On the way to office today

September 23, 2010

Db dropped me at the Leela Palace bus stop as usual. I catch a volvo to ITPL from there everyday while Db goes to his office at Diamond District.

I waited for almost 10-15 minutes, but no volvo turned up to the bus stop. I was getting late and the crowd was building up. Even if the volvo came in another minute, I'd probably have to travel standing till ITPL. There was this descent looking guy standing next to me waiting for the same bus impatiently, making these impatient noises every now and then and looking at his watch everuy 30 seconds.

In another minute, a bus arrived, It wasn't the A/C volvo bus, rather a battered old bus, probably the ones which goes on a longer distance like Mysore or Ooty may be. Boarding this bus was pretty much mere shan ke khilaaf, but the conductor shouting 'ITPL,ITPL,ITPL' was too provokating. The young man standing next to me hesitated for a while then asked the conductor "ITPL???" and hopped on to the bus. The bus was still waiting and the conductor just standing infront of me was chanting incessantly 'ITPL,ITPL,ITPL'. I took a closer look at the bus, plenty of seats empty, something I wouldn’t get even if I manage to catch the Volvo. It was my turn now...’ITPL???’ I queried…it was less of a query and more of loud thinking. I hopped in too.

The bus was in a real bad shape, the seats were too clumsy and there was no A/C. But there were two TV's available at the front end which were playing some Telgu movie. There was a huge traffic jam, giving all us passengers the chance to watch the full movie. At first I wasn't interested until I saw Pravu Deva on a wheel chair. Awww!!! Such a waste I thought to myself. It was a movie revolving around some dance competitions and I must say the dances were pretty breathtaking. Prabhu Deva was the guru who had lost his legs to an accident and was training a group (which also included the main lead) to win the dance competition in question. But with the ususal non-sense that any south indian movie serves its audience, there were many such scenes where I went 'What Crap!!!'
Towards the climax, the friends of the main protagonist are kidnapped to prevent them from reaching the competetion venue. The lead is shot in his leg and his shoulders and has to dance aka Basanti to save his friends. Not just he manages to do that, he also manages to dance the competition to the quarter finals, semi-finals and the final, finally winning too. And worse, people in the bus were actually hooting, whistling and shouting while the hero danced his way to glory with bullet shots on his shoulder and legs. Nagarjuna and Chiranjeevi pop in from no where to misuse and abuse the all laws ever made by any physicist.

And the final nail in the coffin...as a token of respect, the lead wants to make his handicapped Guru to do some dancing too. To my utter horror, he carries Prabhu Deva on his shoulders while Prabhu Deva's vaccum pant legs are dangling in the air and they together dance, the lead doing the leg movements and Prabhu Deva doing the hand movements, together doing the Maa-Behen of physics. Newton must be turning in his grave while the passengers in the bus cheered to the histronics.

For sure, one of my best rides to office.

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