12/08/2006

Woosh

So here I am in Bangalore again. It's been a couple of days, with interesting incidents.

1. It started with my train journey: Kaveri Express. My seat number was 56; Side upper berth. (55 was the Side lower berth). As I got into the train, I walked, rather hunched towards the other side as my height seemed to deny me any sight below 4 feet. I finally found my seat number. I also found a guy sitting in my seat. There were two of them, one sitting in 55, the other in 56. As my desire to keep warm air inside me for a while seemed impossible, I had to start a conversation.
These guys, after my first scrutiny, I thought were traveling in a train for the first time. Considering that all my first scrutinies lead me to wrong answers in the end sems, I decided to do away with the scrutiny. I told them politely that my number was 56 and showed them my ticket. They had a look at it. A look which was as obscure as the language they seemed to speak. Now, I was expecting one of them to get up and leave. Instead, one of them took their tickets out and showed me that the TTE had written 55, 55 in that. And this followed by a hand gesture and a broken statement 'Me 55. He 55. Both 55'.

Now, how the hell can two guys be given the same numbers by the TTE. Following the golden rule of science, that if you cannot solve a problem, solve a simpler one, I told them this:

"Yes. I understand both of you have been given 55. But my number is 56. So I get to sit here". (After all, to hell with them. If they both had to sit on each other's head or balls, I didn't care. As long as I had my seat).

The response was pretty spontaneous. These guys could think, if not speak.
One of the guys said "But both these seats are 55. So we both get to sit here".
To which I had to give an irritating answer "No sir. That is 55. This is 56".
To which I got a question "Then what is this on top?"
A perfectly valid doubt indeed.
I had to reluctantly answer "56". To which they wholeheartedly agreed.
I then explained "Look sir. For sitting, that is 55 and this is 56. For sleeping, 55 is down and 56 is on top". (Though my innocent mind gave a smirk when my ear heard me say on top)
Aw, it was time again for that obscure look. Felt like saying 'Have both seats if you want, but don't goddamn give me that look which makes me want to reshape your face'.
After a lot of arguing and convincing, I made them agree that 56 indeed was one of the seats. Hooh.

2. Next day, when I landed home from IISc, there was no power. Involuntarily, I had to attend mother (nature)'s call. Oh yes, I had my Nokia 6600. I used the light to guide myself, and went in to the bog. Then, suddenly, as I was balancing my phone, and my act, there were three beeps, and the phone went off. Oh, I remembered. No charge. Why the hell did it have to go off now. I couldn't see where I was. I couldn't see where anything was. Taking an initial guess and iterating, I reached everything I wanted to find (Though for a few, I didn't need to iterate). I got out somehow.

3. On my way to IISc the next day, between 10th and 11th cross, Malleshwaram, I noticed that all shops had their addresses written as 'No ---, Between 10th and 11th cross, Malleshwaram, Bangalore'. I say, teach these guys some engineering and how to approximate.

4. For the first time, I noticed a sign board (when you enter IISc from the subway), which caught my innocent mind's attention.
'Go slow. Hump Ahead'.

15 comments:

Tanuj Solanki said...

"aiming low and getting it"
sheesh man, you have some strange goals!!!

CB said...

Macha,
did you even understand that sentence?
Read it again.

Tanuj Solanki said...

ooo...
I realize the mistake now.
It's nice you know, to stumble on things sometimes.
I am Tanuj.
And you do write with style.

CB said...

:-)
Thank you.

Mohan K.V said...

Humpity hump!

How goes Bangalore ?

Anonymous said...

wow, they chose a fine way to make their debut on the train.

Anonymous said...

Happened with me once.. but here, the TTE himself was the criminal, and he tried to explain to me that i should be taking the top berth and not try to disturb the innocent passengers sitting in the lower berth.
He even laughed at my argument that it's my seat, and ridiculed the idea of 'One seat for sitting and another one for sleeping !!'
Finally, I managed to convince him that I am not an Idiot and this is not my first time in train. I had to take down his name and threaten him with a complaint, though..

Random Guy said...

maga cud i ask what u r doing in iisc ?

Random Guy said...

also tell me if you should have certificates of academic excellence as reference?(which i dont have)

CB said...

Am finishing off my summer work here.
And, certis for academic excellence?
I don't think it's required.

Ankita DJ said...

biggie!
need some explanation on point number 2! my innocent mind doesnt seem to figure it out! ;)

Anonymous said...

what does cb stand for?

CB said...

Never mind. :-)

Anonymous said...

thought of all the bad words that could be abbreviated to CB. didn't work.

wandered in from chai's.

IITian and innocence-claims.
*snort*

many pities that you didn't get the side-lower, actually. it's the bestest possible seat in the world. all other seats just suck. the upper berth does that, literally. (try reading a book, sitting up - well somewhat, and your hair's getting vacuumed by the fan that's running. yii.)

and i had the worst idea when you took your phone to the jon. thought you gave the phone a free ride in the ceramic shitpot.

anyway, i stop making blogposts out of comments.

happy writing.

Woosh said...

This is so nice and clean. It looks fantastic. Thanks for posting.