Early morning, late evening!!

Dedicated to all those who travel by bus to work day in day out! :D

My normal work day begins early in the morning. Office being so far away from home, I need to start at 7.30 in the morning in order to catch my bus and be there before the traffic hustle bustle begins! I've never spent this much time on travelling everyday ever in my life. So well, I guess this is quite the reason why I'm dedicating a post to it. :D

The bus journey everyday is a very interesting experience for me. I was very very apprehensive about travelling so far away everyday but now I can say I am kinda used to it and it's really not so bad. To be honest, I almost enjoy it( although I crib and complain about it all the while!), except the waking up real early part!

The bus stop is just about 3 minutes from my home. I reach there by 7.27 on most of the days. I meet a couple of people who I call my bus friends. We just have some little silly small talk about the match yesterday or why these guys have such a big problem with their ties or how marriages and holidays are so much fun! Just random topics for exactly about 3 or 4 minutes till the bus arrives.
From the first day, I used to go and occupy the last seat. The only reason behind this was I wanted the window seat and that was the only seat where window seat was empty. Slowly, it's become my habit to sit just there even though the seat is highly uncomfortable and throws me out of the seat on a slightly bad road.  But well, it doesn't matter to me, I still prefer going and sitting there. :) I just like to sit there by myself, gazing out of the window or listening to music or reading a book or just dozing off.
In the morning, it's pretty much easy to travel. I reach work in at most an hour. And I doze off for half the journey. Listening and discovering nice music is my favorite activity during that time. Everyday it's a new band and a new song. Gives me the inspiration to keep myself going for the rest of the day! Ah the wonders good music and good sleep can do!! :D
If I am not doing either of these two, I just sit and look out of the window, admiring the scenery(?) outside ;) Well, all I get to see are mostly people waiting for their office/ college buses somewhere near the bus stops. There are people all fresh and determined to face the new day's challenges. It reminds me of the saying-"Early bird catches the prey", all the people all set to hunt down their preys. :D There are no traffic jams anywhere, just the umpteen signals(I'll talk about signals in some time). So well this is the view I get when I peer outside the window. Oh one day I saw one man going on his scooter on the other side of the road. My bus had stopped at a signal. This chap stooped his bike and folded his hands and prayed for a couple of minutes, as one would do when they see a temple across the road and went by. I go on this road daily and I wondered how this temple went unnoticed by me! So I turned to look and guess what, there was no temple there! I still search for a temple everyday when I go on that road and I've not found it yet. :|
People keep boarding the bus at various different stops and sometimes the bus gets full and some of them come standing as well. I think I am glad I get to sit in the bus, I am "better placed" than them, thanks to my faraway house ;) Then the best part of my morning journey is the freeway. It spans a distance of around 10km and soon as the bus enters it, I somehow manage to doze off. It just takes him 7-10 minutes to cross this stretch and I'm woken up when the bus takes a turn near the tollgate indicating the end of my journey and start of another day at office! Everyday, invariably my thought is "Oh! So soon, did we reach so soon!? Why??!!"
That was my morning story. Evening story is not really so interesting because it's pretty boring to have to go back all the way so far away everyday and the traffic and pollution don't help lift my mood up. So, I'm quite a sad grumpy girl when I'm travelling in the evening. I just go and sit in the bus, now not the last seat, I just occupy any seat that's got an empty window seat. Once the bus leaves, I wonder what to do. I am too tired to read that book. Music! Yes I need music to keep me away from the noise of the outside world and to soothe my tired soul! :) So listening to music, I manage to doze off till we reach the end of the freeway. The freeway is mostly(emphasize mostly) traffic free even in the evenings. So I kinda get my power nap. Then comes the stranded traffic, noisy, polluting, irritating. I still shut my eyes and sit for however long possible. I sleep, and wake up to find the traffic's hardly moved up 1km.
Somehow I catch glimpses of sleep, again get up, change the music and try to sleep again. This happens for the initial half hour of the journey. Then mostly I just give up on the idea of sleeping and just begin to think. Think of what to write next, think of what to ask mom to make tonight for dinner et al. This is my time to just sit and close my eyes and let the thoughts flow.
Even after an hour, sometimes I'm still stuck up far away from home. It just gets to me. Looking out of the window just makes it worse. So I close my eyes and meditate(?) if you can call it that. Oh I almost forgot about the traffic signals! These are like adding salt to my wounds! I get stuck in every possible big signal for 120 seconds! It's like that, on an average, increases about 15 minutes of my travel time! I just sit in the bus, helplessly feeling suffocated, adding the numbers on the number plates of vehicles to kill time just waiting to get home. The one good thing about this is that the journey is non stop till almost two stops before my home so that's a relief. :)
Anyways, after about one and a half hours( sometimes two hours) of this journey, I finally am back home for a good night's rest to wake up again early in the morning for my next journey!
My cousin rightly wished me-"Happy journey to your office" the other day :D It truly is!!

I Love You...

