Anand Prakash

DISCLAIMER: ABUSES AND STRONG LANGUAGE ALERT!

I was in the bus, waiting for it to start, with irritating thoughts running through my head. How long it would take for the bus to start? I wanted to talk to the bus conductor. That’s when it hit me. A sudden clap! This clap was so distinct that it was trademark of them in this country. The folded notes of Rs. 10 or 20 were stuck in between her fingers.

“Money.”Her, as she announced herself not that she was a female, hand landed on my shoulder. As I told you, the experience with them didn’t go well.

Her short hair, like a boy or a bob cut hair girl, were heavily oiled and neatly combed backward. Her forehead was broad and her eyelashes were neatly trimmed. The white of her big eyes were pomegranate red and the color of her pupils was dark brown, just like her complexion. Her nose was pointed at its tip. Three black hairs lurked out her nostrils. She was clean shaven and her chin had a depression. Overall, her face was like an apple but with a hard coat, as her skin had hardened a bit. She tried her best to look like a girl. I could see the uneven powdery whiteness on her face, as if she hadn’t properly applied some whitening cream. It would be no brainer to guess which cream it was from its smell: it was the best selling fairness cream in India. Her perfume hit my nose and I sneezed hard. It reminded me of one of the first perfume I had ever bought. I had been told that it’s so powerful that if you put it once, you don’t need to put it again for another three days. Because of my sneeze, her hand was off my shoulder. When I raised my head, she stood tall here in her red sari and deep cut blue blouse. There was nothing in her neck, like a necklace or a locket. I searched for it as I had grown seeing something in the neck of women. I felt like something was missing but then she wasn’t really a women. Though her hands had green and red bangles, but her hands were heavier than a women’s.

Her mouth again opened up with the demand, “Money?” No please or anything simply money. Her teeth were stained rusted red. In between the words, she covered her mouth to avoid leaking the paan juice, with fingers, where the blue nail paint was coming off, suggesting that she had painted them long ago. I thought about giving some money to her but next moment, her demand turned rude, “Give me the money.”

I looked away. She slapped the shoulder, that got me jumped in my seat. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Money, honey?”

“Which money? Remember giving me?”

“Honey… just 10 rupees.” She grabbed my cheeks with her fingers which she brought back to her lips, in a figurative kiss.

“Get away from me.”

“So, you will not give the money?” She clapped in their trademark fashion.

“Why should I?”

“You want me to show you.” She put her fingers in between her blue blouse. I turned to other people in the bus. A middle class couple, sitting right behind me, looked at her and then started whispering each other. On my opposite side, two teenagers passed a smile. The elderly gentlemen sat contemplating behind teenagers.

“Why do you want to humiliate yourself for just10 rupees?”

“I don’t care.” 

“So, you really want to see.”

I remained silent. The bus conductor had gone out, trying to bring more customers and the bus driver was watching all the proceeding from his rear view mirror.

“Look, what the God had given us.” She pulled my shoulder and dragged me to her bosom. The sprinkles of paan juice splashed in my eyes.

“What the fuck? Get away from me.”

“Haa…Haa. I bet you like it.”

I got up from my seat and she pushed me down.

“Madarchod, now you will give me everything? Just wait.” She started taking off her blue blouse. I stared at her.

“Hey driver, are you going to sit and enjoy it from there?”

“Hey get out.” The bus driver said from his seat.

“Bhadwe, don’t you dare to say anything or else I’ll strip in front of you.”

The teenagers started giggling. I didn’t notice the change in the expression of the elderly gentlemen. The discussion of the middle class couple continued.

“Do you want your mother and sister to strip in front of crowd like me?” She had taken off her blouse. The whites of her eyes got redder. The corners of her lips were stained red. Her nostrils inflated in anger.

“Who said you are my mother or sister?”

“Hey give him 10 rupees,” the male from the couple said to me.

“If you are so willing, give her the money.”

“Come here” he said.

“Just wait. First, I want money from this Madarchod. ” She was naked from the top. Her chest shaven, so like men. I couldn’t control my laugh.

