The Bus Ride

The evening wore a very disgruntled and tedious look as if the day itself had a bad day. Warm hot air blew through the bus window and smell of orange wafted through the air. The smell within the bus was rancid with body odor that permeated through bodies that stick through sweaty shirts, blouses, and petticoats. It was the heavy smell of helplessness, despair, and tiredness.

The bus slowed, the conductor pushed two women and the children clinging to them out the door. A passing scooter sped past the wrong side of the road barely missing the first woman. The conductor smirked as he took a peek at her blouse and mentally gauged the potential within. To stop his imagination from running wild, he screamed a profanity and the bust started moving towards the next stop.

The little girl beside me kept slipping off the seat as she tried to perch herself up every time the motion of the bus uprooted her from the seat. “Uh Oh”, she said and then placing one small palm on my thigh she tried to balance herself on the seat. I moved to my right pressing myself against the side of the bus as much as I can to make room. I helped her perch and then sit. My effort seemed to have paid off. She didn’t slide down on the next two consecutive bounces and managed to keep herself steady when a cow came in front of the bus and the driver pressed the brake pedal for a change – to wake himself up.

“Thank you”, she said. I smiled and looked out the window. After sometime the bus was on the highway and rolled with a steady motion. Sleep consumed me and I started to doze. Suddenly the little girl tagged on my shirt and asked me if she could sit by window. Her mother protested. I agreed. So we changed places and I was sitting next to her mother. The rancid was stronger and she smiled as if to tell me that she know I could smell her. I folded my hand and dropped my shoulders ready to doze off again but decided to check on the little girl. She looked out the window and her hair blew within the reigns of her hair clips creating small waves on her small head. She looked serene. I smiled and looked out the window myself.

Dark mellow clouds drifted on the southern sky and covered the raging sun. The sunrays, however, continued to cut through the clouds trying to stake their claim as the only source of truth in the sky. They lost. The clouds grew darker, the wind sharper and the hillocks stared up at the sky mocking the defeat of the sunrays. Drops of rain started to hit my face and I asked the little girl if she wanted me to roll up the window. She said, “No”.
The girl shivered and I placed my hand on her shoulders. She relaxed. The bus was moving at a fast pace and the passengers inside glowed with a newfound charm. The rancid odor was less hostile and the girl’s mother beside me dozed clutching her little brother. I began to doze and dream.

The Beginning

The walk down from the university convocation center tired him. He sat on the neatly laid out bed with a fresh white bedspread covering it. The incessant design on the spread threw up a bright flowery pattern. It seemed to him lately that everything around his world threw up a pattern. A pattern that came and went from his mind’s eye, rechotting off his memory walls into the vast emptiness of eternity. A memory so distasteful, he hated to recollect but this very memory is the core of his existence, the purpose of his life – the reason why Allah still kept him away from the FBI dragnet.

The mobile phone started to ring. He waited for three rings and picked up the phone, “Hello” he said softly into the sleek Nokia 9290 communicator. “You will be glad to know that phase II of the project has been successfully executed. Phase four is on its way” We plan to finish it exactly 10 days before the holy month of Ramzan starts”, the voice spoke softly from the other side of the line. “ Excellent, keep up the pace, I do not want to hear any crap about technical snags in the last moment” breathed Abdulla. “We won’t give you an opportunity”. The phone went off with a small delightful click. “Technology” thought Abdulla. “We will pay them in their own terms – with compound interest”.

Abdulla picked up the satellite phone receiver and voiced in an access code. The screen flickered, and a password text field appeared. He punched in four numbers and waited. The console displayed, “Validating access code”. “Access granted, establishing contact. Type in the contact code”, instructed the console. The line at the other end remained silent. After exactly three seconds, Abdulla pressed in the contact codes. The line immediately came alive and Abdulla spoke in Arabic. “The third phase is underway”. ‘Hope its worth the money invested in the project. We seek infinite justice”, the voice at other end spoke in fluctuating decibels, result of a satisfying, long drawn ejaculation. “ And justice shall be done” convinced Abdulla. The line went dead.

It was 2:00 PM in the afternoon and Abdulla decided to go to the university library. Lately he seemed to spend a lot of time in the library, talking to other Arab students at his class, holding court, justifying the cause, clearing doubts and scheming. He shut the two windows in the dorm and looked in the direction of the apartment across the street. The room seemed empty. “Julia must have gone out”, he figured. He picked up his mobile, squeezed his feet into the pair of Nike, closed the door behind him and stood still. Everything seemed normal. The siren of a police car broke the stillness of the calm outside. He skipped a heart beat. He relaxed. “It OK, just a routine petrol cruiser” he calmed himself and walked calmly towards the elevator.

Once on the pavement, Abdulla became one of them – the milling, thronging, briskly walking New Yorkers, another face in the crowd, another student, another middle eastern youth, clean shaven, big eyes with thick eyelashes and full lips – another Arab, nicknamed “The Angel”, with another mission in the name of Allah to attain eternal peace.

