The Journey 3: THE ROAD

CLAIMER: The following peice of literature is 99.88% fact and 0.12% exaggeration. This is no fiction.

Fuck!! This is so wrong. You are screwed. Once more. Were you born in the hour of Devil? The voices in my head were not leaving me alone. Destiny had struck again. This time too, I was the victim. The freaking train was on time.Do you believe that? Indian Railway!! On time!! That too was not working out for me. The right time was 1 in the night. Hell!! Who in his right mind will run a train that starts at 1 in the night and stops at 1 in the night, 2 days after. This makes no sense. May Lalu rot in hell.

I am on the station. Silently cursing everybody. It was 2 full days in a smelly train, amongst smelly people. I had not bathed. Hell I didn't even took a crap on the train. I had not slept for more than 10 hrs in the 2 days, in installments. My throat is dry as cotton. I buy a bottle of water. Greedily drink the full bottle. Tastes like ORS, without the sugar. I curse the vendor. Son of a bitch. The voice echoes in my head. I had spotted a few acquaintances on the train. I am trying to find them. They are not here. Maybe they are already outside. I exit the station, and there they are, about 10 people, from my college. Where were you all this time when I was struggling to find something to save myself from dying of boredom? I scream inside my head.

Outside the station it was a totally another mightier crisis waiting for us. Bloody autowallahs and their bloodier autos. Smell of booze 24 hours a day. A wreck of an automobile. They talk in half Assamese and more often than not make no sense. This happened that night at least 4 times.

Me : Bhaiya, IIT chaloge?
AW(Autowallah) : Kahan?
Me : IIT!
AW : Wo kahan ko hai?
Me : North Guwahati, Bramhaputra cross karke.
AW : Kitne log hain?
Me : 3. (How much can you fit in this hole.)
AW : 800 rupay hone se hoga.
Me : 800 to jyada hai.
AW : 800 se kam main hone se nahi hoga. Then something about night, petrol costs, police. I am
already over to the next bloody booze smelling guy.

This one guy has a loading taxi, thinks he is the king of the jungle.

Me : Bhaiya IIT chaloge?
LTW(Loading Taxiwallah) : Nahi.
Me : Kya?
LTW : Abhi neend aa raha hai bhaiya. Abhi nahi jaayega.
Me : Arey chal lo bhaiya. 10 bande hain.
LTW : (thinking...thinking...thinking...thinking...after 3 minutes....) 10 minute sone se chalega.
Me : Arey late ho raha hai. Kitne loge batao?
LTW : 5000 rupay hone se hoga.
Me : 500 main chal loge???
LTW : 500 nahi 5000.
Me : Bhaiya 1500 main to ghar se yahan tak pahunch gaya.
LTW : To nahi chalega. Sone do.
Me : Asshole.

We were back on the road, searching frantically, for a ride. With our bags n stuff. I spotted an autowallah sleeping in his auto at a distance. Went upto him. Woke him up. "*&%@#$", he shouted. I tried not to look scared and followed the same routine. 250 he said. For three of us. He's way drunk. I thought. Me and two other guys, who will be named B and C from now on, ditched the other crowd and boarded the auto, almost crying in joy at our luck. Little did we know what luck had in store for us that night.

So we are in the auto, cramped up in whatever space there was, in very uncomfortable positions. Awkward, but relieved. At least we will get some sleep. The auto is going considerably slow. Or maybe that has something to do with my mind all messed up due to all that exhaustion and sleep deprivation and (feeling like shit)tion. Few more minutes, I spot out a pattern. This is not my mind's handiwork. The guy is searching for petrol pumps. He slows down when he spots one, everything is closed, even pumps. Now I am scared. We will be stranded on the road in the middle of the night. I rememberd what my mom told me before leaving," Beta, guwahati is not safe. Don't go to the city after 5." I start praying. That's something I do only when I am in some kind of trouble. Maybe thats why most of my prayers are blocked right at God's answering machine.

The disaster unveiled. Destiny struck. Shit happened. Bottomline : WE WERE SCREWED!!!!!!! The bloody auto stopped. 2 in the night. On a lonely road. My prayers became more frantic. We all got out of the auto. We had a clear view of his unclean face for the first time. He stank of liquor, but was walking quite sober for someone that drunk.

AW : Ek minute ruko bhaiya. Mai dekhta hai.
B : Zaldi dekho bhaiya.
AW : (Checks the petrol tank) Bhaiya petrol nahi hai.
Me : Ab kya karenge?
AW : Mere paas petrol hai. 2 minute rukne se ho jaayega.