“Sale Hijre, is that what you want to show me?”

Just when she started to strip her skirt, three of her people stormed in clapping, and yelling, “What happened sister?”

“He said ‘Sale Hijre’ to me.”

“He said Madarchod to me first.”

Two of them pulled me down from the seat.

The passengers didn’t move from their seats.

“Let’s go from here.” They said.

“Take out his wallet.” One of them advised. I had put it in my bag long time ago.

They brought me in the aisle and started slapping me. I threw my hand in every direction until I got hold of my water bottle, which had been stuck outside of my bag. I kicked them in my self defense when I was on the ground. When they tried to snatch my bag from me, I heard a roar.

“Stop it.”

They dispersed away from me.

A pot-bellied constable stood in the bus gate with his bamboo cane. He had handlebar moustache. Behind him stood the bus conductor, who must have brought him here.

“What happened?” the constable asked. I got up from the ground. They told their version of story. I remained silent. I was so out of mind that it all sounded gibberish to me.

“Why?” the constable looked at me.

“She asked me the money and abused me when I didn’t give.”

“Come out, all of you.”

“But I have taken a bus ticket.” I resisted.

“Come out for a minute.”

I followed them out. He stood there for a moment, adjusting his dirty cap. They surrounded me.

“What’s wrong with you? You seem from a nice family. Why didn’t you give her money? Look for 10 rupees what mess you have created.”

“What are you talking about? You are taking their side.”

“There is no side, son. You want to settle it here or you walk with me to police cabin there.”

“Settle? What? I don’t want to settle. Take me anywhere.” I yelled loudly, as I saw people gathering around us. I hoped someone from the crowd would help me.

“All of you disperse!” He brandished his bamboo cane.

“Take out your wallet.”

“No. Why should I?”

“Okay. Listen and understand it clearly. Why you want to miss your bus for 50 rupees?”

The bus conductor whistled and yelled for passengers.

“Come on bro, if you want to go. I can’t keep the bus waiting for you.”

                                                                                           ***

Sitting in the bus, the male from the middle couple put a hand on my shoulder, almost in shock, I turned around, “What?”

“If you had given 10 rupees…”

My fist almost reached to his face but then I stared at him, “It’s my fucking money, I will do whatever. My your fucking business!”

Never in my life, I felt like hitting someone.

“When will the bus start?” I asked the bus conductor, for they are notorious for not following the bus time table.

“Five minutes. Where are you going to?” With a plastic smile, he replied.

“Anand Vihar. Five minutes, are you sure?” Without a smile, I asked.

“Yes. Just come and sit.”

I jumped up in this air conditioned bus. I chose it because I knew it would take at least couple of hours to from Gurgaon to Anand Vihar, and I didn’t want to get boiled up in the traffic. The bus conductor forced air in his blue whistle. The bus driver looked in the mirror.  Our eyes met in the mirror. The bus moved a little, toward the exit point in the bus station.  

In next ten minutes, three type of people visited the bus: a coconut meat seller, a bald guy selling ayurvedic medicine for joint pain, and a third gender forcing the passenger to give the money. I somehow handled them; it wasn’t pretty to say the least. Then, I got anxious. I asked, “When are you going to start the bus?”

“Couple of minutes.”

“You have been here for more than ten minutes.”

“Some more passengers and then we’ll go.”

“What if you don’t get them by evening?”

Just then couple of families speaking Bhojpuri stepped in the bus. They had small bags. Rest of their stuff was in a big plastic. The conductor kept whistling and yelling for passengers. During these fifteen minutes, the bus moved 50 meters. Still some 200 meters from the exit of the bus station. With new passengers in, I thought the bus would start now. Before I would ask again, the conductor had reached to my seat and asked for ticket money.

“I don’t think you guys are going to Anand Vihar before 8 pm.” He took the money and remained silent, with the whistle stuck between his blackened lips. Before going deeper in the bus, he gave me the ticket. I realized satire wasn’t the language he understands. Or they understand but he would do whatever he would like to do. Either it is diesel economic of the bus or number of the passengers, whenever it would be profitable, he would whistle long and loud.

