Musical Journeys

Rs 4.50 . The cost of the ticket from college to Chattram (supposedly the most happening place in Trichy). Its the worst time to travel in the city, Saturday evening. The traffic (yes Trichy isn't immune to it) is painful. The number of people in the bus can be calculated as total volume available/average volume of space occupied by a person +25 . The constant is to account for children who occupy lesser volumes, though there are men and women who more than make up for it and the 20 odd people who are footboarding at any point of time. By all means one would expect the mood in the bus to reflect irritation and uneasiness, constant bickering to support it and of course lots of cursing in low volumes about the uncle who keeps pushing people and trying to make more room for himself.

Lo and behold! The speakers start to crank up some noise. Slowly the music starts to drift into your ears. Hints of recognition strike the mind. And then the volume goes up and its that "kuthu" song from the super hit movie Dhool. People start drumming on whatever solid mass they can get their hands on. Its a pretty cacophonous atmosphere but then you can not help getting into the groove. Slowly and reluctantly your hands move towards the back of the seat in front of you and in a few moments you are totally in it. The song comes to an end and you wait impatiently for the next one to start. With these guys you never know the kind of collection. They can enthrall you with some of the best songs of all time or just squander the initiative and play a really arbid number and all the drumming will come to a sudden stop. This time however the theme seems to be the recent "kuthu" hits and everyone's happy to hum and drum along. No humdrum here though.

Normally one would be hoping for the journey to come an early end, but somehow the mood is so uplifting that you pray for the bus to get into a traffic snarl. However as it so happened the bus driver seemed as charged up as we were and put one heavy feet on the accelerator and appeared never to want to take it off. The destination was reached in double quick time and light years quicker than what i had hoped for.

May the person who thought of the whole idea of songs on buses live long.

P.S In the eventuality that the person is dead, may he enjoy the company of the apsaras in heaven.