It happened two weekends back when I traveled to Hyderabad, the City-of-Pearls. And do you know why? On the occasion of rakshabandhan. Yes, I know it was on tuesday, the 24th. The only time it'll be difficult for you to be with your loved ones is when you want to be with them. I didn't have a holiday on 24th and neither did my two sisters. So, we decided to go to Hyderabad on that weekend, where the youngest of them stays and the other one would be coming there. We planned our schedule immaculately for the two days we'll be there. From shopping (a horribly expensive festival for brothers), visiting historical places and eating out to accommodation and coming back and all. But, planning is the devil in all plans! Including ours, of course.
So, here's how it went. In other words, here's how I spent one of the most satisfying, belief-shattering and mind-blowing weekends of my life so far...
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| Ammmaaaaaaa..... |
Friday, the 20th
Now, who suggested me to travel in a bus from Pune to Hyderabad?! Friend, you're screwed!!! You literally are!!! My schedule for the weekdays was painful enough;it isn't easy to stay in your office from 10AM to 11:30PM the whole week and still decide to go-along with your plans to travel on friday night. Plans, huh?! So, I decide to take an off from office at 8:30PM; the bus was to come at 9:30. Just a mile from office, and I got a lift from a colleague. Thanks Rahul! Yes, there are people in my organization who regularly leave the office premises before midnight. It isn't always cool to be in the minority. I reached by 9, had a lot of Pav Bhaji by 9:30. And then a bit more. The bus was (expectedly) runnin' late, I was hungry and the Pav Bhaji was just super-awesome. The only question was: how am I gonna remove all this butter all over my palms and fingers? Well, this restaurant actually had soap with the handwash. No, I really live in Pune, guys. Believe me.
Me to Rahul: "Goodnight, Rahul. No, I'll be okay. I'll wait here at this...what's the name...yeah, J K Travels."
Rahul to me: "Chal phir, Abhishek. Happy journey! And, see you on monday."
Me to myself: "Don't talk about monday, please! I'm gonna have nightmares in the bus, brother."
Goodbyes, goodnights and here I am. At J K Travels. Not alone, though. A couple of hungry looking young guys, a hungry-for-sex looking 30-something lady working for our very own J K Travels, a couple of ugly-looking (real ugly!) young girls with backpacks and a few stray dogs around us. Me to myself again, "If those chicks are travelling with me, I'm out of this trip. No questions asked!" Well, everybody knows by now: Just because I don't want something to happen means that it will! And it did. The chicks go to Hyderabad every weekend. Or so they told me without asking. And I ask you all to just imagine how I spent the next 90 minutes there. Alive. Well, somehow. In Pune, the 9:30 buses usually arrive by 10:30, I'm told. But 11:20?! Man, how in hell do you expect me to not say a word when you finally reach? But I didn't. I was too happy I had an imaginary chance to escape ugly-chicks. They told me their names, but, south indian names are just too difficult to remember when you're terrified of a weekend of disaster waiting for you with its arms open and a cunning, monalisa smile on its face.
I put my luggage in the luggage cabin faster than I can imagine, take out Otrivin (I snore real-loud 'coz of the cold I get with an AC runnin' 2 feet above my head) and board the bus faster than Usain Bolt can imagine. Seat no. 12. Beside 11w, a window seat. And who's sitting on the window seat? The girl who, by just her split second smile, made the aforementioned ugly chicks responsible for all the global warming in the world. How do you spell horror in Telugu, btw? Don't bother imagining, please. I suddenly felt I wasn't sleepy after all the week of 10AM-to-11:30PM. Nightmares while you're awake kinda don't let you feel sleepy anymore. But, I still try and after half an hour of constant nightmarish trying, I succeed.
Saturday, the 21st
Woke up at 7AM with a hangover not caused by alcohol. Beautiful day outside. I spread my arms, take a big yawn and look the other side. Oh my god! You scared me, 11w. Don't ever look at me like that. Well, you're not gonna have any chance with that anymore. We must be reaching in an hour or so. Oh, right. Lets ask the conductor. "Bhaiya kab tak aayega?" "Abi time hai. Bata denge jab aayega." Man, why do I sense the worst. I look around and still see marathi written all over the walls and shops. Oh. My. God. I look at 11w and....!!! One person's misery is another's yebbadebbadooooo...
