TIME MACHINE

Puthiya (new) bus-stand to the campus at Kunnamangalam is fast and feels like a time machine. One bus that left just as you turned the corner, somebody offers, was Kunnamangalam bound. “How much longer is this going to take now?” But there is a good crowd for a Thursday late evening at the stop and nobody seems concerned, “all is well!”

The bus shudders into gear and the gentlemen who just boarded have obviously had a few drinks, presumably at the bar across the road, adjoining the bus stand.

They hold it rather well though, largely keeping to themselves. You wonder how any one could keep that brew within, given it smelt chemically potent. But thankfully it is a cool night, this monsoon (touch freaking wood!) has done a reasonable job thus far including a short shower just before it got dark. A gentle breeze wafts in through one of the windows somebody left open, and it carries away the odor efficiently enough.

But looking ahead still brings about some concern for how to cope with these fifteen kilometers, so you put your head down. We, cramped into the last row, are pretty congenial and seem to have a good chance of co-existing peacefully till we reached our respective destinations. When the bus swings left and stops at the medical college, folks getting in and out interrupts the guy enjoying his sweet snack. He doesn’t seem to mind, folds his legs and sits up straighter to allow the rush toward the rear exit. He does it in a manner to suggest that a quick movement might have brought on a stomach cramp or something like that.

This is perhaps his Iftar.

Past the medical college, the road joining back the national highway is narrow, undulating, winding and for long stretches now is only wide enough for one four-wheeled vehicle to pass. They dug up the road for some water piping work, on a multilateral funding program. When they were done, and had closed back that half of the road with soil, the monsoon began.

Unlike the last time when you had gotten lucky, the bus doesn’t take the detour which will allow you to get off it faster. So you go past the fields to one side, interspersed with small towns, and soon reach the highway. At this T-junction, where storm water flows into the intersection from all sides and leaves the road top damaged, there are sometimes delays because of the collision of people in a hurry, craters on the road, and the lack of the little coordination it would take to make it easier on everybody concerned.

It is late enough in the evening now and that, the delay, doesn’t happen.

You could simply count out the two stops between here and where you need to alight, and do just that. The method doesn’t quite help because the bus doesn’t stop at the school and training institute (2^nd stop). Of course, it would all be closed for the day by now.

In any case, the bus conductor is helpful when you shout out the name of your bus-stop, he rings the bell, a thread running through the length of the bus and secured to the left wall of bus with the bell presumably somewhere the driver could hear it, the bus breaks, he nudges the door, and it swings open, allowing you to alight. With the same practiced ease the conductor flicks the rope securing the door hinged to the front side of the rear door as the bus accelerates forward, and the door slams back shut.

There is some physics of moving objects, hinged objects and inertia at work here, but you are happier to notice the opportunity to cross the highway and do so, triumphant and relieved.

A short walk away at the gate, the jeep is just beginning to move. The guards at the gate notice you beginning to run toward the jeep, and helpfully flag it down. There are no other passengers. This is the last trip of the campus for the day. The air is fresh, this new jeep fairly spacious, the driver even allows you to pick up some flavored milk along the way, and drops you right in front of your house.

You open your computer, more time machines, just not sure if you just stepped on, or, if you just stepped off.