The narrative goes back to the time while my ego and I were travelling in a semi-luxury bus ( My definition of luxury esp. in travelling, is the number of dames that are present in the bus. By such standards, it was a semi-luxury bus.) At that time, I preferred a bus journey rather than a train due to time constraints & tremendous flocking of people in the Railways. The journey started and before the roadways of my city could allow our bus to touch the feet of highway, our bus had to pass through umpteen number of turns reminding me of Formula One Racecourses. I badly needed a doze off session due to belligerent fights with my work routine the previous day.
Atlast our bus emerged to be a winner leaving behind all sorts of vehicles, carts and stray animals to struggle against each other’s deftness skills. I atlast fell asleep while self-suggesting my senses to ignore the vile flowing in the air from some of the bucolic passengers. Time passed.
Vrrrrrrrm. Vrrrrrrrrm. Vrrrrrrrrm. I was still half asleep and could easily sense that some group of female insects are trying to play Kabaddi on my chest. My chest hairs (that were yet unshaven and not influenced by Salman Khan) started bristling.’’ #@$!%#’’, said I. Being estranged with no other option, I woke up to my utter disgust and I still felt the Vrrrrrm, Vrrrrrrm. Caught you.! Just to find that it was my Panasonic GD 92 mobile shivering due to it being in Vibratory mode.
Mum was on the line. A few minutes of one sided conversation (obviously from my mom side) and I was fagged out. This phone is so light. And the vibration is such that the Richter Scale in the propinquity would have started dancing. I remember the time when I was in control of My big fat Nokia 5110 and soon side stepped it to use the oomph Samsung SCH 191. Unfortunately, It lasted only for some weeks before the real owner demanded it back and I couldn’t even raise an eye brow before him. Obviously, he was my father. But that wasn’t a bad loss either. I took hold of this feather weight Panasonic which although was a bit out dated but still worked well for me to establish contact with my loved ones even though most of the times, the conversation is one sided except when I’m on line with Customer Care Executives.
Yawn. My sub conscious mind had braced itself with surety that I needed a cat sleep. I fell asleep, forgetting the sunrays that were desperately trying to be incident on my eyes that had no goggles on it. The vile was still as strong but now the stench didn’t matter as I was used to it hitherto. Not more than five minutes passed and there you go again. Vrrrrrrrrm. Vrrrrrrrrm. I shook up and with drowsiness still in my eyes, I saw that it was a stupid SMS that was forwarded by a moron classmate of mine. The maximum number of SMS that one could store was limited to 25. I cursed myself for having left space for one SMS otherwise I’d have been sleeping while the bus was talking with the air. I pressed on the ’’Review’’ feature and made sure that all the messages amounted to 25 in number.
Time passed and I heard of no more vibrations. Suddenly the bus stopped and the rancid conductor sashayed near me and announced to the passengers with an air of pride about the thirty minutes halt. I could have almost turned him into a monkey but then why would I have to take all the credit. Thinking so, I moved out of the bus and at last I got a breather. I asked the smudged conductor to ventilate the foul smell by opening all the windows and having remarked this as fast as I could, I left the bus.
The hotel was full of people running here and there as if all the food was going to be exhausted within seconds. I went near the food court and exchanged a 10 Rs. note for a cool cup of Vanilla. While I was about to gulp the first scoop, I noticed a lurid girl who had to make a call urgently but to her utter dismay and my utter good fortune, the phone lines were out of order in that booth. Being juxtaposed in propinquity of her svelte figure, and being the gentleman I am innately, I offered her phone. Conversations happened (also between me and her, not to remark). Ultimately I entered her phone number in my phone book that could store as many as 350 numbers. The facilities of Group setting, My numbers, hot key dials, alert profile etc were very handy for me. Her number immediately dived into the alert profile. (No prizes for guessing)
The blazing Sun bid goodbye to us and the streetlights coruscated dimly in the road ways as our bus started cruising. I switched off the vibrator mode and adjusted the display color to light blue because it matched my pale blue shirt. Yes! Because this phone had features that allowed us to change colors of the display, I was able to score a Brownie point in front of my newly made svelte pal. She didn’t much like the blue color. And like a magician with his wand, I immediately changed the color to pink. I also had the options of green and amber but they were a perfect unfit for the phone at that hour. I thought in the boondocks of my mind that had the girl been a Chinese, even then I could have changed the display language into ’’Chinese’’ owing to the inherent language change facility present in the phone. I am amused how user friendly this phones are nowadays serving more than one task at the same time.
The bus was cruising along nicely and the cool breeze flew in from the cracks of the windows that were closed. Our bus was almost inching close to the final destination. With mirth in my heart, I prepared for my exit and shook hands with the lulu. I wanted somehow to listen to her sweet voice again and again. Suddenly my Grey cells tickled and I recalled the Recording facility in my phone. I requested her to help me record her final good bye words and there I was smiling at my gratuitous luck.
Together we matched our feet towards the exit of the bus and on the way I did receive ignominious look from fellow passengers. I gloated along and overlooked all such peccadilloes. I decided to fallow our friendship for some time to render it some nourishment and while transiting back to the lodge, I wondered who was the winner? Me, my wit or Panasonic GD 92. Touché.