Commuting Woes #17
This is a really old piece, the one that actually inspired the whole ‘Commuting Woes/Tales’ line.
I left office at around 7:00 pm the other day, a little early given my usual timings. My “big boss” wasn’t around otherwise this would have invited a healthy bit of advice on the benefits of working a 9 hours-plus shift. What he didn’t know was that it didn’t go too well with a five-hour commute.
Traffic was actually less on the route at this time and I reached Majestic at a good 8:10 pm. But the entertaining, only to the audience, bit was getting to Bommanahalli. The stretch till Bommanahalli was packed to the last square inch and my manager’s bike on which I was hitching a ride seemed to have lost its sense of balance at a very appropriate time. In fact I can safely say that the gridlock was so bad that if anybody accidentally had an erection, that increase in volume would have got all of us jammed solid.
Hmmm… And though I reached Majestic at a very healthy 8:10 pm, the bus transport authorities had a differing view on what was a respectable time to reach home. They loved to demonstrate their punctuality at odd hours and that’s why it is a lot easier to commute at odd hours than try to do it at a more convenient time wherein you’ll just end up staring a lot at the new smooth concrete road surface of the bus station or in the absence of the peanut sellers getting to choose between stale triangular samosas, stale puffs or really stale apple juice from a juice fountain that seems to be have been running inside its transparent box since the birth of Christ.
At odd hours buses are also quick and efficient thereby making it very beneficial to travel at odd hours and end up reaching home at 10:30 pm. But the hassle is that this leaves very little time at home for anything else apart from sleeping. It’s really hard, to squeeze in some talking time with family or if family is too sleepy, to watch some TV. And even more difficult to upload pieces like these.
Returning to my appreciation of the night time scenery at the bus station, it was interesting to watch people squash, maim, kill each other trying to get into the bus. Of course I had to use similar techniques to get in and find a seat so that I could continue writing the piece. And of course it helped that my handwriting is a piece of fowl scratch that looks the same whether written in a moving bus or at a table.
PS The author now shares the bus transport authorities’ views on what is a healthy time to reach home and reaches home these days at a very ‘healthy’ 11:00 pm.
I left office at around 7:00 pm the other day, a little early given my usual timings. My “big boss” wasn’t around otherwise this would have invited a healthy bit of advice on the benefits of working a 9 hours-plus shift. What he didn’t know was that it didn’t go too well with a five-hour commute.
Traffic was actually less on the route at this time and I reached Majestic at a good 8:10 pm. But the entertaining, only to the audience, bit was getting to Bommanahalli. The stretch till Bommanahalli was packed to the last square inch and my manager’s bike on which I was hitching a ride seemed to have lost its sense of balance at a very appropriate time. In fact I can safely say that the gridlock was so bad that if anybody accidentally had an erection, that increase in volume would have got all of us jammed solid.
Hmmm… And though I reached Majestic at a very healthy 8:10 pm, the bus transport authorities had a differing view on what was a respectable time to reach home. They loved to demonstrate their punctuality at odd hours and that’s why it is a lot easier to commute at odd hours than try to do it at a more convenient time wherein you’ll just end up staring a lot at the new smooth concrete road surface of the bus station or in the absence of the peanut sellers getting to choose between stale triangular samosas, stale puffs or really stale apple juice from a juice fountain that seems to be have been running inside its transparent box since the birth of Christ.
At odd hours buses are also quick and efficient thereby making it very beneficial to travel at odd hours and end up reaching home at 10:30 pm. But the hassle is that this leaves very little time at home for anything else apart from sleeping. It’s really hard, to squeeze in some talking time with family or if family is too sleepy, to watch some TV. And even more difficult to upload pieces like these.
Returning to my appreciation of the night time scenery at the bus station, it was interesting to watch people squash, maim, kill each other trying to get into the bus. Of course I had to use similar techniques to get in and find a seat so that I could continue writing the piece. And of course it helped that my handwriting is a piece of fowl scratch that looks the same whether written in a moving bus or at a table.
PS The author now shares the bus transport authorities’ views on what is a healthy time to reach home and reaches home these days at a very ‘healthy’ 11:00 pm.
posted by giri on 5/14/2007
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