next moment.A"What now!!??" must have been on everyone's minds as we craned necks to see what had happened.I wanted to hoot and whistle as I saw last night's couple enter the bus.Situations like these brings back the kid.With a little provocation I would have gotten up,wagged my fingers at them and given them a "You did not get very far did you!". Anu shared my sentiments.We let the men in the bus do the hooting.Feeling unnecessarily puffed up we settled down to sleep into the afternoon.