F A C E S...

This is the second time I am gonna post about faces. Any place you travel there are few places in and around that town or village where you can see faces. Each having their own myriad thoughts, aims, ideas and requirements. Whenever I get a chance I goto bus stands and railway stations of any particular town and would sit there for hours. There are times when I would reach the airport a bit early to observe people. These faces speak many an unspoken languages and many an unheard of stories.

This particular incident happened when I travelled from Hyderabad to Chennai sometime in december. Usually the Hyd Chennai buses are always full and like the usual day I had to somehow get back to Chennai the next day so I went around Paradise searching for a ticket. After a lot of search I found one ticket charged 50% more than the usual price of 675 bucks. Its fine I gonna goto Chennai after a week and so I got the ticket.

Time is 9 and I paid the room bill with what is left over of my card and took an auto to the fire station near paradise under one flyover. I waited for Bharati bus to come and a man befriended me. The first word he asked was like when will the Bharathi bus come? I replied it usually comes around 21:45 Hours and it woudl come the same time. I lit a cigarette and offered him one which he after soem doubts took. From the way he spoke I could make out that the guy si a brahmin and he introduced his name to be Rajesh and he is employed in a BPO. I was wondering like any techie and then self introduced and said am a granite exporter and I had been there to inspect some materials. He then asked me do I come regularly by this bus and my answer was yes I invariably travel atleast twice if not thrice in a week by the same Bharathi bus(except twice when I travelled by APSRTC). Then the bus came and he was stunned to see I knew the driver to attender well. Within a short span of time Rajesh and I become good friends and we started talking about each other. Like me he also had a comp.sci background and like me he also wanted to be a software engineer and then he called someone from his mobile and blurted he would be in Koyambedu by morning and would put some money in some HDFC Bank and meet that person. I was not keen to know because they started playing my fav movie Athadu and I was deeply engrossed in the movie while the bus went around the whole of Hyd for pickup and parcels.

The bus finally started moving and the phone conversations become a regular thing and I could sense that the guy had planned to elope with his girl fearing something from the parents. I got engrossed on the movie and sipped what was left of my coke pet and my mind wandered away from Rajesh and got etched on Trisha and Mahesh Babu. The bus moved on and on and on....

It was around 12 when Rajesh started talking with me again this time with a deep wounded voice which at beginning I could not make out what it meant. Slowly he started opening up his heart to me in a way a stranger would open on a journey. He first was telling about his dad's work in Railways, his elder and younger sister and his mom's working in some bank near Red Hills. He was telling me about his college life and how he enjoyed and all. Finally after all these he started about Vidhya. Vidhya is his lady love, dream girl etc. He started telling me that Vidhay was his collegemate and they travelled on the same bus between home and college. That there was some problem and he is going to Chennai for just meeting her and giving her some money and will return to Hyd the same day evening and this trip was private. I whistled silently to myself thinking oh ya life is racy here.

There is one thing which I vividly remember Rajesh telling that the girl would wait for him in Koyambedu bus stand. But thigns become a catastrophe as the bus reached Nellore around 5 in the morning. First was his dad's call asking him where Rajesh is and why he didn't tell them about his trip to home. The second call was the girl's which I will never know what transpired and the third was from a friend who has blurted out all the truths. Rajesh who was full of confidence the whole night become a broken man in the space of 5 minutes. I consoled him to an extent telling hey life would be alright and don't you worry. He was shouting at his friend for telling the truth to his parents. For the next two and half hours I was with him I tried to bring him back to normalcy. He was asking again and again in silent tears how he could meet Vidhya and explain the situation. His dad constantly called and asked him where he was and so he alighted at Red Hills.

The bus for me moved on. I wanted to have his number and keep in touch with him when I goto Hyderabad again. But something in me stopped short of asking and I let him go. The bus moved on for another one hour before I got down in Koyambedu Bus Depot. Finally it hit me am going home. I slowly pulled my bag and went to the nearest tea shop and bought a cigarette and water pack. I then washed my face and slowly lit the cigarette. As smoke slowly got lost in the sky I searched around for one young girl with searching eyes and found none. I don't know what happened to them after that and nor I really care much on what would have happened. I called auto and said Nanganallur poganum......am going home and I went home a content man for being a very close but stranger for a person on need.