"Itni dheere kyu chala rahe ho, bhaiya? Abi to maharashtra me hi hain."
"Arre bhaiya tire puncture hai."
"WHAT???"
When fortune turns against you, even jelly can break your teeth. This wasn't even jelly, I suppose. It was thin air. They come at 11:20PM, start late, drive slowly, make me sit beside ugly chicks and now have one of the two rear left tires flat! It's in times like this that you start believing that nothing is ever so bad that it can't get any worse.
I keep on sittin', waiting for the journey to take it's (due?) course. They stop at a restaurant. The regular highway restaurant with lush, beautiful greenery around, a candy store at a corner, workers with filthy clothes and lots of space to walk around and curse God to send you to this planet. The conductor suggested me to have my breakfast as we wont reach before 2. Man, we wont reach before 2? And you want me to eat more. I gotta take a crap, brother. Not breakfast. But, I eat. One who travels much eats much. One more thing I notice is that you only want to brush your teeth before breakfast when you're travelling. Inexplicable, huh?! Oh, crap! (the metaphorical one.) I didn't pack my toothbrush. May be God loves me so much now that He wants me to come back to him. Are these signs??? Well, lets pay more attention and look around carefully. May be these are signs.
We board again. No sign of how the puncture will be fixed. Still runnin' slowly. The only recourse is that it's still runnin' surely. After 20 minutes, we stop. Oh, the puncture repair guys. I love you all.
We get the repairs, I click a few shots of the place and the long road ahead and carry on.
Me to Rahul: "Goodnight, Rahul. No, I'll be okay. I'll wait here at this...what's the name...yeah, J K Travels."
Rahul to me: "Chal phir, Abhishek. Happy journey! And, see you on monday."
Me to myself: "Don't talk about monday, please! I'm gonna have nightmares in the bus, brother."
Goodbyes, goodnights and here I am. At J K Travels. Not alone, though. A couple of hungry looking young guys, a hungry-for-sex looking 30-something lady working for our very own J K Travels, a couple of ugly-looking (real ugly!) young girls with backpacks and a few stray dogs around us. Me to myself again, "If those chicks are travelling with me, I'm out of this trip. No questions asked!" Well, everybody knows by now: Just because I don't want something to happen means that it will! And it did. The chicks go to Hyderabad every weekend. Or so they told me without asking. And I ask you all to just imagine how I spent the next 90 minutes there. Alive. Well, somehow. In Pune, the 9:30 buses usually arrive by 10:30, I'm told. But 11:20?! Man, how in hell do you expect me to not say a word when you finally reach? But I didn't. I was too happy I had an imaginary chance to escape ugly-chicks. They told me their names, but, south indian names are just too difficult to remember when you're terrified of a weekend of disaster waiting for you with its arms open and a cunning, monalisa smile on its face.
I put my luggage in the luggage cabin faster than I can imagine, take out Otrivin (I snore real-loud 'coz of the cold I get with an AC runnin' 2 feet above my head) and board the bus faster than Usain Bolt can imagine. Seat no. 12. Beside 11w, a window seat. And who's sitting on the window seat? The girl who, by just her split second smile, made the aforementioned ugly chicks responsible for all the global warming in the world. How do you spell horror in Telugu, btw? Don't bother imagining, please. I suddenly felt I wasn't sleepy after all the week of 10AM-to-11:30PM. Nightmares while you're awake kinda don't let you feel sleepy anymore. But, I still try and after half an hour of constant nightmarish trying, I succeed.
Saturday, the 21st
Woke up at 7AM with a hangover not caused by alcohol. Beautiful day outside. I spread my arms, take a big yawn and look the other side. Oh my god! You scared me, 11w. Don't ever look at me like that. Well, you're not gonna have any chance with that anymore. We must be reaching in an hour or so. Oh, right. Lets ask the conductor. "Bhaiya kab tak aayega?" "Abi time hai. Bata denge jab aayega." Man, why do I sense the worst. I look around and still see marathi written all over the walls and shops. Oh. My. God. I look at 11w and....
