Growing up!

I have always felt life goes like a sine wave - highs 'n' lows, a period of lots of work and then loads of lukkha time....these last few days have been very busy...not due to work but a lot of things happening in my life! Last week I was cribbing 'coz I had nothing to do to while away time......until I decided to go to Kochi ..to my aunt's place. Even after 4 years of staying away from home these pangs of homesickness haven't stopped hitting me!

So I went for booking the bus tickets two days in advance and inspite of my parents protests against me travelling in the heavy rains. Not knowing the place can be very frustrating, especially as I found out that day, after walking 4 kms and spending close to 100bucks just on travelling 'coz I kept losing my way in this jungle of a city. Phew! at long last I reached the booking office and all my previous notions about bangy being a cleaner and nicer city than bombay vanished as I ended up walking down this dirty market road, to reach that place. Somehow I got the reservation done after much haggling as all the buses were full. It was dark by this time and that wasn't a place I wud love to be even during daylight...so, I started to feel even more insecure..and the whole thing made me very suspicious of everyone around me!.....to the extent that I thought that the rickshaw driver, realising well that I am knew to the place, was trying to take me for a ride...and my imagination went to imagine even worse things...so much so that I made him stop in between and asked another man for directions...and also I thought the man at the booking office was trying to keep me there for an unduly long time and so I refused to sit down at his office.....now it seems ridiculous of me to have been standing there for close to an hour that I was there!!! Not only that, I also told him that I from pune when he tried to be friendly with me..I told him some other name...and then thought he was charging me more for the ticket...and on and on.....On my way back I was holding on to my bag tightly 'coz I had just visited the ATM that evening. I am sure that wud have drawn more attention to my bag....I was behaving as if people have xray vision and will come after the meagre 2000 bucks I had in my wallet!! Finally when I reached IISc, i heaved a sigh of relief. I still had an hour to waste before got on to the shuttle so I went to cisit the library...that too without an ID.......Then I did that which was my only way to get in...gave the security guard a sweet smile....and expressed my deep desire to have a look around the library ..of the 'greatest research institute in the country'.....and it worked!! While in the huge leather chair in the lounge with all the top journals lying around me...I reflected on the evening's adventures and had a hearty laugh at my stupidity and distrust and suspicion! ..and of course vowed not to tell this at home..mom would be psyched at the thought of her naive gal travelling alone in an unknown city at night!

Then, after much dilly-dallying I went to Kochi and Vijay Kaka and Kaku were so affectionate, I felt totally at home.....I was completely relaxed ....no worries at all.....at peace! On my way back in the bus there was this gang of rowdy boys......hitting at me.....playing loud music at my ear, sneaking peeks at me...and the horrifying of all..resting his dirty feet on my handrest! When language is a bar.....sign language is all that comes to your rescue ..but not wanting to show off my indecency..I did not gesticulate to him, instead just shot him a fierce, menacing glance......at the next opportunity I got my seat changed.....only to land up at the mercy of 'bus-bugs' the close relatives of the bed-bugs :P, .....with sleep out of the question I coaxed myself into discerning outlines of the trees and landscape in the dark and enjoy the journey! at daybreak my prayers were answered when our bus broke down and we were squeezed into another fully filled bus....minus the bus-bugs so that I could grab an hour of intermittent sleep. After another one hour of journey through all other available modes of local transport in the city, I reached the peace of my room .......my first reflection on the whole experience was "Luxury Buses Ought to have Loos!" :)

God still had many more lessons in mind for me....so just 2 days later when a friend and I weer walking down from my PG place to NCBS, a rogue came and snatched her purse ......and we chased him....and lost him....and then reported it to the police...who kept up their tradition in arriving an hour late. The real fun started after this....for this small an incident there were three van full of officers.....each taking their turns to question us on all peripheral details...Thank heavens they didn't ask me the favourite question 'What is this Biotechnology?' ..apart from that they engaged in all trivial talk.....right from establishing some marathi connection with me! Of little importance, and understandably so, was the description of the snatcher, 'coz my friend had dropped the most important clue...she was leaving the city in a week,.....so the case was shut......My first experience with the police had lived upto my expectations.....I couldn't help laughing out at the farce they put up!

Next day was even more eventful with my friend bent upon filing an FIR.....though the logic was right....the place was wrong...as we had to go 'police-station-hopping' finding out the station under whose purview the patch of land, where the incident had happened, came..no, no...don't take that too lightly,....even a centimetre here and there and they'll direct u to a different police station! After all this we got an FIR receipt....written in pure Kannada! We were jubiliant! I hope this puts an end to this long drawn theft episode!

So as it turns out four lessons later..I m a different person....more scared..more suspicious of people around me and hopefully more careful in the future!