I did not hear him. Some Balkan Beat mix was drowning everything in my iPod. When I opened my eyes I saw the conductor and an old lady with big chunky gold jewelry on hanging ear lobes talking to me. He looked like he was doing his job, a bit removed, preoccupied with his worn leather bag. The lady was angry. Very angry. She had a mop of gray hair bunched over her head, wizened face and a basket under her left arm. The right one was gesticulating at my face. Her betel leaves stained teeth were not pretty. She was screaming her head off in Tamil and I was glad that I could not hear a word.
This was one of those loud private bus to the city in the plains, bright cobalt blue with a psychedelic pouncing tiger with 'speed suguna' painted on the sides. If you were driving behind this bus this evening you will see a hand painted extraordinarily pink Catherine Zeta Jones and some busty local actress against the blue all over the rear. There was the word SPEED in italics sticker-ed up across the glass.
Inside was green with upholstered seats and poetic warning signs against sticking your head or hand out. Raspy loud Tamil songs of frivolity played out in tinny speakers - high treble euphoria. There were drowsy gray haired men and women going back to their foothill villages. Their empty baskets were filled with irritable fatigue from mountain town markets where they sold fresh produce. Young mothers in their bright fake silk saris with orange garland adorning their plaited hair were trying to keep awake. Kids were asleep across laps drooling on the saris. Fresher salesmen in dull white shirts shared their day with VIP suitcases and their ties folded up on their laps. As the bus hugged bends all seated were lolling their heads like some synchronized avant garde theater. The fresh mountain air was charged with a medley of smells in the bus - garlic, perfumed coconut oil, jasmine, betel nut, tobacco with traces of local hooch and diesel fumes. I was there with a couple of friends, in this moving microcosm, on winding roads over a mountain range, just off the geometric center of peninsular South India with this irate old woman screaming on my face and I did not know why.
This was one of those loud private bus to the city in the plains, bright cobalt blue with a psychedelic pouncing tiger with 'speed suguna' painted on the sides. If you were driving behind this bus this evening you will see a hand painted extraordinarily pink Catherine Zeta Jones and some busty local actress against the blue all over the rear. There was the word SPEED in italics sticker-ed up across the glass.
Inside was green with upholstered seats and poetic warning signs against sticking your head or hand out. Raspy loud Tamil songs of frivolity played out in tinny speakers - high treble euphoria. There were drowsy gray haired men and women going back to their foothill villages. Their empty baskets were filled with irritable fatigue from mountain town markets where they sold fresh produce. Young mothers in their bright fake silk saris with orange garland adorning their plaited hair were trying to keep awake. Kids were asleep across laps drooling on the saris. Fresher salesmen in dull white shirts shared their day with VIP suitcases and their ties folded up on their laps. As the bus hugged bends all seated were lolling their heads like some synchronized avant garde theater. The fresh mountain air was charged with a medley of smells in the bus - garlic, perfumed coconut oil, jasmine, betel nut, tobacco with traces of local hooch and diesel fumes. I was there with a couple of friends, in this moving microcosm, on winding roads over a mountain range, just off the geometric center of peninsular South India with this irate old woman screaming on my face and I did not know why.