"Itni dheere kyu chala rahe ho, bhaiya? Abi to maharashtra me hi hain."
"Arre bhaiya tire puncture hai."
"WHAT???"
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| Ammmaaaaaa.... |
I keep on sittin', waiting for the journey to take it's (due?) course. They stop at a restaurant. The regular highway restaurant with lush, beautiful greenery around, a candy store at a corner, workers with filthy clothes and lots of space to walk around and curse God to send you to this planet. The conductor suggested me to have my breakfast as we wont reach before 2. Man, we wont reach before 2? And you want me to eat more. I gotta take a crap, brother. Not breakfast. But, I eat. One who travels much eats much. One more thing I notice is that you only want to brush your teeth before breakfast when you're travelling. Inexplicable, huh?! Oh, crap! (the metaphorical one.) I didn't pack my toothbrush. May be God loves me so much now that He wants me to come back to him. Are these signs??? Well, lets pay more attention and look around carefully. May be these are signs.
We board again. No sign of how the puncture will be fixed. Still runnin' slowly. The only recourse is that it's still runnin' surely. After 20 minutes, we stop. Oh, the puncture repair guys. I love you all.
We get the repairs, I click a few shots of the place and the long road ahead and carry on.
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| The long road ahead... |
It's 2PM now and I see an unknown language written on the walls and shops and some famous south indian movie stars' posters all around the city and know we're almost there. What is this place where you're stopping me, sir? Miyapur, ,Hyderabad. Man, I suddenly remember Gurgaon. I never thought I would eat 100 grams of dust an hour in a city other than Gurgaon. Happy to know there are other millennium cities in the world. I call my sister to know where to come. InOrbit is the place I'm told to come to.
I board an auto rickshaw and get the most amazing welcome to the city I could imagine. We're standing at a red signal and there's a couple in front of us. The girl sitting behind is wearing a shortish t-shirt. And when you wear those and lean on your boyfriend sittin' in front, you show your lower back and a bit of you know what. Another big boy is standing on his bike beside and is probably eating paan. Almost everybody eats paan in Hyderabad. The big boy with the big mouth could eat ten at a time, I suppose. I was probably true. The signal turns green, the boyfriend in front of us starts his street-hawk on the top gear and before he has any chance to release the clutch and accelerate, the big, paan-eating boy beside us pukes all of the litres of red paan liquid inside his mouth on the visible area of the girlfriend's lower back! All at once! And takes a left turn and leaves. I went blank! All of what I learnt about the world in the last 25years just seemed incomplete. All my concepts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness seem hazy and out of date. How do you react to this shit, man?! I'm stunned and look at the auto rickshaw driver. He's as normal as a Hyderabadi can be. Tells me this happens all the time and that these girls come from Mumbai and corrupt the culture here and that is the way they should be dealt with. Phew! Privileged to see the local culture in the first 30 minutes of reaching.
I reach InOrbit and see no residential area in sight and there's a shopping mall, instead. Named InOrbit. Call my sister and she tells me she's coming down. From InOrbit mall. "You called me in a shopping mall at 2:30 in the afternoon? Sister, I'm wearing the same clothes and shoes for the last 40hours, have eaten as much as my weight, haven't brushed my teeth and haven't taken a crap and you want me to shop???" The next I knew was that this was deliberate. I would be taking a crap there in the mall itself, wash my hands there, will eat even more and shop if I want something more; I still have some space in my luggage bag after all. So, I go to the toilet and it's an altogether different world then the multinational companies' stores outside. But, here's the rule:when you gotta go, you gotta go. And I went... And how! God doesn't hate me as much as I think he does. And while taking the shit I suddenly think, "Have I checked whether there's any soap outside?" Oh, crap! Another metaphorical one. With a real one as well, if you ask me. But, God doesn't hate me so much, after all. There was some soap. I use it until only a few drop remains. There could be other unlucky good-for-nothing-idiots out there beside me who, you know, gotta go.
