The gentle breeze along with tiredness made my eyes to close its lids. After half an hour of snoozing, I was suddenly disrupted by the howling sound by a popular cine comedian in the tv.
"AAoooooooooooo...."
Damn!
I slept again.
Ten mins later... The guy sleeping on my right slowly slumped his head over me.
Damn!
I politely (... ahem!) took his head and dropped it other side and slept again.
Five mins later... The guy sleeping on my left slowly dropped his head over me.
Damn!
I politely (... ahem!... ahem!) took his head and dropped it other side and slept again. Then only I realised that I'll be missing my sleep that night. A pseudo-code of the next half an hour would look as follows:
STEP 1: "AAoooooooooooo...."
STEP 2: The guy sleeping on my right slowly drops his head over me. Put him straight.
STEP 3: The guy sleeping on my left slowly drops his head over me. Put him straight.
STEP 4: GOTO STEP 1!
Finally, the bus halted. So did my pseudo-code. The guy on the left realised that his stop had arrived and got down.
Thank God!
Little did I know that I would be facing a much more critical situation in the near future.
Now the seat got occupied by one obese guy who I guess should've filled his tummy with gallons (ok.. litres!) of alcohol. In an effort to accommodate himself in the little corner of the seat, he used his force on me which in turn fell on the guy sitting on my right. Now this was a real hit. The force made the head of the right guy resting on me slam the window bar.
Thus started my bad time.
The right guy got ruffled started shouting at the left guy. The left guy was experiencing hangover and he started shouting again. I was sitting in the middle trying to pacify both. The more I tried to mitigate, the more vehement became the fight.
Two roads diverged in my mind:
Road 1 - Call the comatose conductor(who was least bothered about the fight) for help.
Road 2 - Vacate the seat.
If it had been for Robert Frost, he would've taken the road less travelled. But I was thinking which road to take. And before I could finish thinking, the intensity of the fight reached its apogee and the right guy with his full force gave a punch on the stomach of the drunken monkey (the left guy!).
That's all..
Out came a colloidal gel of alcohol mixed with chicken biriyani, cashew nuts, mashed boiled egg, peanut masala, chips, pickle, fish fry, onion, salad, moong dhal, mashed bajji bonda from his mouth and fell on me!
(Damn !)^2
Now the drunken monkey became enraged. He shook his head twice as though thinking of himself as a bull in a bullfight. He was least bothered about puking on me. He caught the collar of the right guy and claimed him to reimburse the money for his alcohol as he was responsible for the vomiting.
"What the f***!"
And the fight started again with both of them exchanging blows and donating some to me as I sat there, fully covered with the puked alcohol, protecting myself from the blows. This combat created pandemonium among the fellow passengers (who were happily watching the fight till then...)and they shouted at the comatose conductor to halt the bus.
The drunken monkey was thrown out.
But... What about me?! It was the worst of my time. With not even a single passenger in the bus having a water bottle to clean myself, I travelled the next half an hour with the colloidal puked alcohol sticking all over my body.
Even after I had abluted myself thoroughly in the next stop, the stinking smell of the alcohol was reluctant to get out of me. And when I reached home, my mom, for the first time, refused to give me a hug. She instead showed me the way to the bathroom!
Now what do you say about these sort of incidences? I started thinking again. A series of questions sprung up:
* Why did I think of travelling?
* Why did I board that bus when there were hell a lot of buses available?
* Why did I occupy the first seat?
* Why did I occupy the middle of the first seat?
* Why didn't I vacate the place when I was first interrupted from my sleep?
* Why didn't I call the conductor?
* Why did the fight happen?
* Why did the drunken monkey puke on me?
And finally...
* Why is it always me?
My mind replied:
" Fear not Bharath... I am the creator of this fictitious story! So, only you can be the hero. That's why it is always you my dear!"
Damn!
