"I am certainly not an authority on love because there are no authorities on love, just those who've had luck with it, and those who haven't."
- Bill Cosby
Recently, a friend of mine said love is nothing but a bunch of lies and promises that were never kept.
She says there is no other outcome to it other than hurt and pain and a broken heart. She sounded knowledgeable and pretty sure about it, I was sure from the serious look on her face she actually believed in what she said. What is more surprising that she like me was just nineteen, a very very young age to have such dark thoughts on something that most people think is a basic necessity for a happy life.
Many people would agree with her, I personally know a lot of such cynics. Maybe I am one of them too. I knew for sure that I was one of them, until I met someone who said something very contradictory and made me think otherwise.
I was coming from my tuition classes at the usual time minus a usual friend who used to come along with me those days, he skipped class today. Lucky brat, the class was torture anyway. Too much calculus can rot anybody’s brain. Ours was just about half way there. But there wasn't much you could do about it, except verbally abuse mankind for being so intelligent to make up something this complicated, and torture us innocent students. He and I usually cursed our math teacher together but since he was not with today I was doing it by myself in my head, hoping my telepathic powers could somehow blow the teacher’s head apart. And wished dearly that I wouldn't have to go jail for that. I would plead that the crime was committed for the good of all humanity. I was also beginning to think up arguments to my defence.
That was when I saw him first. At the depot, where the bus for Ganapathy, the number 3, halts. He was wearing his usual gray uniform of a peon or janitor with the name tag & emblem of a local state-run hospital. I had seen him before in the stand. Like me he too went on the number 3 bus daily. What caught my eye was that he was talking animatedly to someone on his mobile phone. God! Here even an aging ancient janitor has a mobile, and here I have been nagging and badgering my dad to get me one for months. The bus arrived and I was still fuming over this newly discovered injustice, how everything was wrong in the universe. I somehow blindly under auto-plot boarded the empty bus succumbing to the crowd's push and shove . The emptiness of a bus doesn’t matter to us Indians, we simply just have to push and shove collectively at the doors. After that inevitable ruckus ceased I got inside, spotted a vacant seat and quickly sat there before the guy with heavy trunk could reach it. He in turn cursed under his breath and pushed the heavy trunk forward to find another seat. Sorry mister, no manners and etiquettes when it comes to the bus seat. Rejoicing at my success in getting a seat for myself, and smugly looked around to see the disappointed faces of the ones left standing who did not get a seat.
Thats when I saw the janitor next, he had just boarded the bus quite leisurely taking his time after the rush had decreased still talking on his phone. What a loser. Now he’d have to stand the whole time. The bus was filled with passengers, there is now way he could have got a seat coming in this slow. Considering our reputation with regards to population, this was inevitable. The bus finally started. Driver shifts the gear and the bus moved forward. By the time the first two halts had been completed the conductor had come near me I bought the ticket. The conductor noticed the janitor while I bought the ticket. The conductor smiled at the janitor who in turn grinned at him.
“The wife?” he asked.
“Who else?” the janitor mouthed, rolling his eyes.
