The lazy bus rides.

91 days to go...

Bus rides have been a cornerstone during my college years. I owe my frequent jogs inside the college, in the morning, thanks to them. It all started a month before I joined PSG Tech when the college was the venue for my BITSAT exam. After the exam, my friend offered to drop me. He ended up dropping me in Sungam, a place with shady public transport to my house, in a parallel direction.

I went to college by bus on the first day and four years later, for one last ride back home too, ID card in tow. My friend, Harish, had an interesting start to his 'bus days'. He was prompt to get down at Peelamedu, but not his bag. It got stuck between the footboard-rajas and he ended up running along with the bus for a while before the stuck bag got undone. It would turn out to be the start of a truly boring day for him... and for many of us too.

With my fellow companion, Srinivasa Raghavan, we would discuss hopeless things in the world. Calling the seven girls of my class the seven wonders, recalling in detail all the assignments we didn't complete, discussing the potential hotshots of my college, we wouldn't miss much. The long queues to get the bus pass at the start of every month tested my patience. But it was all worth it.

On nice days, I would be one of the four people on the bus, the driver and the conductor inclusive. On odd days, when I took a particularly famous (or infamous) bus 16B, I'll be one of the innumerable people jostling for space, oxygen and a bit more. The conductor would coolly remark, "Nee kaal vecha edathula rendu per nikkalaam paa!" (Two people can squeeze into the place where your leg is), These conductors, with their belief that the center of the bus is a black hole and can suck in any number of people would go to the extent of making someone walking near the bus-stop get in.

Conductor: "Hey, where do you need to go?"

Random guy: "No, not this route!"

Conductor: "This route will take you everywhere!" and showel him in.

Every other guy will get disgusted with the crowd and breathe out... on the person standing next. And the next guy, and the next guy. I'll remind myself that not only yawning is contagious, this is too.

On a particularly irritating day, a random old guy with an obsession for giving lectures would remark, "Yenpaa college ku bag kondu pora" (Why do you carry a bag to the college?"). I would wonder what to reply, then think the better of it. The conductor would sometimes look down upon those with the bus-passes like we are about to steal his whistle and leather-dust bag. Some conductors would ask for the bus passes just to sign them, like the IPL captain signing a match ball for a clueless guy chosen by Vodafone.

On weird days, I have run to find a place in the only empty seat on the bus and realize that the guy sitting next to you is high. People, drunk, telling the world is going to end, the tomato prices are increasing, the quarter prices are increasing, the sub-standard side dishes he got at the TASMAC shop and the like. One guy chose to ask about who I am, where I come from, what I do, and remarked, "Enna maari irukaadhe pa! Nalla padi! Padichu munneru!" And I let it be.

I haven't always been the right guy in taking the buses. Once, I took a wrong bus, ended up going to the outskirts and realizing it only when a song playing on the phone ended and the conductor was calling out the name of an unknown place. On one occasion, I took a rather ungainly route to the college, passing through two lakes, numerous foreign birds and covering a distance thrice the distance to my college. Sometimes, school kids with bags double their sizes would get in and the conductor will have a field time pulling their leg.

During certain romantic days, I would encounter one of my crushes on-board the same bus. On that day, you will despise the conductor for disturbing you as he issues tickets. If the bus gets crowded during such times, the entire society will earn your wrath for making conspiring to block your point of view. Some days, I have encountered drop dead gorgeous people on-board the bus and wondered how the entire universe is conspiring to get us to choose the same route, same time and most importantly, the same bus. Some days, I'd see an old person, vacate my seat for him and feel like a boss. There have been days when I've dropped 500 rupee notes and some 'God sends' have stretched and retrieved the cash for me. Likewise, I've done the same too. And I've wondered sometimes if 'Good Samaritan-ship', so to call it, is also contagious. Certain things I've realized during those lazy trips:

1. Think twice before you iron your shirt, you will eventually have it crumble when you get down.

2. It is not a bad idea to wait for a slightly empty bus. Patience is a virtue learnt while waiting under the hot sun.

3. Never put a song on your phone speakers as you listen. The number of people who like the song will be more or less equal to 1. Worst case scenario, 0.

4. Interesting things happen on lazy days. And when you expect interesting things to happen, those are the days when you are on the footboard.

5. You will have to fall off the bus once or twice. Then you learn that you are an idiot and you adapt.

6. If you give 50 bucks and ask for change, you will be looked down upon. If you give a 100 rupee note or sometimes, a 500 rupee note, the conductor will shoot this look as if you are a terrorist.

7. If you ask for change in return, the conductor might sometimes behave as if you asked him to hand over his lunch. If you do the same and offer him a one rupee coin, you are exempted from the above rule.

Summer or winter, good or bad, jam-packed or empty, bus rides are rich with experiences and have provided me a plethora of perspectives. And buses are such a great leveller- divided by schools, colleges, bank-balances, companies, social classes, religions, but unified by the conductor's yell, "Change illaama edhukkuyaa bus la vareenga!"