I go outside. We shop for a few things I hated to pay for. And have food again. Delicious, Hyderabadi delicacies, however vegetarian they were. And I eat again as much as my weight. The reason why those spicy things were tasting sweet in short intervals was that I hadn't brushed my teeth, I was told. Ice-cream time! And I dont pay for it. Yippeeee!!!
Now is the time when we're supposed to look for a place to stay. A few friends of my sister reach at the mall come and request, no, insist us to stay with them. This city knows how to make the tourists happy, as has already been proved bye the events of the day so far.We catch another auto rickshaw to wherever we were going. One good thing about auto rickshaws in Hyderabad is that there's no mandated or even prescribed way in which they should carry out their business. And I did not experience the real consequence of this tradition until the next day. So, no prescribed manner means that they can make any number or people, go to any place, charge whatever they want and can pick up other passengers on the way to already sitting ones' destination. We reach 80 rupees, 3-3.5 kilometers and six trillion pot holes later. I had already had long waits and a long journey from Pune to Hyderabad, but, this one seemed to be the longest. And I felt most bones in my body crying out loud to just stop and begging me to commit suicide.
Now, it's well into the evening and the Sun is going down. Beautiful dusky feeling, cool breeze and a sprawling, busy crowd is what I notice. I crave for some Jack Daniel's in situations like this, but, decide to consider myself lucky to even have some hot tomato soup in dinner. After all, I don't associate Hyderabad with any of these things.
Here's where I see for the first time something that was part of the picture in mind constituting this city. A not-too-wide, not-well-paved street with many houses and a predominantly local-looking population. This is the legendary Hyderabad I was looking forward to. We reach my sister's friend's flat and the first thing I have in mind is using the washroom to the fullest extent possible. And that is what I do, indeed. Have a bath, wash a handful of clothes and see that it has started raining heavily now. "Will these clothes ever dry?!" No answer. I still put them on a rope and sit comportably with the new guys to get to know about them. 10 minutes of experience sharing later another one of them comes with a big, big carrybag in his hands. Doesn't seem to be food to me. Oh, man! It's samosas, pav bhaji and other heavy snacks. Am I supposed to, what, die munching food??? No answer! Laugh it off guys, but, there'll be a time when your girlfriends and wives will be fed-up of feeding you and then you'll remember me. For now, please pass on the plate with samosas here. Awesome! One who travels much loves to each much.
"So what now?! Why are you looking at me like this, sisters? Oh, of course I remember. Here are your rakshabandhan gifts." Boy, it's much easier to console yourself after mistakenly transferring ten thousand rupees to a wrong account number. But, it's rakshabandhan and every brother has an obligation to be guillotined in public. Here's my chance and I take it with courage. Topic change!
"So now what? So, there's another friend who has a bigger and a better place for us to live? And he's married as well? And we're going to his place? Why now, yaar? I'm tired." But, we go. With my all my bag and baggage. Another 80 rupees, a few kilometers and a million twists and turns later we reach. It's a big, beautiful house in which this beautiful looking, newly married couple was living. We again sit down, get to know each other, share experiences, be comfortable and the wife dissappears in the kitchen to make my worst fears fresh. Impossible! I can't eat anymore without exploding is the only argument I have left to save myself, but, in vain! Just the two of them living there, away from their families and now they have guests. Indian people are the best hosts in the world! So much so that they don't refrain from insisting their guests a bit too much sometimes to have food with them. And I had had my full quota of being the guest for the day. Result: I eat more! And just because I don't explode gives the hosts more ammunition in their plans to be the best hosts ever! (Frankly, they were!) Time for the sweet dish. We eat more. Time for sleep. The longest day imaginable to me is over.
Sunday, the 22nd
The first thing I'm told when I wake up is that I snored last night and really loudly, for that matter. I hit back saying that I'm getting fatter and fatter everyday and they are responsible for most of the fat in my body now. Gotcha!!!
