Scene I: a much-in-need-of-retirement bus is allotted and even before boarding, it refuses to start. Somehow it coughs, spews some smoke and relents. We start crawling towards college. We stop at the first stop, it takes time to restart. We reach our first flyover; it feels like someone with a heart condition's chugging up some mountain and failing miserably...our bunch of qualified mechanical engineers just gaze all lost. 2nd stop it dies for good! By now it's almost 8:40 and we're miles away!
Scene II: another season, another time the bus, this time loaded to full capacity, decided we were much too heavy for her delicate frame. I can bet we never tipped a 30kmph that day but she pulled along just fine, till we came to our 5th flyover and guess what the driver did...asked us to get off and see him at the top of the flyover. So there we were, some 50-80odd kids walking up a flyover and then scrambling for seats just when the driver took off at full speed! It had been decided that we'd try not to slow down and never to stop! Sadly we had at a crossing and without saying a word we all knew this would be as far as we'd get that day!
Scene III: in other misadventures, the bus broke down once in the midst of the jungle on a winter morning! That was when Salony coined our trip as "jungle main no-mangal" or something. that would also be the day when I realised for well and good, that "big" boys at dce will never take responsibility...they happily sauntered off, hitchhiking with strangers, leaving behind a bunch of scared, hysterical, angry and plain lost people behind to wait it out for a replacement bus with the oh-so-weird driver and conductor!
Scene IV: let me see...hmm. Oh yes! We had a bus breathe its last next to a big huge slum and hence our abandonment! Also once we travelled all the way with the engine throwing out black smoke and even threatening to burst into flames! I remember bikers turning around to check if it were really a moving bus on fire.
Scene V: one fine summer morning, in the midst of our semester exams (or mid, I don’t remember) we travel happily studying. Since it was an exam day, only those who had a paper at 10 were travelling in it. By now the dear never-to-be-sent-to-retirement bus is familiar and no one pays heed to its groaning and grunting. I call it a sheer attempt at attention seeking, but the bus managed an unimaginable feat...the rear axle broke and popped out!! And bang in the middle of the jungle! Oh the panic! How will get there? What of our exam? Oh this and oh that...and all this from the boy-folk. No offence, but I can't call that behaviour man-worthy! So then groups formed and a taxi was hailed to get us to the metro...6people stuffed into one cab and going zigzag like a pot-boiler he got us there after happily fleecing us. One of the guys, who'd declared himself our leader, proudly proclaimed, "Main baniya hoon, mujhe paise bachane aate hain!". Poor him, it took us a minute to prove how badly we'd been fleeced! All I can say is I gave my exam somehow!
It’s not like I have no sweet memories. I have so many I can't start to put them down here. Early in the 2nd, 3rd semester days Salony and I would sit and laugh all the way. It wasn't like any of us had some great sense of humour; it was more her thirst for gossip, my inadvertent supply mixed with her unique drama-queen style and my cynicism. Oh what fun! But then she stopped coming and I, around 5th semester on, found a smart Monday morning company...aka swayam. Monday morning fun only but our male bashing sessions were hilarious and heart-ache tales so similar! It was great having those intelligent conversations that didn't make me feel too dorky or too romantic or too cynical, depending on my mood, and was even better learning from her!
Not to forget, there was the "chi-chi" gang. Mayank and Prannay christened three irritating, loud, ill-mannered females, a year junior to us as the CHI CHI gang. the head chi chi was a migraine inducing female who had too shrill a tone and their conversation wasn't even ever fun, far from interesting! The conductor once had asked them to shut up, he'd had enough!
Coming to the last 2-3 semesters, it's noteworthy how on most days, I’d end up being the only female aboard. Given how this was nothing more than a passing observation of my own, I’d settled very comfortably in the entire atmosphere. I knew I had friends here...Mayank, Prannay and Anoop. Silence was comfortable, debates a lot of fun (I’d always be quiet), EPL almost a religion and taking my, Anoop's or absolutely anybody's case, Mayank and Prannay's best time pass. But I loved it all!
Now as college comes to an end, my daily dose of music, score updates, match analysis, newspaper reading and gossip will not come out of the same 1hour early in the morning. As for what's passed, I wouldn't have had it any other way! Look what I’ve had...
