'You don't care about your admission Sowmyaaaa. (My mom takes great pleasure in dragging my name, long and loud.) I took a 3-day leave very unnecessarily. You are better left alone. Ask your dad to accompany you next time. His pay isn't even...', she started her endless list of complaints and reasons.
A total mood turner.
I was about to retort but realized there was absolutely no use trying to reason with an upset mom and just waited for her to finish her make-up so that we could go and report in the college which was situated on the other end of the city.
Tick, tok, tick, tok..
25 minutes later, I was finally able to drag her out. It was still raining but thankfully there was a rickshaw wala near the gate. 'MVP colony chaloge bhaiyya?', Mom asked. 'Nahi', came a very abrupt reply. 'Kitna chahiye?', Mom tried bribing him. '300', he said without even looking up from his telugu newspaper. I looked at mom and she reminded me of a pressure cooker that was about to burst. At this point I was hopeful that the trip to college could be postponed and I could go back to my darling laptop but somehow mom thought better and agreed without further argument. 'Crap', I thought to myself and tried getting in without touching anything wet but unfortunately everything was wet. Including me.
So started the supposed to be long journey to the other end of the city. I decided that my plan failed and was about to plug in my ear-phones when the auto stopped very suddenly. 'WTH!..', I started when I saw the guy who'd stopped the auto but I lost the train of thought as I saw the wooden log in his hand. By the time I could figure out what was happening, the auto was surrounded by 7-8 people with logs, knives, chains and everything imaginable.
'Out!', said the guy who had the wooden log in his hand while another guy tried to pull out the keys.
'Arre, hawa nikalo', he ordered the others who obeyed his command without any hesitation.
I looked at mom who was equally stupefied and was staring at the auto driver who was trying to save his vehicle from destruction, but in vain.
'Bhaiyya! Urgent kaam hai, chod do hume..', Mom was trying to tell the guy who was trying to pull the luggage out of the rickshaw.
'Get out. Now. Or else we'll set the auto on fire', the scariest of the lot said and he must have meant it because Mom took my hand and dragged me out in a hurry and half-walked, half-ran to the nearest roof for shelter.
The next thing I saw was the front glass of the auto being smashed into a million pieces and the driver hopelessly crying and persuading them to not cause further damage.
I was stunned by shock and surprise because these were the kind of things that happened on TV and not in reality. And it was not until I came back to the safety of my room did I realize the depth of the day's happenings. It happened between 9:30-9:45 on 05-07-2010.
Aren't Bandhs supposed to be for the welfare of the common citizen?
Bharat Bandh? No, Thanks. We are better off without your concern.
