Rediscovering Reality...

This long rectangular red box…. 32 windows…and a psycho driver… get the drift? I look out of one of those windows… and man next to me is snoring oblivious to me and the world around him... he seems strangely peaceful... his off white turban is almost on my shoulder and I can smell the fresh mustard fields off him… it’s a wee disconcerting.. but the evening breeze takes my mind off him. The road is as bumpy as they come and my butt’s as sore as it was on the night I was letting go (previous post)... I mean what else do you expect… my once white shirt has a huge red stain on it... the man sitting in front of me apparently spat out the betel leaf he had been chewing for the longest time and I just happened to be in the path of that red river… gross… but really!!... I like the shade… it looks like blood stains... adds character to the whole image For some strange reason it makes me feel more like the people on this bus… it makes me feel real... I had been standing out all day or for the matter of fact the whole week in my immaculate white shirts and suddenly this one stain made me feel more human and more like the villagers around me... my hair wasn’t spiked no more.. my trousers were creased and my shoes looked worn out and yes my shirt looked like the color of the soil. My stubble was a day old and it was at this point I decided to stop shaving (I loved the idea and now I had a reason not to).

I was a week into my month long (official) trip across the Maharashtrian ( a state on the west coast of India) countryside and my bed and bean bag back home seemed like a distant dream... the lill comforts I had always taken for granted were now just a fantasy.. but I was falling in love with this new life. A few months out of law school and the activist in me was on his first real mission and the feeling was exhilarating.

Looking back I don’t think I’d be able to go through that month again, but I carry with me some memories I shall cherish forever…

So there I was… a week into my mission… and already three hours into this bus ride… and I had no clue what lay ahead of me... a new village... a new district... maybe even a new lodge where I would spend my night and lots of big red bed bugs to give me company… sounds like a dream holiday doesn’t it.
My mind wandered 400 miles to the west… to my lill house... to the woman of my dreams... I wondered what she was doing… in my minds eye she was still in her air conditioned plush office and working on some corporate deal and I missed her… it had been a week since I last ate dinner with her and it would be another 23 before that could or would happen. I had already planned ahead… and the thought of her warm embrace and the image of her smiling when I went back home a few days from now made me smile like a senile idiot. I knew she would hate the stubble (which I was sure was going to be a beard by then) but then maybe she might get used to the new look (though I had my serious doubts).

Suddenly my shoulder felt wet… it was my neighbor the same turbaned snoring farmer you might remember... he was drooling in his sleep and my shoulder felt like the perfect place to indulge in this activity. That’s all I needed... it was getting better wasn’t it? but I was still smiling... I was finally getting used to this... used to it all... actually I was reaching a point where I was enjoying it… (even the drool on my shirt)( twisted…), I wasn’t even sure if I would get water for a shower when I got to Akola but like I cared.

I was surrounded by people I can now call real… they were as simple as they come… no malice.. no greed.. simplicity in its purest form… just like this man seated a few rows away having an animated monologue with his( I wasn’t sure of the sex) travelling companion.. a goat( i wasnt on drugs.. it really was a goat).. it was white with 3 brown spots and two lill horns ( I really wanted to know what the conversation was all about… but sadly the dialect was as alien to me as the land I was in) Or like this middle aged woman with a basket of vegetables, something about her…. and I couldn’t place a finger on it… she seemed to have stepped straight out of an artist’s canvas. The lines on her face... the colors she wore... all earthen and beautiful… her simplicity was breath taking.

The view from my little window was picture perfect… the red soil, the yellow mustard fields and the rows of trees all buzzing past me. The sun had gone down and the evening sky had Venus breathing down upon me… it was all breath taking. I was a stranger in my own country... that’s how I felt... the urban city boy( back at 24 I still thought and felt like a boy) out to discover his once rural roots (not really… but I liked the idea… it felt enchanting and made me feel magnanimous).