He whistled weak. The bus moved a little, as I stared in the eyes of the driver through his mirror, sitting from my seat. Some college students swarmed in the bus. The conductor rushed through the aisle to reach them.

“Tickets?”

“We have the bus pass.” One of them said.

“It’s a private bus. No pass.”

“Then, why are you driving the bus on this route?” Everyone laughed.

“Take tickets.”

“Let’s go guys. The government bus must be coming.”

All of them stepped down. I couldn’t even do that. I had already paid the money to this conductor. So, I said, “Hey man. At least move this bus from this spot?”

The bus driver heard me. He moved the bus some ten feet further.

“Anand Vihar! Anand Vihar!” The bus conductor yelled, with his head craned out. He whistled again. The bus moved another ten feet. I got up from the seat, walked to the bus driver and conductor. Something about being stuck here or weak whistle or something else got on my nerves.

“When would you move this?”

“Wait for some time. We’ll go from here.” Unaffected, the driver said to me.

“How long? If I stuck here, I will miss the last government bus for Bareilly from Anand Vihar.”

“So many buses go to Bareilly from there.”

“I don’t want to stuck in the traffic till tomorrow morning.”

“Go and sit. Five minutes, we’ll leave from here.”

I couldn’t control anymore.

“Your last five minutes lasted for half and hours. Do you know?”

I pulled the bus conductor toward me.

“What?”

Everyone in the bus looked in front, at us, with the expression as if what’s wrong with me or what’s so strange being stuck in the bus.

“If you don’t want to go, get out of the bus.” The bus driver yelled at me.

“Why should I? I have paid for the bus ticket.” I screamed.

“So have all others. If you were in such a hurry, you should have booked a helicopter.” The bus conductor joined the bus driver.

Before, I could reply, he walked away from me and yelled, “Anand Vihar! Anand Vihar!”

“Don’t come to this bus. I have been stuck here for half an hour and god knows how long I would be here. Get an auto or a rickshaw, you may reach before us.” I craned my head and yelled over his voice.

“Anand Vihar!” He yelled. Then added, in lower tone, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Whatever is wrong with you people?”

“Anand Vihar!” He yelled and whistled weak. The bus moved a little, just to show the possible passengers that the bus was indeed moving.

I returned to my seat.

“This is how you treat your passengers, you take their money and then keep them stuck here. What if someone had to go to some urgent meeting or place?” I spoke from my seat. I looked around. A elderly couple nodded.  Other were busy. Some were looking outside and others had their headphones on. The families were busy chatting with each other. If I had been with someone, I wouldn’t have been this irritated, I wondered.

Another five minutes passed.

“What now?” I said to the bus conductor, when he walked past my seat.

“Don’t mess my brain.”

“What about my brain?”

“Here is your money. Leave!”

“Why? I will not go. I am already half an hour late.”

“Then sit silently.”

 “I will sit ‘silently’ but I’ll complain against you and your driver Mr. Rajnesh Singh.” I read from his name plate.

He whistled long. We exchanged the glances. The bus’s doors shut with a noise, completely enclosing us in a capsule like interior.

We’re out of the bus station in five seconds.

“I understand what you are trying to say. Whatever you could have done, you must have done by now.”

“No, Ma. Now, he will do whatever he feels like doing. If you think you can control him, I don’t think that will happen.”

“Yes, it’s possible that he may fall in bad habit. You can’t do anything about it but if he hasn’t by now, he’ll probably be okay.”

“Whatever kind of work he wants to? Work is work. Let him do anything.

“So he says that he will earn his own money. By doing what?”

“Why should we care? Oh, that’s what he said.”

“Now, you can’t do anything.”

“No don’t get angry at him. He may as well insult you and tell me what you will do then.”

“Ma, he has changed. He has grown into this person, you think you know but you actually don’t know. I guess he thinks that whatever his parents and close relatives are telling him is not for his benefits. He must have this opinion that we all have ulterior motives. Yes! Ulterior motives to see him do something in his life.”

