Buses and Baggage

It all started from an old photograph of the bus on Route number 315. That is when I started grasping the true amount of baggage that these numbers carry with them.

I just commented on some old facebook photo and bang! It was in everyone's news feed. Someone fired a tirade about how severely he hates the bus. Several others reminisced about how, now sitting with an H1b waiting for the green card, they once sat at the bus stop waiting for this bus. Old habits die hard, eh? And so much more. I had my own memories that I ascribed to it.

It was like our memories are neatly classified and filed into cabinets and each one has a number.

Yes! The Bus Route number. I will call it Bus Number henceforth because that's what I've always called it.

Let me just try to pull out those cabinets for a peek and see what I find.

110 - VIT. It's like the four years on engineering come rushing at you when you think of 110. And that is a vast volume of memories.

212 - Adarsh Classes. Class tenth coaching classes. Some parts of Bombay Talent Search and some irritating times. Also Ruia a bit but those are a different set of buses. The bus that goes to Manjar's place.

1 - The route of the bus being similar to that of 212 I can almost group the two but I wont. Bus no. 1 also reminds me of the time I went to CST for some aptitude test and I returned home to find that a very close friend's father had passed away. 1 & 212 also bring to mind the era of IIT JEE coaching -another period of significance. 

86 - Deserves a mention for the 86 effect. The largest number of cute girls would always be on the 86 and no other bus. The route is what merits such passengers I guess.

85, 27, 521 and more importantly 315 - All these relate to the two year Ruia Junior College Stint. 315 had great strategic importance know only to a select few. But the bus even today inspires stories, rants, smiles and random blog posts.

33 - This takes me back to the MBA prep days at Juhu.

66 - The double-decker to Lamington Road reminds me of my electronics project and my attempts at autonomous robotics

83, 84 - These remind me of my first relationship. Funny how these are quarantined in this cabinet. I've never even been a frequent commuter on these.

But you may argue that I can do this only because I've lived my life in a relatively small part of a small city called Mumbai. And I agree. It is just symbolism that you use to number the cabinets. It could be different for you. But I bet that you have at least a few bus number memories. 

You still disregard this as not a foolproof system of organising memories. I agree again. In fact, I don't know what to do with these last two years of B-School in a faded reddish building near Churchgate. 

I have an idea though.

I think I'll name that cabinet : 11:37 Virar Fast

The Common Man

In my previous post I had referred to the word 'ordinary'.

If someone calls you 'ordinary' do you consider that as derogatory??
Do you feel belittled?
Or have you accepted that you are ordinary like all of us?

'The common man' is a phrase used so commonly. All most a cliche you say? Yes. Probably.

What does the soul of a common man say?
There was a time when I'd thought that it would sound something like this.

I am a simple man
with worldly needs.
I ain't a hero.
I do no great deeds.

I do my work.
I earn my bread.
To think beyond that 
I have never dared.

I survive in a shell.
Outside it, I never peek.
My life, my shell
is safe and dark and cold and bleak.

I am a common man.
I am born to die.
I am not from the ones
who reach for the sky.

And from inside my shell,
I tell you my story.
You might be shocked,
But inside, its not so scary.

I am not alone,
There are millions like me.
Being in the world
only because they have to be.  

Rejuvenation

It has been well over a year since I posted anything out here.
I now have some free time. ( I'll make myself believe so at the expense of neglected responsibilities)

Things have changed. So have I. So has the world.
Such senseless talk.

But people like senseless talk.
People love reading, seeing and things they don't understand.

Employment is the need of the youth. Primarily, it gives independence.
Independence spawns confidence. Confidence leads to success.
Too much success leads to complacency.
And complacency makes you ordinary.

But all of this leads to nothing.

I'd rather post some of my real work.

Keep reading.

 

The Magic Box

Since this is the first work that I am posting I chose to have something nice. Something that makes you hope a bit. It may even draw a smile. So here it is.

There are times in life,

too good to be true.

They knock on your door

When you don't have a clue.

All you have to do

is forget everything and smile.

just lose yourself

and stop thinking for a while.

Seal these memories

and keep them in a box.

Keep the box somewhere deep in you head

where it will not get lost.

Because there will later be days,

When all will seem lost.

That is when you would want

to open and keep looking into that box.

Borrow smiles from the past.

Till times change again.

And you are ready to make

a new box all over again.

The First Post

Abiding to the law of Blogging, this, my first post will be talking about what this blog is about. Concisely, it is about what I write. Sometimes there are times when you pen down something that you love and feel like shouting it out to the world. In cyberspace, it is called blogging.
I have been very nervous about writing a blog as I care too much about what people will think of me and what opinion they will have. But at the same time, the urge of sharing the few readable bits of my writing was too much. And so I present to you, The Sleeping Tree. It is more like a dormant life waiting to be awakened. A hidden source of inspiration. Something like that.