Journey after missing the train
As we missed the train and Yasha called her home, her mother wanted her to catch a flight to Bhopal which she refused. She told me that she didn’t want to go back to MICA. Going by flight was not an option for me because of the over priced tickets. And going back to MICA was not even considered by me. I would have better asked Abdul Bhai to take me to Bhopal by Auto with both of us driving turn by turn 100-100 kms. But that’s the difference travelling with a girl brings to your way of thinking. It was not me alone but I had to take her care. But does a Parijat creature needs that much care? May be Yasha was also capable of driving an auto. So it becomes 100-100-100 kms all three of us.
After some brain storming and thinking all permutations, we decided to go by bus. We took an auto to a private bus agent and got the last two tickets left in non-AC sleeper bus to Indore. The bus was scheduled two hours later. Thereafter we went to dinner in a 0-Star restaurant where the bill amounted to something in two-figure (yes two-figure INR for both of us). No comments the quality of food.
After dinner we realized that Yasha wanted to use washroom once before boarding the bus. She also wanted some pills. Our quest for a humanly usable toilet started at the same restaurant where we ate. Its toilet was bad. Yasha tried to use the govt. bus depot toilet which was worse. Planning Commission statistics show that 638 million Indians don’t have access to proper sanitation. I wondered whether government calculates people travelling by buses in that figure. Anyways, we decided that we can get a usable toilet only at a hotel. So we ended up searching a medical store to buy pills and a low cost hotel. When we asked people for both of these, they started passing sarcastic smiles. And I quickly made out what were they thinking. But in our case, the search was driven by worry and not by wild intensions.
Anyways, with some effort we got our Hotel Decent. We asked the owner Bhavin Patel to do us a favour of letting Yasha use the toilet. He agreed. After she was back Bhavin asked us to pay a huge amount. And then I replied that she have used only the washroom. I felt like showing middle finger to him. In the end it was argument and we left without paying him anything. Now we started searching a medical store. Someone told us the way for one.
Inception Level–2: The Kite Bazaar
As we entered the street where medical store was supposed to be located it was filled all around with kites. Nearly all the shops were selling kites. As we furthered onto our path, more and more shops selling kites revealed themselves. It was a beautiful site. A complete street filled with colourful kites. I suddenly started dreaming. I used to fly a lot many kites when I was a kid. I started remembering the battles fought in the sky. I also remembered “The Kite Runner”. I was searching for a kite bazaar like this since long, but couldn’t find it anywhere. This bazaar can’t be a reality. It has to be a dream. I felt like this kite bazaar was a dream within a dream of missing our train. Suddenly we were in front of the medical store and Yasha purchased the pills. We re-traced our way back through the kite street.
The last mile
When we boarded the bus, I realized that Yasha was the only woman in the bus. I asked her to wake me up in case of any nuisance created by anyone. The bus started and it was a peaceful journey despite the chilling cold. At 3 a.m in the night it stopped at some village which looked like Omkara set with only one hand pump in a long field. The travellers were supposed to pee in the chilling cold. When I got out of bus I had already decided to write an article on this journey and I thought probably this Omkara set would be the concluding part of it. We reached Indore around 9: 30 a.m from where a taxi took us to Bhopal within 4 hours. Over all we wasted around 5 hours for this memorable journey.
If you ever want to go from MICA to Railway Station then please call Pappu Bhai on this number: 9879228637
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