“Pain is inevitable: either he takes now or later in life. He has to go through. There is no other way. “

“Ma, my stop is coming. I can’t do anything. He is not picking up my phone.”

“Wait for a ten days. I need to talk to him in person.”

“I will try, Ma. But as I told you calling will not help. Hang on, Ma, I will call you in a minute.”

The guy behind me the bus, tells her mother to wait. His words choice and his restrained delivery make me believe he is very mature guy.

I’m not like him.

“First, you guys loved him and gave him whatever he had asked. Whenever he got angry, you soothed him. Now, you can’t stand his caustic remarks. Tell me what can I do, Ma.”

            I sat there in a dosa shop, waiting for my Onion dosa to arrive. It had always been a long wait in morning, if you want to eat anything specialized. The service for Idli, Vada, and some rice dishes were available within minutes of your order. After continuous and unabashed eating of Idli and Vada for six months, I was almost done with them. It’s not that I won’t eat them but given chance, like on weekends, I would rather eat something else. So, I waited.

            A guy of short stature came in front of the shop. A mongrel dog barked at him, like dogs bark at a homeless person. He didn’t even look at the dog. His steps didn’t show any urgency despite the dog’s barking. With his measured steps, he stepped into the shop. The dog stood there. He wore a crumpled dark sand colored pant, as if it had been squeezed tightly after washing and never ironed after that.There was something in his left pant pocket, which had ballooned up. The color of his shirt was dull white, not the Tide white. He wore something inside below his shirt, for he didn’t look this healthy from is slender legs. The inner wear could be because of sudden cold breeze that was blowing. His face was totally wrapped, only his eyes were visible, in a saffron colored cloth, like the daily wage laborer who worked in a local construction. His eyes probed the dosa place. For a moment, he looked as if he would be going to someone and would ask him to pay for his food.

            I lowered my gaze. Next moment, when I raised my head to face him he had been filling his tiny water bottle of a non-descript soda company. He filled it up and left it there. The water container was next to the tea stall. The tea stall guy didn’t say anything to him, when he left it there, which meant that they do know him like a regular. He took off the cloth from his face to show his white, moped hairs  along with boney features of his face. He stood in the line for the orders. When his turn came, he ordered something, collected the change and stood there waiting for his order. He looked around. He was astonishingly calm. Not a single expression changed in his face. Whatever anyone buy? Whatever anyone say to him? However anyone look at him? He just stood there with his frail body and resplendent face with shining features. Not a word he had spoken either after he had ordered.

            The one dosa wrapped in a newspaper was handed to him. He took it and asked for extra sambhar. The worker inside the dosa shop gave two polythene packets of sambhar to him. He returned to his water bottle. There once again he turned into the same person who had walked into the dosa place.

            Once he was out of the dosa place, he sat outside of the shop on to the stairs of another shop, which was closed. He took out a tiny stainless steel bowl from his pant pocket and put it on his right hand side. In this, he poured one plastic bag of sambhar. The dog who stood there in front of the shop went to him. He unwrapped the single dosa and bit into it couple of times. Once he ate half of it, he dropped the rest of it in the bowl. The dog started to lick from the bowl. He opened the another plastic bag of sambhar, stretched his neck upward, and drank it like water. Then, he waited for the dog to finish. The dog had licked the bowl empty and from the look of the dog, he remained hungry. The guy had dropped his plastic waste in the corner waste bin, washed his bowl under the municipal tap, and went away.

            Thinking that the dog must be hungry, as the dog was looking at me, I bought an Idli and threw it toward the dog. The dog came forward, sniffed it, and went away. I waited there for more than half and hour, for my Onion dosa, but the dog didn’t return.

