CITY !! CITY!! BANG!!! BANG!!!

                                       back in bangalore

I had to make it blore on a sudden….couldn’t get any tickets by all known and unknown modes of travel…and no  point driving alone in a car….last time I drove I had a fortunate puncture…the puncture was juzt 10 kms from the hospital of a close friend and classmate….

This time I juzt jumped into a time-pass passenger …alighted at erode…took the next train to salem…and jumped into the earliest chug-along to bengaluru…..

I love these journeys as an unreserved ticket….you don’t get any place anywhere and the most atmospheric one is on the exit-door overlooking the loo…loo and behold!!!!

As the crowd welled up,I had to assume different yogic positions and finally I slept standing…no complaints ,though…

We razed into whichever platform the train chugged into,stopped any vendor of samoz and chaya,stared into passengers peeking out of crossing-trains……imagined veerapan moving between the clouds and rocks….kept checking our precious tickets…and then ofcourse musical chairs wherever you were put up…

What time-pass….two guys were drunk…I hate drunk guys during travel…I enjoy my drink…but when I travel I am a saint among the tainted…sitting cross-legged we shared plastic water,local political gup-sup,cross-referenced train timings and formed our own coterie….we were all clever by half… I put on the airs of a medical equipment supplier,the guy next post pretensed as a businessman...

We crozzed bangalore east by around 5 am and I was shocked to see those 1000 flats per crazy unit…looked crazy and frightening and manic…I remembered the bangalore floods and the dissolved and absolved water bodies….these matchbox flats have no architecture worth mentioning..even if you can spray colors and throw metallic sculptures here and there…..even if you can get HAFEEZ CONTRACTOR to do the frozen music stuff for your stone,cement,wood,tile and paint..

..later on...I picked up my copy of the DECCAN HERALD…..” one lakh flats not yet sold..”…..felt really happy…

The railway timetable was was being circulated..remembered an old joke…the timetable is the best book of fiction in India…no train worth its asphalt and paper runs on time…you can really have a laugh and laugh I did….