The bus experience

The fine creases on The greyish burgundy coloured polyester - worsted wool trousers began to lose their character. It was an experience of a lifetime. For the trousers that is. The rocks outside on both sides of the road were perhaps the impala granites. Or the absolute black granites. i never knew. As a matter of fact, I didn't want to know. For the heat, like that in a Rotary Screw Hearth Furnace System was already beginning to strip all patience and every bit of sanity off me. The granites only reflected the sun's rays back on to the metallic container with atleast distinction grade efficiency. The bus that I was traveling in. The set up would have been the front runner for the best Hell- Raising experience award, if any, in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Forget it.

Let's talk about the road. I wished all good luck to the civil engineer and the municipal contractor who helped lay the road. They forgot one important ingredient in the road mix, tarmac. More good luck to the people moving under the bridges they built. There was absolutely no road. Yes, the road was inconsequential. It was long dead. What lay there was a rubble of rock, stone, gravel, pebbles, mud and clay, in decreasing order of the diameter of particle size. How do I know? I picked specimen samples from the pockets in my trousers, my shirt and sometimes from my scalp. I was basically having a sand bath. Why? The bus did have windows. Sure sir. But good ventilation begets good health. Thanks to advice from the ticket collecter and the wise person sitting beside me in white overalls, white floaters, a white hand kercheif, a white coloured purse that looked like it was made out of the skin of a white python snake and a white wrist watch that had the words Kenneth Cole stamped on it, 40, Comic Sans MS, Bold. So we decided to open them wide. And in no time, I could start collecting my specimens.

Now the ride part. Chassis and Suspension System Design Engineers from Lamborghini and Renault would'nt mind travelling the distance to attend training workshops conducted by the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation, quite lovingly called RTC, in this part of the world, to know what lies under the skin of this approximately 8 tonne moving mass of steel. It is a magnanimous achievement of considerable success if a bus can provide that level of comfort on a road that is in an absolutely and ridiculously tattered shape. And all this with the same old fellow chucking along atleast 600 kilometres everyday, with no sense of gratitude, in extremely testing conditions both under the tires and above them. No nonsense achievement this. I was pretty contented with the ride quality given the state of affairs beneath, under the wheels. But then, the vibrations were strong enough to put off my white friend to sleep, now his attire turning into a pale yellow. Thanks to the windows.