He got a bottle of petrol from his cabinet. Poured in the tank. We all were back in the hellhole. The auto made a sound that sounded like a man on his deathbed coughing his lungs out. A few minutes, we were out on the road again. He opened its rear and tried some stuff. 5 minutes later, we were still on the road. We should try to help, C said, and went to his side. No matter how late in the night it was or how scared I was, the sight of him trying to work around the engine was really funny. It was hot. The engine, I mean. One look at his face and we knew that this was going to be bad. Real bad. The expression on his face pretty much resembled mine when I am trying Rubic's Cube.

B : Bhaiya dhakka maarne se start ho jayegi.
AW : Arey meri gaadi hai. Isko dhakka nahi chahiye. Mujhe pata hai.
He asked for water. We had some with us. Gave it to him. He poured it on the engine. It vanished into thin air. He said he wanted more water and left. We were alone. In the night. On a lonely road. Waiting, for a drunk dirty auto driver who could pretty much be an ULFA operative, on a mission to kidnap three students for whatever reasons they have. Needless to say, we were scared.

Suddenly we heard roars. I cannot find a more suitable word describing the sound that those bikes were making. They were police bikes, three of them, with six policemen on them. At least the ULFA trouble is passed, we thought. They stopped their bikes, and came to us. I swear they were as drunk as the auto driver. And encountering cops in the midnight in India is as good as encountering thugs. This had not in any way decreased the level of fright in our hearts. "What are you doing here in the middle of the night?" One of them said in a rather rowdy way only used by Indian Policemen and Australian cricketers. We explained the whole situation to them. As proficient as they were in hindi, we tried our best to explain.

B : "Bhaiya IIT ke student hain. Ghar se aaye hain. Taxi kharaab ho gayi hai. Driver paani lene gaya hai."
Policewallah 1 : "Ki aase?"
C : "Bhaiya IIT ke student hain. Ghar se aaye hain. Taxi kharaab ho gayi hai. Driver paani lene gaya hai."
Policewallah 2 : "OI OI TEE? Wo to Shillong main hai na."

I knew right then this was going to end bad, real bad. But by good fortune or just by chance, there was one of them who had heard of our college. He asked for the ID cards, we showed them to him. He did some 'aase aase' to other khakhi clad monsters and they were off again. Never any offer to help or any assistance with the junk of an auto. But we were relieved, soon as we saw the driver running to us with the water in a bottle. We were back in the hole, as best as we could, as he poured the water on the engine and came to the driver seat. A key moved, a spark ignited, a few hopes raised, a few hearts prayed, an engine gurgled, an auto moved, but only an inch, before it stopped. And all the dreams and hopes were crashed. I yelled out all the profanities I could recall. That kinda pissed the driver off. Then B went out, yelled at the driver, asked him to remain seated. Then he started pushing the auto all by himself. We thought about offering help
but decided otherwise. 15 meters, and the miracle happened. The junk was moving again. We were mobile and B was sweating.

Then, there came a sight that overshadowed all the frustration and anger and despair and pain. The Saraighat Bridge, standing tall above the mighty Brahmaputra sretching endlessly on both sides, vast, calm, soothing, shimmering under the night skies, the view was magnificent. Till the auto stopped again. And all of a sudden, as we were out on the road again, pushing the cart, it was not as magnificent as it looked. The river was smiling at us, silent crooked smile at our misfortunes, the stars were less subtle, laughing almost violently in the water at us. Me and C were pushing the auto, along the bridge until it started and we got in. This happened a few more times in the next 4 kilometers of the road. And we were pushing again, a few more times. We were hungry. tired, sleep deprived, and were pushing the auto in the middle of the night, in the middle of the loneliest stretch of road ever seen, with the creepiest little man driving us. We discussed with him, in great detail and all possible angles, his love and sex life. Things I better not put down here. He told us how many girls has he done and in how many states has he done them. He was drunk, and was a good passtime. We were too tired to speak, or to laugh even. We just sat and listened.

Just when I thought things could not get much worse, they did. We were pushing the auto, all four of us, with our luggage inside it. This was a spark of genious we had when any amount of pushing could not start that garbage. We were going at our own pace, a pace suitable only for three tired to death young students and a drunk to the brink of death auto driver. This was when he arrived. T-shirt and shorts. Shoes. 3 in the night. On his enfield making all those sounds that only an enfield can make. Tearing through the night at 60 kmph. And as the luck would have it, our night was going to go much worse................................


To be continued...(that is, if I dont die tomorrow)