            I had been searching for sandal incense sticks for a long time now. It wasn’t that they are tough to find but I was looking for locally produced sandal incense sticks, not the one from big brands such as Moksh, Cycle Pure, or Mangaldeep. I had told some of my friends here to get me good locally produced sandal incense sticks and they would give me a call during weekends, when they were out on family shopping, to tell me about big brand incense sticks. I would respond with thank you for trying. In search, I had gone to the shops adjoining temples, which are in plenty in Bangalore, I had talked to bicycle or moped incense vendors, and I had cut short my journey the moment many a times I saw a shop which looked promising.

            I would often go to shops. The owner would show me Mogra, Rose, Lavender, Chameli incense sticks and tell me they smell even better than what you asked for. “What you asked for by the way?” I had told them both in English and Hindi. But  when such suggestion and this question became frequent, I googled Kannada words for Sandalwood. I would even use those tongue-twisting words such as Ekkada, Kera, Padarakse, Mettu, and Srigandhada, at every chance I got to explain what I am looking for. Not many owners appreciated my hard work. I got two types of responses: some owner and people felt that I was making fun of their languages and would give me a hard stare (whenever this happened, I didn’t stay there a minute longer) while other people would ask me repeatedly what you want and urge me to speak in Kannada and then would giggle and not only that I had increased the sale of those shops, as they would call passersby to listen to me (I could be a sport for a short time but with repetition I felt humiliated). I don’t call this discrimination. I would have behaved the same to anyone from other state had I not gone out of my state to live or work. Other strange behaviors I had observed are: Some people would ask to me, “Why are you throwing your waste here?” I didn’t have any idea where to throw my waste, until I saw them throwing their waste there. Sometime, I would stand in a dosa place and working people would ignore me until I am the last one in front of them. How much more fun one can get in search of incense sticks?

            One would wonder that how tough was it to find out locally produced sandal incense stick in the Bangalore but I couldn’t. I might be possible that I hadn’t gone to the right place or hadn’t found the right place in my wanderings. I wasn’t always unsuccessful. I didn’t find some locally produced sandal incense stick. One I found smelled great. I bought it and lit it. It generated so much of smoke that I thought it would work better as an insect repellent. After some tries, I had almost given up on the idea of finding a good locally produced sandal incense sticks.

            I stepped down from the bus in Jayanagar, where I had come to get some clothes. I crossed the road and reached to other side. The moment I stepped on the sidewalk, I got the whiff of fragrance. Next moment,  I found myself standing in front of a vast stacks of incense sticks. There, to my surprise, was the box of sandal incense sticks. As I took a box of the sticks to check where these words produced, I noticed a laminated sheet on the left of the sandal incense sticks. In the laminated sheet, there was a black and white photo of a guy who remotely looked like him. Underneath the picture, Shivalingu M. was written. This seller was a differently abled person. There was white stick next to him and he looked away from me. Next to him, sat a guy in ICICI ATM bank uniform. Since I picked the box, I felt that his blind eyes had been shifted toward me, as if he judged a new customer by a smell of which incense stick he had picked it up or smelled the difference in the smell of that particular incense. Something was there but I just couldn’t be sure. One thing I was sure that this was a locally, as well as hand rolled, sandal incense stick.

            Even before I would be overcome by pity, he asked me in Kannada, “What do you want?”  Until now, I had gotten used to questions in Kannada but I had felt that people here had gotten used to get answers in Hindi or English (I asked him in Hindi, thinking that he wouldn’t know English) “How much for this sandal incense pack?” He replied, “170 Rs, sir.” I said, “Okay.” I took out two 100 Rs notes and passed it him. I told him that I have given him two notes of 100. At this time, I thought that the ATM guy, who sat next to him, was his friend and might help him out in dealing with currency. He took the two notes from me, took out a 100 note from his top shirt pocket, judged my notes with length and width of his 100 Rs note and then he said, “200 Rs, sir.”

            Then, put these notes in the top shirt pocket, pulled out changes from his pant pocket. There were notes of Rs. 50, 20, and 10. He straighten them out on his palm once again and once again he assessed their dimensions. He gave me a smallest one and then middle sized one notes.

            It took him less than a minute doing this.

            “Thank you!” It came out of my mouth automatically.

