One little Incident!

This is the narration of an incident which happened en route the KP trek. Initially, I was planning to write a travelog about the KP trek. But, thinking that at least one of the other eight guys who were part of the KP trek would be thinking the same way and would already have acted in more prompt manner than I have, I have quit this idea in order to avoid the redundant work. Any one among us who choose to write about the trek would write about the same things and in the same sequences. And, if I happen to write about the trek, it would give me a feeling of my work being infringed by others (Dude!! is iRunway eating too much into me? :P) and that would not be very right kind of feeling, I suppose. Anyway, visit my piccasa album for awesome pics of KP trek.

Link: http://picasaweb.google.co.in/ferroprat/DropBox#

But, this incident was witnessed by only four (Pandey, Sankalp, Paritosh, and me), as the group initially got divided into two because we could not get a single bus to Kukke Subramanya. I am sure that no body other than me is contemplating writing about the incident. So, I begin feeling very safe, secure and authentic.

This is roughly true for all IITians. They are great at execution but not very adept in planning. We had this trip in our mind for about a month. Members got finalized about 15 days before the trek, but the bus tickets were booked only 4 days before.

Result? We did not get reservation in a single bus to Kukke Subramanya. Buses were ordinary KSRTC type. And on top of every thing, we got the last row seats. Jain, Lahoti, Mudit, Rahul Tewary and Mittal boarded the bus which was to leave at 9PM and we (Pandey, Sankalp, Paritosh, and me) chose to go by 9:15 PM bus.

Implications? Last row seats in KSRTC buses meant our adventure started much before it was to start. We were robbed of much needed sleep before a very hard trek. Some other trivialities of government bus like over crowdedness, stiff wooden seats, cramped foot space, rattling noise of windows, doors and what not, made our life further miserable. With every small jerk, we were airborne; with every brake, we tried hard to save our skulls from bumping into front seats; and with every turn, we swayed and hit our fellow passenger’s shoulders. The last row was six seater. Once, we all got our bumps arranged, our packing factor tended to almost one. If I stretched my body and leaned against the back seat, it meant fellow passengers to my left and right would be leaning forward without any back support. If my neighbor stretched his leg, it robbed me of my leg space and I would be left crouching on my seat. The tacit feeling of brotherhood was so much evident in the little ecosystem formed in the bus. No one spoke to nobody. In between, Pandey and I shared our miseries in low tone which always got lost in the rattling of bus body. Nobody seemed to have any problem so we too kept our problems with ourselves and kept counting the time. But, the time seemed to have stagnated.

In the bus, Pandey and I were sitting in the last row, while Sankalp and Paritosh were at the front most seats. They were sitting facing the driver. While driving, driver had his own share of adventure and this pretty much kept them awake. The driving skill displayed by him while he munched on gram grains sent periodic shivers of fear through their body.

We knew before hand that the length of this journey would be around 8 to 8.5 hrs. Time was very hard to pass by. We wanted some sleep but we could not. I kept imagining about the trek. I tried to keep my mind busy and hoped time would automatically catch some speed. But futile, I was exasperated and probably so was Pandey.

Out of the six seats, ours were the middle two seats. Pandey and I kept exchanging our seats to get a posture change. On out right side was seated an elderly man. Like all he was too very silent through out the journey. In front of our seat on the right side, there were two elderly ladies and two girl children. Both the ladies seemed to be in their late thirties. As the bus started, they all had lemon rice in their dinner, which they shared with the man sitting to our right, who probably was husband of one of the ladies’. Both the children were elated at getting something to eat and made their joy known to all by speaking, laughing and running in the bus passageway. After the dinner, one of the ladies occupied a seat in the two-seater side of the bus. Beside her, at the window seat was a gentleman. He seemed to be in his late twenties. As the bus came out of the city, passengers seemed to have settled down. Even the body and mind got used to the miseries. The driver switched off the lights. The conductor too dozed off on a wooden box which he adjusted in the little space just before the last row. There were some frowned noses at this but nobody spoke anything. Everything pretty much settled. Things got utmost boring. There was nothing to look at. There were just silence and darkness. Time crawled. There were a few bus stoppages but, each time the bus started, things came to the equilibrium pretty fast.

It was around 4:00 AM in the morning. The bus had reached the hilly region and we were now almost like pendulum, swaying left and right with equal frequency. There was darkness and everyone was dozing. There was complete lull. And suddenly, the lady sitting with the guy started screaming and hitting the man sitting at the window. She uttered a lot of undecipherable words in Kannada and kept on slapping the guy. In between she spoke only two English sentences: “I know how to defend myself. (Followed by a slapJ)” and “I have been tolerating you for long”. It seemed the man did something to her in darkness which she felt was grossly inappropriate.

The whole bus was awake. The conductor rose and did not dare to go near the lady and ask the matter. He stood aghast in the passageway. After, sometimes, driver switched on the lights and there we saw the lady fuming with anger. As the light was turned on, she could easily see the guy’s face and this further fueled her anger. Unrelenting, she kept on slapping and hitting the guy wherever she could and kept shouting things in Kannada. The man was just trying to defend himself from her thrashing. Later, the other lady went to her, consoled her and cooled her down. She called the man who was sitting right to Pandey. This man was probably husband of the molested lady. He very meekly rose from his seat, went to the place of the event and didn’t say anything. The other lady almost dragged her to her previous seat. Her husband occupied the seat next to the trashed guy. Later, we came to know the guy had a wife and a child traveling with him. They were sitting somewhere else. His wife did not choose to participate in the quarrel and did not even rise from her seat.

This all happened in very time and almost woke up everybody in the bus. Kukke Subramanya was still 30 minutes away. Sleep was still miles away. Driver turned off the lights. The conductor stood near the door poping his head out of the bus. The next 30 minutes, I kept thinking about the incident. I did not know what happened between the lady and the guy. But, the courage with which she tried taking things in her control was worth some pride for Indian womanhood. She cried but her tears were not the product of her meek submission to man's aggression but of courage and boldness with which she tried defending her modesty and gave a tough reply.

But, there were some questions which my mind could not find answers to. Why her husband did not try to intervene and join her in his trashing? Why the guy’s wife did not did not come to his rescue? I was thinking about this, when the brake screaked and we all were jolted forward. The conductor shrieked ‘Subramanya’. My chain of thoughts was broken. I boarded down the bus looking around. It was just before the dawn. The natural beauty around slowly started to fill in me the thrill of the trek ahead.