So what's on the cards for the day? A trip to Golkonda Fort. Wow! But, after we have breakfast. One girl in a kitchen is enough. Too are just too many. And three is Armageddon. But, all of them happen to be awesome with their culinary skills, thankfully and so, we have breakfast. A lot of it, again. Time to have a bath. Lets go. Now, wait a minute. Did I pack my towel and other clothes back while they were hangin' on the ropes? Nope! I ask for Jesus' number. Not the Son-of-God Jesus, but, the friend at the last place. Sister's cellphone says "Flat Jesus", but, I watched The Hangover just a few days back and read it "Fat Jesus". No, really. The towel and other things are safe there and I use a borrowed one that was already a bit wet. Not commenting on it anymore, for God's sake.
Time to go to Golkonda fort, a big, circular in design fort built by a mughal emperor with a long and complex name. Another auto rickshaw ride with a zillion twists and turns on a slope later we reach there. And the first thing we notice is that it's big. The second thing I notice is that there are a lot of foreigner cuties there. The third thing I notice is that all of them are much taller than I am. And then I stop noticing for obvious reasons. So, we enter, take tickets, avoid tourist guides and enter the main gate. We Indians think that we know all about the places we visit and avoid guides. But, we do not!
Here it was standing a symbol of Mughal pride. Beautiful, awesome, grand from inside and outside. We saw the place where the queens used to bathe (not a private place for the conservative Mughal Empire, if you ask me), the places where corpses were washed, the 300 pound weight to test who deserves to be in the royal army to the trashes of garbage and names of couples written, sorry inscribed, carved on the walls. Man, this is history standing here in front of you and you're throwing non-biodegradable garbage around it? Bad!
Here's where I see for the first time something that was part of the picture in mind constituting this city. A not-too-wide, not-well-paved street with many houses and a predominantly local-looking population. This is the legendary Hyderabad I was looking forward to. We reach my sister's friend's flat and the first thing I have in mind is using the washroom to the fullest extent possible. And that is what I do, indeed. Have a bath, wash a handful of clothes and see that it has started raining heavily now. "Will these clothes ever dry?!" No answer. I still put them on a rope and sit comportably with the new guys to get to know about them. 10 minutes of experience sharing later another one of them comes with a big, big carrybag in his hands. Doesn't seem to be food to me. Oh, man! It's samosas, pav bhaji and other heavy snacks. Am I supposed to, what, die munching food??? No answer! Laugh it off guys, but, there'll be a time when your girlfriends and wives will be fed-up of feeding you and then you'll remember me. For now, please pass on the plate with samosas here. Awesome! One who travels much loves to each much.
"So what now?! Why are you looking at me like this, sisters? Oh, of course I remember. Here are your rakshabandhan gifts." Boy, it's much easier to console yourself after mistakenly transferring ten thousand rupees to a wrong account number. But, it's rakshabandhan and every brother has an obligation to be guillotined in public. Here's my chance and I take it with courage. Topic change!
"So now what? So, there's another friend who has a bigger and a better place for us to live? And he's married as well? And we're going to his place? Why now, yaar? I'm tired." But, we go. With my all my bag and baggage. Another 80 rupees, a few kilometers and a million twists and turns later we reach. It's a big, beautiful house in which this beautiful looking, newly married couple was living. We again sit down, get to know each other, share experiences, be comfortable and the wife dissappears in the kitchen to make my worst fears fresh. Impossible! I can't eat anymore without exploding is the only argument I have left to save myself, but, in vain! Just the two of them living there, away from their families and now they have guests. Indian people are the best hosts in the world! So much so that they don't refrain from insisting their guests a bit too much sometimes to have food with them. And I had had my full quota of being the guest for the day. Result: I eat more! And just because I don't explode gives the hosts more ammunition in their plans to be the best hosts ever! (Frankly, they were!) Time for the sweet dish. We eat more. Time for sleep. The longest day imaginable to me is over.
Sunday, the 22nd
The first thing I'm told when I wake up is that I snored last night and really loudly, for that matter. I hit back saying that I'm getting fatter and fatter everyday and they are responsible for most of the fat in my body now. Gotcha!!!
