A man in uniform

There was a huge crowd at the Gandhi Mandapam bus stop when I reached. 21G, the Tambaram bound bus didn't arrive for the past half an hour, I gathered from a stranger who was waiting to board the same bus.

Knowing that the next few buses would be filled to the brim, I decided to wait and thought about various ways to kill my time. At a corner of the bus stop, I noticed a soup seller who was doing good business, thanks to the overwhelming crowd. I walked to the mobile soup shop and found a slate on which the soup seller had written the varieties that were on offer for that day.

"Vegetable soup, Plantain pith soup, Mushroom soup. Each for Rs. 10 only", the notice said. I ordered a plantain pith soup for myself and observed the seller. He appeared to be in his late thirties, with a thick mustache and curly hairs which had just started to gray. He took my order with a smile on his face, picked up a plastic cup, stirred the soup in a steel pot and filled the cup till it was nearly full. He then peppered the top and dressed it with corn flakes.

"Good evening Sir!", the soup seller addressed a man in uniform while he was serving my soup. "Plantain pith soup is on the menu, Sir. Would you like to have a cup today?", he asked. The man in uniform approved the offer with a nod.

By the time the man in uniform parked his bike nearby and walked to the mobile shop, the soup seller had kept the soup ready for him. "Parcel a cup of vegetable soup", he ordered while he was still savoring the plantain pith soup.

"Will men in uniform have a commanding voice even when they are off duty?", I wondered.

After having the soup, the man in uniform collected the parcel, took his bike and fled. When I was about to ask the soup maker "Did he pay his bill?", he muttered under his breath, "these type of people should be stoned to death in public", venting out his anger.

"Last week, he charged me Rs. 400 for skipping a signal! I even showed him all the documents I had, you know?", a stranger who had ordered a soup joined the row. The stranger finished his soup, threw the plastic cup in a fenced area, paid his bill and left. I overlooked the pile of used plastic cups to find a notice board that says "Thiyagigal Manimandapam", a memorial for freedom fighters.

I paid my bill and was about to leave when I asked the soup seller, "Why didn't you ask him to pay his bill?"

"He will ask me to leave this place", he said in a casual tone.

When I asked him why, he replied, "I don't have a permit to run my shop here!".

The Waiting Hall

The time was 10 P.M when I arrived at the Bengaluru city junction. The auto in which I came dropped me near the entrance leading to a staircase. With not much luggage to carry, I swiftly climbed the steps to reach the platform number 1. The Kaveri express in which I had made my booking was scheduled to arrive only at 11.45 P.M! After mentally noting down the platform number in which the Kaveri express would arrive, I walked towards the second class passengers waiting hall.

The second class passengers waiting-hall was a class below compared to a similar hall for the ones who had made their bookings to travel in air-conditioned coaches. While AC passengers waiting-hall was maintained nearly spotlessly clean, the second class passengers waiting-hall welcomed me with a pile of dirt! The pile, as the room keeper would explain to me later, was tossed by fellow passengers despite having a dustbin inside!

I entered my ticket details in a ledger maintained by the room keeper, walked into the room, managed to find a decent spot and had a seat. Behind me, a fellow passenger was sleeping by combining 3 chairs together that formed a bed-like arrangement.

As I sat down and started reading a book, a girl in her early twenties entered the waiting hall. She glanced around the hall trying to make a judgment whether to stay or leave. Not finding enough of female companions around, she turned to leave the place when she heard the room keeper saying "Please take the next room, madam. It's the waiting hall for women passengers". She thanked him and left the room.

Announcements were made for various trains that were either originating or passing through the city junction, which kept a steady flow of passengers in and out of the waiting hall. An elderly couple, who had made their booking in a train that would depart the next day morning made their way through the waiting-hall and found an empty spot behind the last row of chairs.

By the time they reached the spot, the old lady was tired that she was gasping to breathe. They must have walked a long distance, I thought, or maybe it was the staircase that worn them out!

The old man found an empty chair on the last row and sat, while the old lady was sweeping the floor with an old newspaper that she kept folded in her bag. Satisfied with sweeping, she spread the newspaper in the shape of a mattress, took out a folded blanket from her bag and laid on top of it. She then pulled out what seems like one of her own saree from the bag and placed it on top substituting for a pillow.

While I thought she was going to sleep on the bed she had just prepared, I heard a voice yelling at her, "Why are you taking so long to prepare a bed?"

"Its ready my dear", she replied softly, panting a little.

The elderly man got up from his seat, walked towards the comfortable bed his wife had just made, lied down and slept, all the while complaining about the delay in making it. The old lady sat next to him, fanned him for a while, got up and walked towards the chair that her husband occupied a while ago.

"Train number 16221, Mysore to Chennai via Bengaluru, Kaveri express will arrive shortly on platform number 5", the announcement said.

Jammy scored his first centum

"If you are named after a mathematician, it does not mean you will score centum in mathematics. Be happy with what you have got, instead of coming to me and asking for more marks", the teacher said.

Aged 12, I did not understand then, what my name had to do with my request! "I am not begging for more marks", I wanted to say! "I am only asking her to award me what I deserve!", I said to myself.

Things had become difficult for me to comprehend, ever since I had been moved from my primary school to another one, for my secondary education. The profiles of the two schools were so different that it took me a few months to accept the contrast! While the entire strength in my primary school was about 500, the strength of 7th standard to which I was admitted then, alone counted up to that number!

"There were twenty questions of five marks each in the paper. I answered all the twenty questions, all of which you have marked correct. Yet, you have given me only 95 out of 100! It's a totaling mistake", I pointed out to the teacher.

