Not All Wars Are At Battlefield

You wake up early, not that it’s a new thing, given your early morning shifts.

You finish work and come back to the apparent Bangalore ‘home’, pack your bags because you’re going to your actual home today, its Christmas after all. 

So your packing is done. Time: 3:00pm, train time: 5:00 (Yes we are train people, the non-privileged- non-quota Janta). Choice between cab and bus? Cab and bus? Mental calculations about the money that could be saved in bus and eventual better spending of the same on gifts for family. But time in hand, only 2hrs and Hello Bangalore traffic.

Easy decision made. Ola Share Ahoy! Thank you demonetization, cash in hand 600bucks. Olashare fare to the station 300. Anyway, happily you leave for home.  

Here comes the Ola person who picks you up and takes the complete opposite direction to what you should actually go. Ask why? It’s noon time madam, not much business. So he will go opposite for a distance of 1.5hrs, drop the other person and then drop you to Majestic.

So you get down in 5mins, and pay him full as per rule. Cash in hand 300, time in hand 1.5hrs.

You have tears in your eyes now. Your one roommate is at office, the other one with her boyfriend and other one visiting her boyfriend. People you can ask for help, NONE. Admirers you can ask for help, many, but you won’t.  Suddenly all those lectures of the roommate saying it is nice and important to have someone in life you can depend on, at times of need, even if you won’t, start to seem true.

You finally see an Auto bhaiya. Money demanded 350, you have, 300. You plead and plead and plead, look teary eyed. He finally agreed after a lot of dialogues in Kannada that you don’t understand. Now you suddenly feel the need to call home and realize, Battery charge, 3%.

The Auto bhaiya takes you from this route which you are not aware of and all the post afternoon Friday jam suddenly starts pouring in. Your 3% battery slowly becomes 2% and there are constant calls from the brother and mother about whereabouts, you cannot even share the state and worry them. You don’t even know if the route is correct. Your battery won’t allow you to check maps, you don’t know if you will reach in time. You keep on asking “aur kitna time bhaiya” and you start crying silently. And again, all those lectures of the roommate saying it is nice and important to have someone in life you can depend on, at times of need, even if you won’t, start to seem true.

The Auto bhaiya sees from the rear mirror probably and suddenly his whining about the 50 bucks ends. He says “don’t worry meedam, train at 5, pohocha dega”. You smile a little but the traffic seems impossible to go beyond. Anyway, you reach Majestic at 4:55pm sharp, thank the Auto bhaiya, get your big suitcase down at the first gate, beside platform no2. And train to Solapur? Platform no. 4, opposite platform. Good Lord. Time now? 3minutes to train and call from home stops, phone is dead. All those lectures of the roommate saying it is nice and important to have someone in life you can depend on, at times of need, even if you won’t, start to seem true again.

You see a coolie checking you out, you ask him only, with the ultimate bechari  state and he demands 80 bucks. You collect all the 10s in your wallets and together they are 50. You plead and he agrees, He agrees! He runs and you run after him. This Jab We Met stunt in real life is not as fun. The train starts to move, the coolie throws your luggage in and you get in! Breathe, find your seat! You are thirsty, you are hungry, you are tired. You remember the roommate say it is nice and important to have someone in life you can depend on, at times of need, even if you won’t. This situation would have been different if you had the/any special someone dropping you/ seeing you off/ checking on you/ being with you/ at least listening to your frustration.

Eventually you find your seat, put your phone to charge and inform home.  Collect all the one rupee and two rupees coins to buy a bottle of water. Hunger can wait, thirst cannot. And thus you spend the last money left on water, spend the night hungry to reach home next morning, to your people.

And when you took the first sip of water that night in the train, even though knowing your next 12 hours would be without food, you prove the roommate wrong, your roommate was wrong after all.

And for all those who think I breathe drama, yes I do.