So what's on the cards for the day? A trip to Golkonda Fort. Wow! But, after we have breakfast. One girl in a kitchen is enough. Too are just too many. And three is Armageddon. But, all of them happen to be awesome with their culinary skills, thankfully and so, we have breakfast. A lot of it, again. Time to have a bath. Lets go. Now, wait a minute. Did I pack my towel and other clothes back while they were hangin' on the ropes? Nope! I ask for Jesus' number. Not the Son-of-God Jesus, but, the friend at the last place. Sister's cellphone says "Flat Jesus", but, I watched The Hangover just a few days back and read it "Fat Jesus". No, really. The towel and other things are safe there and I use a borrowed one that was already a bit wet. Not commenting on it anymore, for God's sake.
Time to go to Golkonda fort, a big, circular in design fort built by a mughal emperor with a long and complex name. Another auto rickshaw ride with a zillion twists and turns on a slope later we reach there. And the first thing we notice is that it's big. The second thing I notice is that there are a lot of foreigner cuties there. The third thing I notice is that all of them are much taller than I am. And then I stop noticing for obvious reasons. So, we enter, take tickets, avoid tourist guides and enter the main gate. We Indians think that we know all about the places we visit and avoid guides. But, we do not!
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| The Golkonda Fort |
We eat (again) and finally find some dustbins to throw the trash. Come back, have lunch (sorta again) and we leave the most wonderful hosts ever with pledges to be in touch and visit each other again. One of my sisters leaves for her city and I'm with the other. We decide to go get the towel and stuff from Flat Jesus and then decide what to do before my 9:30 bus to Pune leaves. All of a sudden it starts raining heavily. We still go, take our things, make new pledges, thank our friends for the awesome hospitality and go to KFC.
Now one great thing about Hyderabad is that everyone speaks Hindi, although it is written nowhere. The language is just super-awesome. It's exactly what we see in the movies. So we talk to people (in Hindi) for the way to KFC, and reach there. I was just too full to the brim with food, but, my sister wanted a few specialties from KFC. That is where I notice the most peculiar thing about the people there. The girls there love gold! They love it to death. What they hate to death is getting their eye brows and upper lips done and waxing their hands. I suspect it because every single girl in KFC has the same love/hate relationship with those things of carnal gratification I mentioned. As for me, I have a love/ate relationship...with food. Hi hi hi...
Bull ride time, now! Lets go to InOrbit mall again. Not too far from there.
"Bhaiya itna khaya hai abhi. Na kar paoge!"
"Hath kangal ko aarsi kya, aanti! Aaja dekhte hain..."
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Kaa kuhte hain... |
After riding the crap out of that mechanical bull, we shop for a few more things and finally decide to head back to our places to wind up the trip. I take my luggage from my sister's hostel and take an auto rickshaw again. One last thing. Milind, Bunty, Narendra, my friends, I'm never gonna mock you guys for watching those south indian movies. I've now seen it all and don't suspect you guys that its not true. They can actually ride the auto rickshaws like they do in those movies. It's 8:30PM and the driver's taking a road which has never been taken before, ever, and is switching from a combination of just front & left tires to the one of just front & right ones every 3 seconds. And I'm pretty sure I flew in the air and experienced weightlessness about 60 times in 3-second intervals. The bull-ride experience came in handy here, I guess.
I reach on time and, inexplicably, alive and in one piece. Ask a paan shop owner where the spot to catch the bus mentioned in my tickets was and, as was evident by the look on his face, disappoint him by not purchasing anything from him. Oh, now I remember. This is the spot where I had the paan-spitting-on-that-girl's-lower-back welcome to the city. It's about time and I wait sitting somewhere beside the pavement and start recounting my experiences and smile. Then I notice people noticing me dreaming. I silently laugh over them. They have no idea what I've gone through in the last two days.
Almost all the bikes I see on the road have 3 people sitting on them. No cops, no traffic cops around. Then, I take a look around the place and there are like a million posters and hoardings congratulating Chiranjeevi, the unimaginably famous actor and politician in the southern part of the country. It's his birthday today, which is a reason enough to cut a thousand trees for wood, paper and paint.