"Listen son! I am a social studies teacher. I came here only to distribute the math test papers because your math teacher is on leave today. If you think you are marked wrongly for a problem, you can ask her to verify your answers when she comes to your class next", she said. Apparently she did not even look at my answer script!

"Ma'am, please have a look at my script. If you can point me to a question for which my answer is marked wrong, I will withdraw my request", I requested.

"It's just a totaling mistake", I repeated.

She took my answer script and re-totaled, only to find that the marks counted to a centum. Not satisfied, she gave the answer script to a student who was sitting at the front desk, asking him to total again. "Centum Ma'am", he said.

Striking off the 95 marks against the total column, she wrote 100, while telling me "Let me see how much you will score in the social studies paper"

That evening, I jumped in joy as soon as I reached home and shouted out on top of my voice, to my mom, "I scored centum in math". After all, there was no way for her to find out that I would fail in the social studies paper, until she received my report card!

A trek to the insti lake

"Let us plan a trekking trip", Prasanna said.

"How about Tada? Or we can go to Gingee fort", I suggested few places.

"I have a place in mind. It's nearby and not much explored", he replied.

"A place which is nearby the insti, but not much explored? Which place could that be?", I asked myself. "Somewhere in the ECR?", I asked him.

"No. The place is inside our own campus! The insti lake!", came the reply from him.

I knew about the insti lake from the signboard that says "Lake view road" which I saw when I once walked from the main gate towards the stadium. But it never occurred to me to explore the lake area, or the lake itself!

"Excellent choice! Let us go! But when?", I asked him.

"Let us start our journey with the rising sun", he said. "Wear your shoes. We never know what is going to greet us in that jungle", he warned me.

The next morning, we both met in front of Cauvery, and started walking towards the Mandakani hostel, the hostel on the south eastern end of our campus. Until we undertook this trek, I thought Mandakani marked the eastern boundary of our insti!

We reached the back side of Mandakani and started our journey towards the direction of the lake on an unpaved road, when we heard a voice stopping us with the question "Where are you going?". We turned to see that the question came from a man in a blue uniform. "To the lake", we answered him.

"Are you students of the insti?", he asked us. After verifying our identity cards, he warned us "There is no proper route in this direction. You may come across bushes, thorns, snakes and what not. Take care". We thanked him and continued walking towards the lake.

After walking for about twenty minutes, we reached a broad, shallow and dry pit. While wondering if that was our insti lake and if it had gone dry, we spotted a few deer on the other end of the pit, munching on leaves and playing around, thoroughly enjoying the sunrise. We tried our best to capture the moment in our eyes through the lens since we decided not to disturb the deer by walking closer towards them. We continued our walk in the same direction.

A broad, shallow and dry pit

At a short distance from the shallow and dry pit, we reached a marsh land, which indicated to us that we were nearing the lake. Our guess was soon confirmed when we came across another broad and shallow pit filled with water. We observed the deer's footmarks on the banks.

Marsh land

Broad and shallow pit with water. Deer's footprints can be seen on the banks.

"Do you think this is the lake?", I asked Prasanna.

"There is a path further down this pit. Let us continue in that direction and see where it takes us", he replied. "It may lead us to the 'Lake view road', I guessed.

After about twenty minutes of walk, we came across a mossy trail which I guessed was connected to the culvert behind our campus restaurant on the upstream side. "This means what we saw was not the insti lake", Prasanna pointed to me. As we had guessed, we finally reached the insti lake after walking further across the mossy trail.

 

Mossy trail

The insti lake

 

I had heard that IIT Madras campus was carved out of a beautiful forest. But I thought it is so for the number of trees we see in between the concrete structures. The serene and pristine surroundings of the lake area revealed to us what the insti area once looked like!

Sow shall you reap!

The M70 bus that would take me from Velachery to CMBT arrived at the IIT bus stop after what looked like an eternity. Along with a small crowd, I boarded the bus, found a space where only my leg could go through and tried to apply my knowledge of Physics to balance myself in a dynamic equilibrium.

In a crowded bus, such as the one I was traveling in, the passengers would automatically form a human chain, pass the money and collect their tickets. When I was about to pass the money to the nearest passenger, a hand pushed me yelling "Don't fall on me, move!".

The push toppled me for a moment, knocked off the balance of a few passengers nearby while I was trying to regain mine. From the crowd, I observed that the voice came from a person who was seated. Before I could reply to him, I heard an angry voice shouting "Don't you know how to hold on to a support? Why are you pushing everyone around?", apparently oblivious to the person who started the chaos. I apologized (to no one in particular) to bring the situation under control, passed the money to the human chain and collected my ticket.

The bus would have moved only a few feet when the driver pulled it off the road! After a brief discussion with the driver, the conductor turned towards us and said "The bus broke down. All of you get down and board another bus".

Cursing under our breaths, we got off the bus, waited for ten minutes before the conductor flagged a D70 and authorized our tickets with his signatures for us to travel on that bus. D70 was not as crowded, and there were several empty seats, one of which I occupied. The D70 driver waited till the bus reached its saturation level, and pressed the pedal to the floor.

A cool breeze flowed through the window, caressed my face and dissipated into the crowd which was packed to its maximum. When the driver applied the brake to avoid a pothole, which eventually he ran through, a passenger toppled and stamped on my feet. I was about to yell "Don't fall on me, move!" when he apologized "Sorry Sir! I lost my balance!", to no one in particular.