Spritual Experiences...

Today, I was unfortunate enough to miss the bus in the morning. To the gravely uninformed, I'm doing an internship at GE Healthcare, which has it's presence in Whitefield, Bangalore, and is an hour's drive from the city, two if the traffic is heavy, as it is on most days. Perhaps the intent of having an office so far from the city was to promote camaraderie among employees by cooping them up in a bus (albeit with rather comfortable seats) for three hours everyday. A pretty lousy idea, which doesn't seem to work, because these people just don't talk! Every single one sits on an empty seat if possible and simply stares out the window. Bunch of antisocial buggers... take it from me, because the scenery isn't all that impressive.

Which brings us to today morning, when I missed the ol' GE bus. Being of a rather niggardly disposition, I decided to take a public transport one instead. My new fellow passengers weren't averse to making their opinions heard, whether it concerned the weather, the India-West Indies cricket match or what they thought of the conductor who yelled at them to move to the back of the bus, when even a child could see that there wasn't any space left there...

Listening in on the interesting conversations is all well and good, if one could forget that each bump on the road resulted in a couple of elbows digging painfully into one's ribs. Those sardines have it easy! Getting a seat wasn't that easy though, after standing next to two men who showed no signs of getting up anytime soon, I yielded to the conductor's pressure and departed for the back of the bus. No sooner had I moved, one of them got up and the fellow who was standing behind me sank into the empty seat with a shameless smile on his face. Bastard...

I did get a seat in the end, right atop a wheel which was making rather disconcerting sounds. The bus grew slightly lopsided, an effect of all those people hanging out the door I supposed. When we stopped, people outside shouted out to the driver that the tyre was punctured, but for reasons best known to himself, the bus continued on. I don't know if you've noticed, but sitting on a punctured tyre in an alarmingly tilted bus makes you feel rather close to God. I prayed...

When I finally got down, it was with a deep sigh of relief and gratitude. Someone above was watching over me. I could almost imagine Him winking down and saying in the deep powerful voice that Gods have, "Not today boy..."

"Yeah," I'd reply fervently, "Yeah..."