The bus: AC deluxe bus, video coach.
The route: Out of Tamil Nadu through the mountains onto a plateau of Karnataka.
Who: Me and about a dozen others.
MYSORE! Shouts a man who looks like he should be on CHIPS. The police always look like it, and apparently delux bus drivers take it seriously as well. He has a well-groomed moustache, an imposing pot belly, aviators, and all the power. He ushers me on.
It’s cookin in the mid-day heat for the next half hour as the AC doesn’t start until he turns on the bus. A few mosquitos meander. A group of four medical school students are giggling in sarees, reading on internet tablets, and carrying cardboard boxes of “medicines” which are in glass and can’t be stowed under the bus. They stand in the aisle deciding where to put them. I say goodbye to my bag as my seat number is chalked on and it’s pushed deep into the cavity beneath the huge white bus. In after it comes a few bales of hay, unidentified paper parcels loaded off the back of a bicycle, and no other suitcases. Everything but suitcases. I wonder if this was a bad idea. They can call it deluxe, but you just never know what you’re going to get. Well, at least the seat reclines. I look for the lever to see the letters PUSH barely visible beneath a caking of oily snack mix crumbs. I cover one finger with the tail of my scarf and try to somehow push without actually touching the food waste. I wish to have a photo of that moment. A Delux moment.
Assured I would be seated with ladies, I end up beside a nice local man with really bad brown poly pants. He presses his head into my leg as he leans down to plug his mobile phone into the charger on the floor beneath my window seat. Now, I can tell this guy isn’t trying anything (I’ve had it happen enough to know the difference now). In the states, a man would surely ask before groping into the dark beneath my legs for a charger. But it’s the personal space thing- it’s different here. There’s always a bunch of legs in the way of everything and we all just make due. Regardless, I switch my seat to any empty pair telling him he can enjoy the charger this way.
As I prepare to sink into a book and pretend I’m not alone on an Indian bus again, the Video Coach begins to earn its name. Blasting into a lame fight scene, the movie begins. Its deafening, and I put in my Ipod. Interesting enough, this is a 5 hour bus ride and the movie doesn’t end until we are almost there. It’s a Hindi epic romance. Not epic in the historical sense, but in usual man and woman dancing around the issue for 3 hours kind of epic. At some point in the ride, my romantic side takes over and I find myself craning to see the screen and waiting for them to GET IT ON already. After 3 hours, he realizes she loves him and chases her to the airport in a jeep. He crashes, gets out of the flaming vehicle and begins to run. He tells the story to a forgiving attendant who lets him board the plane, and he is walking up her aisle and…the DVD skips and blacks out. There are a few moans on the bus, then silence. We sit in traffic on a bridge, which makes me nervous. Its dark and I can’t see down.
To go between the two cities, we must go through a large wildlife preserve and over a mountain pass. At the bottom of the mountain, there is a small Ganesh murti with a priest in white dhoti. We stop the bus and I assume it’s a pee break for the men, or chai for the driver. CHIPS gets down and stands before the priest. I watch the saree girls to see if anyone is going to go for a pee in the bushes. I haven’t had a sip of water for almost 4 hours. None of the ladies budge. I hear a brass bell ringing and the priest boards the bus for Aarti. He is carrying the sacred flame for getting the blessings of Ganesha, and the basmaa, holy ash for putting on the forehead. Everyone on the bus symbolically touches the flame, then the heart, and puts the ash.
Im thinking what a pious bus this is and never seen bus-puja before, when we start up into the mountains and I see why. The sign says: hairpin turn 1/27. It’s pretty much the tightest turn I can remember seeing, and going up steep. The bus feels like its in water, swaying and inching along. We are in too high a gear and the bus halts, rolls back. Behind us is a line of 3 or 4 lorries giving plenty of clearance. CHIPS shifts gears, gives it some gas, and we roll back again. For a minute I’m not so sure and then the bus catches up and we start up and a..r..o…u…n…d. That’s when I see the sign. 1/27, hmm wonder what that means. Next turn comes and the sign says 2/27. And yes, its true, we do it 27 times. I think we make for the clouds in our magic bus. The landscape is sprawling hills and jungle forests, a few monkeys to be seen. I know there are elephants, and maybe tigers out there. The sun sets around 21/27 and I’m thankful for the light. Though I must say, I really wasn’t afraid for our bus- because of the Puja. I knew CHIPS had God on his side, and so did we.
Then of course there’s the going down part, where I would fear for the smaller vehicles in our path as we speed along, down and out of the magic and into the villages and rice fields again. We pass a procession of bullock carts carrying reeds of some sort, ladies with water urns, hundreds of Provisions stores selling the same coconut cookies, packaged biscuits, and soft drinks.
Bathroom break after crossing the pass:
In line at the road side dhaba with the ladies. An older lady in a Mysore silk saree goes in and comes right back out and stands back in line for the other stall. I look at her questioningly and think (duh) I’ll go see for myself cause man do I have to pee. Lights are dim and it takes a minute to distinguish the huge yellow logs floating in the squatter. I pour a bucket to flush it; water begins to rise. I run out and the lady in the silk laughs with me. “Bad,” she says. She comes out of the other stall and I raise my eyebrows. “Go sloooowly,” she says. Wouldn’t be it great to slip and land one hand in the squatter? Thank goodness for the leftover handiwipes from the Yatris. I wrap one on my hand like a mitten and do my business. I have learned to hitch the whole thing up and tuck it under my bra, the kirta tails, front and back, the passport holder, the scarf, the woolen shawl. Double check all hanging parts successfully tucked. Squat while holding pants legs and crotch off wet ground.
Worst bathroom so far, I would say. This trip, anyways.
The irony is that I have my dinner on the bus just after. I ravage both hands with a fresh wipe first, preparing to eat the chapattis and dahl packed from the kitchen at Vaidyagrama. In the midst of it all, I find myself chowing down and watching Hindi romance! Maybe I’m a good traveler after all this time. I think I might blob some dahl onto the push lever of the seat as an “I Was Here.”
The Mysore bus stand burns like a torch in the night. Bright as a Walmart, crisp, modern. I step down beside a gutter of damp trash, retrieve my suitcase, and roll it over whatever is there on the darkened ground to make it to the “information” booth. I don’t see any info, but I eventually see my friend who has come to escort me home. There’s nothing like familiar faces. Upon seeing one, there is always a sense of how much water went under the bridge. Who am I today that I wasn’t when last we met? Can I describe any of what just happened? Do I need to?
Some shenanigans when the key is not there and I take the luggage back down 4 flights. But in the end, at midnight, Im in the bed which has no bedding, under my shawl with a Tshirt for a pillow case. And, like always, when I got there I forgot to clean off the wheels of the suitcase! Just roll that baby on in and hope for the best.
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