As he entered the university area, he could almost visualize in his mind’s eye the burning, collapsing steel, towering giant structures being reduced to mangled pieces of wreckage, the smell of destruction, the human limbs entwined in the debris – the attack on the world trade towers- exactly a year before, the event that gave his fellow brothers the supreme opportunity to attain the ultimate martyrdom and they are now resting in peace in heaven. He would have been one of them by now, if he had not been ordered at the last moment to stay behind and coordinate the mopping up operation before slithering out of the United States and back to Kabul. He was elated and felt that finally the time had come when these white vermin would be wiped off from the face of the earth and the will of Allah shall prevail upon the world.

Last May, two of my friends, my wife, and I decided to visit Ooty. So when one of us suggested that we “do” the Black Thunder, I stuttered, evolved, and mentally settled myself to a wet experience in one of the water parks around Ooty. The Tamil aunty next door prefers Ooticamoond.

So after spending the previous evening drinking beer, we woke up with a nasty hangover and decided to drive down the hills to Black Thunder, 250 km away from the spooky hotel we were staying in.

The drive was eventless but for the driver who seemed to sport quite a funky beard and an eloquent pair of shades. He was dressed all in white, a complete contrast to the dirty, old, and rickety Ambassador he drove. So after enduring a number of the crafty curves and ornamental driving maneuvers we finally rolled the final stretch to Black Thunder.

Our friend in white, the driver, decided to talk business and briskly announced that he wanted us back to the car within an hour and a half. I looked at him, blinked, and almost nodded when my friend pointed out that it would take us that much time just to dress down for the watery rides. So my friend haggled with the driver for an extended window of time, I screamed, my wife admonished, and my other friend suggested we hurry up.

As we were entering the pink dome like structure, which also served as the gate to the park, I wondered why the place looked so empty from outside and why the other visitors – a short portly aunty, her thin little dark daughter, and her frowning husband – were dressed in clothing that best suited a visit to the temple rather than a water park. We paid for our expensive tickets - which I thought could have been better spent on a T-Shirt or an evening out with friends, sighed and walked into Black Thunder.

No sooner had we crossed the gate, a huge surge of black, half naked, and dripping mass of a family came towards us and zoomed towards the Men Only and Ladies Only dressing rooms – in the same order. For the next three hours we spent in the park I could see little but black and the vision remained with me long after we left the park.

And what a sight it was! A mother of two young daughters tried to cover their dripping wet T-Shirts with one long piece of towel by jumping between them, in front of them, and behind them. For the people with the right kind of taste, the mother herself was quite a sight to watch with her wet Sari pulled tight right across her backside.

And more mothers – tall skinny ones, dark short and wet ones, tall, broad and dry ones – and one with a rose on her hair, the other with a bunch of jasmine. Following in close proximity to the mothers were their children – twins, not-so-twins, crying, smiling, rose running, frowning and all kind of siblings were in magnanimous display.

Then there were the cool dudes. Some of them with big flowery designs on their flares, plastic sun glasses and ill fitting shorts that did little to hide their loud bellies or their hairy dark legs.

Quite a company we were in!

After a round of sign language and several gestures, which included an up-yours, I finally managed to get a key to the locker room. We dumped our regular clothes and got into T-Shirts with Black Thunder embossed on the back and tight low quality shorts bought from the utility stores within the park.

So thus dressed to get wet, we snaked our way to the first ride – that was the only ride we rode that day. We had to queue to get into the ride called the Lazy river and I am not sure if its by co-incidence that all fat portly people including me preferred that ride. As we were standing for our chance into the water, I couldn’t help but notice some very peculiar sights that I am sure I will not be blessed to watch anywhere else in the world.

To ensure that her modesty was not tarnished, I saw this lady get into the Lazy river ride in her burkha. But poor she. As soon as she jumped into the air-filled tube, she slipped and fell into the water, her burkha and whatever beneath it riding way up her thighs. Ladies scorned, men sighed, some choked and I looked at my wife and smiled.

And then the loving dad. The guy got into the water, managed to sit still on an air-filled tube and on him sat his child. Along with the child, he had a pair of shoes in his hand, a feeding bottle, a napkin, a small bag carrying spare nappies around his neck – he was Walmart-Kids-Section in all its glory.

The ride around the Lazy river was full of activity actually, I kept falling off the tube, my wife’s tube wouldn’t budge from the starting point, and one of my friends walked most of the river than ride through it.

Then there were the river Romeos. They kept trying to reach close to all female lazy riders, hit them accidentally, laughed or screamed per their current testerone levels. Finally, after a lot of nudges, a few pushes from fellow riders and lot of knockings from my wife, I reached the finishing line of the lazy river, so did my friends, and my wife. Were we glad!