            He said, “You are welcome!”

            All the pity, I had after this sentence, was I had for myself.

       I was in the Delhi Metro, sitting on the edge between two seats. Then, she walked in, almost disrupting the entire crowd in front of me. Close to five foot and three inches tall, she was big and healthy, almost ripping apart the salwar kameez she had on. She dragged a boy, of approximately  six or seven years old, wearing yellow shirt, behind her. The boy chirped unnecessarily, “Ma, Ma” and loudly over the reverberation of the running metro, sound of metro’s bilingual directions, and passenger’s voices. She was followed by a young girl in her early teens, an exact young replica of her and a guy of her height, who wore a white kurta and a chudiaar. In front of me, and now in front of her, there were two seat assigned to ladies, with the slogan, For Ladies Only. She turned and stared at everyone sitting on my side, one by one, as if, actually I had this feeling that she wanted someone to get up for Her Majesty.  

            Since she walked in and since our eyes met, I felt this surge of dislike for her. I don’t know why. I haven’t seen her and she hadn’t done anything against me. But there was no way I liked her. There was a strange aura around her. The kind of aura that puts people off, or at least me, I had seen people like her. So, when she stared at me, I stared at her strongly, almost with vengeance, as if she had done a wrong to me or someone in my family. Her hands and whatever of her arms were in open were full of heena. Top of her eyelids had a plaques of unequal size, as if someone had injected something there and it had stayed there. I didn’t care how flawless her skin looked because of makeup and how much her son circled around her girth, I wasn’t going to give the inch of seat, where I was sitting and I mentally urged everyone to stare strongly at her. She wasn’t successful in getting any purchase on my side, I felt victorious.

            She turned again. I could see her and her expression in the opposite mirror as long as the metro’s running on dark background of the night. She stared at the ladies sitting in the ladies’ seat. When she couldn’t do with stare, I could see the plight in her eyes. I smiled. But when this expression didn’t do her any good, she continued with her staring. I don’t know what happened but one of the ladies had given up and emptied the seat with an exasperated sigh.

            Instead of sitting there, she forced his son to sit there. The son vehemently denied but she held him down there, still staring at the other lady. The lady was elder than her. The other lady stared at her but then looked other way: so many people to look at in the crowded metro. The kid jumped out his mother’s reach. “Can’t you sit straight?” She yelled and pulled him back. The kid retorted, “You sit down.” Seeing this all happening around her, and the efforts she was putting to stand upright, the lanky guy who sat next to the seat of her son got up and offered the seat to her. Domination flashed in her eyes instead of gratitude. She called her daughter to sit on that seat. Though she sat down but the kid kept jumping out of her reach. She was forced to sit down and pulled the kid on her arms, against his will. Her girth was too much for one seat of metro, plus she had widened her dimensions by taking the kid in her arms, who slither out of her reach whenever she loosened her grip over him.

            When she sat there, she stretched beyond her dimensions. The lady on the adjoining seat maintained her posture despite the fact the lady sneered at her and despite the fact that her kid’s shoes soiled her leggings. Keeping the kid in her arms, she had been putting effort even in breathing, let alone maintaining her posture. When she couldn’t hold the kid anymore, she pushed the kid away, toward the guy with a chudidar and kurta, “Go to your father.”

            She shifted in her seat and once again, stared at the lady in the adjoining seat. I don’t know whether it was her stop or not but the other lady got up and walked toward the door. In a flash, which I hadn’t expected from the lady of her size, she got up and pulled her son, who was busy pole-dancing around one of the pole of the metro carriage, on to the seat she was occupying.  She sat on the adjoining seat. So, in a span of ten minutes, she had occupied three seats: two of ladies and one general. On one of her two ladies seats, her son sat. Then, few minutes later, she got up and pushed her husband on to the second ladies seat, when other ladies were still standing there. She walked away on the other side of the metro carriage, and there, she made someone got up from his seat. He was a known person with whom her family first walked in the metro. She sat down next to other two ladies and started chirping how beautiful her heena was.