I call the contacts mentioned in my ticket and they tell me the bus will be there in about 20 minutes. Lets stand where it stops. I have more luggage than I brought in the city, my legs are paining, I'm tired to death and have to stand...carrying the luggage as the floor is all wet with rainwater. The silver lining is that I don't have to munch on dust for dinner. And when you've had as much food as is mentioned so far in this post and are standing...gravity starts to do its tricks on the food you have inside you, not just on your feet. I need to take a crap, again. And then, I need some sleep!
I wait for almost 90 minutes (as per my watch) for their 20 minutes to complete, trying my best to divert my mind towards anything but the havoc gravity was wreaking inside me. At 11 in the evening in that part of the city the only place where you see sufficient light is on a billboard in the corner congratulating Chiranjeevi. That and the fact that I'm in the city for the first time and the road is almost deserted and without street lights is scaring the crap out of me. Which is why it becomes even more difficult to hold ground against the will of God. 11:15PM and here it comes! I make Usain Bolt ashamed of himself again and board the bus.
One last lesson while travelling is this: if you're in a situation remotely similar to mine, don't keep water bottles with you. It's much easier to resist thirst than the overwhelming urge to take a pee-pee. And the roads in the country compound the problem. But, all is well that ends well. Here's a married-looking, iPhone using woman in her late twenties or early thirties on the window seat. She smiles as she sees me. A regular feminine smile that makes you forget all that is happening inside you and release endorphins that relaxes you. I smile back and sit down. Before long, before I realize, I close my eyes and look back at the weekend that is gonna change me forever...a trip to the City-of-Pearls, without biryani, without a visit to Charminar, without visiting the old-city and talking to the legendary old-city-guys...but, complete...more than complete...much more than complete...
I reach on time and, inexplicably, alive and in one piece. Ask a paan shop owner where the spot to catch the bus mentioned in my tickets was and, as was evident by the look on his face, disappoint him by not purchasing anything from him. Oh, now I remember. This is the spot where I had the paan-spitting-on-that-girl's-lower-back welcome to the city. It's about time and I wait sitting somewhere beside the pavement and start recounting my experiences and smile. Then I notice people noticing me dreaming. I silently laugh over them. They have no idea what I've gone through in the last two days.
Almost all the bikes I see on the road have 3 people sitting on them. No cops, no traffic cops around. Then, I take a look around the place and there are like a million posters and hoardings congratulating Chiranjeevi, the unimaginably famous actor and politician in the southern part of the country. It's his birthday today, which is a reason enough to cut a thousand trees for wood, paper and paint.
I call the contacts mentioned in my ticket and they tell me the bus will be there in about 20 minutes. Lets stand where it stops. I have more luggage than I brought in the city, my legs are paining, I'm tired to death and have to stand...carrying the luggage as the floor is all wet with rainwater. The silver lining is that I don't have to munch on dust for dinner. And when you've had as much food as is mentioned so far in this post and are standing...gravity starts to do its tricks on the food you have inside you, not just on your feet. I need to take a crap, again. And then, I need some sleep!
I wait for almost 90 minutes (as per my watch) for their 20 minutes to complete, trying my best to divert my mind towards anything but the havoc gravity was wreaking inside me. At 11 in the evening in that part of the city the only place where you see sufficient light is on a billboard in the corner congratulating Chiranjeevi. That and the fact that I'm in the city for the first time and the road is almost deserted and without street lights is scaring the crap out of me. Which is why it becomes even more difficult to hold ground against the will of God. 11:15PM and here it comes! I make Usain Bolt ashamed of himself again and board the bus.
One last lesson while travelling is this: if you're in a situation remotely similar to mine, don't keep water bottles with you. It's much easier to resist thirst than the overwhelming urge to take a pee-pee. And the roads in the country compound the problem. But, all is well that ends well. Here's a married-looking, iPhone using woman in her late twenties or early thirties on the window seat. She smiles as she sees me. A regular feminine smile that makes you forget all that is happening inside you and release endorphins that relaxes you. I smile back and sit down. Before long, before I realize, I close my eyes and look back at the weekend that is gonna change me forever...a trip to the City-of-Pearls, without biryani, without a visit to Charminar, without visiting the old-city and talking to the legendary old-city-guys...but, complete...more than complete...much more than complete...
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