I had spent the past week battling all sorts of issues…unhygienic food ( though at the end of one month I couldn’t think of eating anything else) bed bugs from Mars…the lack of alcohol... the non availability of the brand of cigs I smoked…and most importantly the alien concept of showers… (really the shower bit didn’t go down too well with me) Can’t forget this one night I spent in this lill township, Jalna… I had traveled 9 hours on a bus journey similar to the one I was on and had checked into this random lodge at 4 in the morning. I was dead beat and all I really wanted was a bed I could call home for a few hours. The man behind the bell( there was no bell) was dreaming of his pet cow and it took me a good 20 mins to wake him up and get that room and bed I badly wanted ,( the rooms were cheap, my office couldn’t afford anything else for me.. and I really had to get used to them).. there were no televisions, just a bed( no bed bugs if I was lucky)( but lady luck has issues with me, so invariably I was feasted upon every night).. and a chair. The wash rooms were nothing to write home about... an old filthy blue bucket… a cracked mirror and a tap with no water. Fit for the Sultan of Brunei. Don’t you think?

So there I was in this random room in the middle of no where... on a decently cool December night (wasn’t sure if I could call 4 30 in the morning anything else). The bed looked inviting and even taking off my shoes that I had had on for 16 hours seemed like an audacious task. Three mins into that room I was already in dream land... eating a juicy steak at Martins’... sipping on some cold vodka lemonade... smoking a classic mild( I know there aint no such thing as a mild cancer… but smoking a mild cig always makes me feel less guilty.. and this was a dream for crying out loud.. I could smoke weed if I wanted to) I loved those dreams... they were at least comfortable... and I am sure I hadn’t gone too far with my steak when this loud banging at the door startled me out of bed... was I dead? whatever happened to my steak… where was my cig…I was dazed to say the least... it was 6 in the morning and there was a raving lunatic at my door... I only had blood on my mind… this intruder’s blood… It was the laundry man, the f *#@ing laundry man… (an alien concept to these parts) who had come to collect the sheets I was sleeping on… had it not been for the fear of spending the next 14 years of my life serving time for a cold blooded murder I really would have done it… so there I was in this alien room in the middle of no where with no sleep.. no steaks... no cigs or vodka and now no sheets to sleep on… I wanted to cry... wanted to run away...I wanted to scream and shout... probably even bring the roof down... or maybe not... and there was no way in hell I was sleeping on that bed with no sheets on it …….
Ouch…am suddenly brought back to reality… don’t know why these bus drivers have to brake so hard... maybe its their sadistic way of waking everyone up (maybe he was related to the laundry man)… its refreshment time… a starry night.. this lill run down eatery with big pots and an open kitchen... I was hungry and the smell of freshly baked naans (Indian bread) was too hard to resist. The cold water from the village tube well washed off all the exhaustion and the naans dipped in sweet milky tea brought me to life... I still missed my dinners with my lady love... but this seemed like a decent substitute.
Now I have a knack of striking a conversation with anyone and everyone no matter where or who I am with... but sitting there alone I felt helpless... the language in this region was as alien to me as the as characters from H.G Wells ‘War of the Worlds’… but its at times like these you discover new ways of getting across to people.. Something as simple as a smile distorted in 36 different forms can get any conversation going. (I recommend it to all).

Suddenly I had new friends… a whole bus full of them to say the least... even that psycho driver( distant cousin of the laundry man) smiled at me… I felt like a lill kid who wasn’t alone no more... language... culture nothing seemed to be a barrier … just a bunch of humans all connecting on a level alien to any urban being.. it was beautiful…

I spent the last 4 hours of my journey lost in the rural settings of this world I never thought existed…their voices... the songs... the occasional snore... the cool breeze and the stars....I could have died peacefully….but I didn’t…
The bus finally pulled into Akola in the dead of the night… not a soul in sight and it was time to say my good byes… not like any one understood what I said... but the message was loud and clear... a simple wave of the hand... and those strangers... those friends were all gone forever.. I saw the bus pull out and I was alone again except for the stray dogs who seemed to love me... a new place ..a new mission... and I was off to find a new bed to call home….