Bus Journey - The one with nut character

My cellphone rang pulling the chain of my train of thoughts.. It was the same person who had called me about an hour earlier.. and since the call was not from any of my female friends, it was easy for me to say.. "still in the bus.." and cut the call... But after the call, the trian took a totally differnt route altogether.... I started thinking about the ITPL buses.. the long journeys that i take everyday.. searching for the reasons why i am still taking those buses.. .. though i felt it is not too far.. that i would start taking buses even on weekends and go somewhere and comeback.. just for the sake of making the day complete!!...

I really do not understand why software companies are outside city as if they are chemical factories that manufacture mass destructive biochemical weapons.. whatever be the reason.. i am shuttling all the way from city to this jungle day after day.. And thanks to the ultra modern infrastructure facilities that are available here, i endup spending 3 hours a day, on average, on road..

I thought I should do something about it.. I might not be able to change the infra-structure of bangalore.. And i might not be able to take companies into city.. but I can at least give moral support to all those who suffer like me.. So with that noble thought in mind.. I thought, i will write about my experiments with ITPL journeys..

To start with..it is just the cumulative effect of all the sins that you committed in all your previous incarnations that made you get into an ITPL company..and the only positive way of looking at it is.... all your sins will be called even after this... and you will be out of this re-incarnation cycle.. If this view didn't help you much.. let me tell you.. that everyday, is a new day and will throw new challenges to you.. and you have to solve them to move ahead. If you managed to do some good deeds the previous day.. and if your stars extend their cooperations to you, you might get some interesting co-passenger, who makes you forget about all these traffic jams.... at least for that day.. But if you are as lucky as I am, and ever since you started differentiating between genders, year after year.. you happened to end up in a class, which is the only class in the whole school/collage not to have 'interesting' people... my sympathies are with you.. I read somewhere that theory of relativity applies to human psychology too.. when you learn about people with more ill luck.. you will feel lot better.. If it makes you feel better, you should know that I own a personal record of 4.5 hours one way to ITPL.. I could have reached my hometown in that time.. Even if your lucky, Murfy's laws are more powerful than any other laws of nature. An apple thrown into air might or might not come back to ground, but the day you when you think all your good deeds made your stars to be on your side...and you do not mind a traffic jam at that time.., the bus just zooms at 60mph as if someone has set a 'speed' bomb. And, once your co-passenger gets down, situation comes back to square one.. you will be stuck in jam.. and you reach home as late as any other day.

Slowly you get used to the facts of life.. though some times you may wonder, if you are a s/w professional or a bus conductor.. you might tell yourself in the beginning that you are cultivating a cool hobby of "traveling" . See evenNayanTara likes it.. It feels so nice to know that you and Nayantara are like minded..isn't it?. But this wont help long... with continuous "traveling", your positive attitude will cease to exist.. and you start realizing that probably this is not what she meant by saying her hobby is "traveling"

At this point of time in life.. you feel the necessity of self help books.. you start realizing how the the 450M$ industry of self help books reached that stage.... after reading few books you start finding positive aspects of ITPL journey...

You start realizing that ITPL gives you good amount of time for yourself.. which you normally don't get if your are not taking an ITPL bus. where in this busy world, will you get time to think about yourself.. And you are getting 3 hours a day of precious time all for yourself.. Isn't that great?
And if you stay awake in the bus, you will get to know psychology of different people.. You see all educated people driving randomly in all directions..and creating traffic jams.. and you wonder why the hell they are doing like that.. and after some time.. if your bus driver uses the same technique move ahead of trafic by not following rules and creating trouble to others.. you feel proud of him.. forgetting all the things you thought about others just few minutes ago.. When will you learn all these psychology lessons.. if you do not board an ITPL bus?

Now that we are on this topic, let me tell you about a classic character.. whenever I take 8 o clock bus, I happen to see this character sitting in the first row.. always on phone...talking LOUDLY as if he is on a old trunk call.. From the appearance and age.. he looks like a some project manager level (I really pity his team).. he keeps yelling/commenting at the people who stop the bus on the way at non-designated stops, saying.. it is because of them, that he is getting late to home..!!!.. (he must be good at group discussions in college).. and his interesting remark got my attention.. and i started observing him.. only to know later that he is going to comment me next..As soon as i was preparing to get down at my stop, he started talking to another like-minded aunty about asking the ITPL guys to remove my stop from the bus route... WHOA!!.. ITPL ko tere baap ka jageer samajh rakha hi kya? Tu Ek kaam kar..apneliye ek bas lele.. jo ITPL se seedha tere bedroom thak jaata hi.. I wanted to tell all this.. but there wasn't enough time to react.. the bus has already reached my stop and i had to get down. Later realized that if no one is getting down at my stop.. there is an alternate way the bus can take to reach the next stop which will avoid two turns . and probably save around 30 seconds of travel... Now whenever there are people who are getting down at my stop.. that makes this character go restless cos THAT MAKES HIM REACH HOME LATE!!!... And me being a bigger psycho who always love to irritate such characters... purposefully stayed late the next day to take the same bus... He was as usual complaining about the guys who were getting down at non-designated stops.. And as the bus neared my stop..he started asking the bus driver if there is another bus route towards my stop instead of this bus... and just to irritate him more, i took more time to get down than usual and that gave me immense pleasure.. which made me forget about the tiredness of my journey... And this continued for few days and one fine day as the bus reached jayanagar.. the restlessness started growing on his face.. and as the driver took the bus towards my stop..the guy finally asked me.... if i could get down at a different place and walk from there..which, as per him, is around 100 meters.. (I wanted to ask him which school he attended)... Thats it.. he had given me the chance i was waiting for.. a chance to get enough pleasure that would last for another month... and I gave him a smile in answer.. a smile that speaks more than words... that hurts more than any four lettered five lettered or six lettered word that you can think of.... And that is the last time i heard him commenting.... Had i not taken the ITPL bus, i would have missed all this fun... now who is a weirdo.. him or me?

Journeys in ITPL buses are filled with many such stories.. this will go on and on.. I shall continue this topic later.. with another incident in this series..

Till then, keep doing good deeds... and they will make your journey less painful. And stay away from all sorts of bad deeds.. they gonna make you sit in a two-seater with some bad smelling adnan sami by your side.. :-)