This one's dedicated to all my loved ones. :) :) My first attempt of writing poetry.. Wrote this sitting in the bus on the way back from work. Here goes:

I love you
because you make me happy,
you make me sad,
you make me angry,
and you make a bad day good or good day bad.

I love you
because you make me smile,
you make me cry,
you make me go for you that extra mile,
and you give me the faith that if i really want to I can fly!

I love you
because you scold me when I'm wrong,
you make me go crazy mad,
but when i cry, you hold me or sing a song,
and with a smile, you tell me-"Hey it's really not so bad!"

I love you
because when i crib my Life's such a mess,
you tell me life's tough, I should be tougher,
you give me hope, say I should worry less,
Oh! you are the best, the very best teacher!

Yes, I love you.
I love you
because you love me.
You are the one who makes me Me!! :) :) :)

What's in a name... What's not in it!! :|

This one dedicated to all my friends and non friends named Divya. :D

My name is Divya. In school and college, thankfully there was never another Divya in the same class as me. I knew many of them but I never noticed it and it never was a big deal. I was like, OK so what? But my view changed completely after joining work. Let me explain. On the first or second day, we got our official mail IDs. So all of us wanted to look for our names in the Global directory. My friends and I started looking for our names. Everyone found their name. Except me. :| I typed Divya and the list of Divyas was like never ending. It feels like almost one fourth of the women in Infy are called Divya.
That's when I started noticing it. Yes so many Divyas there were around me. My friends have friends called Divya. Not just one but many Divyas. It's just so unfair!! :(
But well what can I do.. I can only crib and complain. I can't change my name now. My parents have named me Divya. It rhymes with my sisters' names. When we say all our names together it sounds so cool! So what? :|
I keep hearing it everywhere. When I go out somewhere, any busy place- restaurants, food courts or any large gatherings, I assure you there are a minimum of my named girls out there! I remember one incident vividly when I think of my name. One day, my friend walks up to me and tells me-"My cousin's name is Divya." I said-"ok fine, many girls have the same name as me. What's the big deal?" And then she tells me he is a guy!! This was sometime in school. That was the first time I heard even a guy can have my name and I was super upset for a couple of hours after the incident. Lol.
The other day both my friend and I met two friends on the way to lunch. The friend I met is called Divya  and guess what my friend's friend's name was? Yes, another Divya. That's just a small example. So many same named people all around you!! And yes that's your name. :|
But, but the very fact that I am writing an entire post dedicated to my name says it all. I actually love my name. Even though it is so common, even though almost every other girl on the street is called by the same name, I still love my name. You know, when I think of me, what is it that I think of? My name. Yes. It is my identity. My name defines me. Even though I complain so much about it, I feel my parents have given me a very good name. It means beautiful, according to my Dad. I heard different meanings as I grew up. That it's something to do with spark. Something bright. I like all the meanings. It makes me feel beautiful and alive. My name is what identifies me. So what if I share it with a million others? It's still my name.
So finally, what's in a name? Everything!

Sleepless night(s)!!!

Dedicated to everyone who has suffered from sleepless nights because of the cough! :D
Oh this cough and cold!! The worst ailment one can suffer from! It causes noise pollution, sleepless nights and disturbs us and everyone around. :( :(
I have a problem of sleeping less generally. I wake up even if there's a small disturbance, as in my if my phone sends out a small beep I just get up. It's crazy. I wake up a million times in between my sleep and it's very annoying especially when everyone else gets their share of sound beauty sleep every night. I can't say i suffer from Insomnia but I suffer from some distant cousin of it!! :D
Well, so coming back to last night. It was a bad bad evening and the bad carried over to my night as well. I left my office in the 7.15 bus. This is I guess the worst time because there is so much traffic, thus increasing the pollution and noise levels. The travel time is almost 1 hour 45 minutes!! Usually, I just doze off or listen to music or read a book. But yesterday, unfortunately, I was sick plus I had no music to listen to and I wasn't carrying a book to read. I was sick all coughing coughing in the bus. Trust me, I sound like a patient suffering from TB when i cough! :| The same thing happened in the morning and a kind girl sitting next to me offered water to me. So in the evening, to save myself the embarrassment of having to borrow water, I carried my water bottle along without forgetting. :)
So, somehow I was just sitting thinking of random things, humming songs in my head, chewing gum, coughing occasionally, my journey was kinda ok still. But all of a sudden, I felt very nauseated. I was still half hour away from home. I opened the window thinking some fresh air will do me good. But no, all I could breathe in was the dirty hot carbon monoxide. :( Made me feel even worse!! That's when I realized how dirty my favorite Bangalore has become. I love Bangalore but this pollution, this dirt and the environment that we have here now is terrible. There is absolutely no fresh air!! :( What has this city come to?? How am I going to live here?
So with these thoughts in my head, I finally reached home. Had some nice hot soup and decided I was too tired I need to sleep. I needed sleep very badly. I was tired, I was sick so there was no reason to not be able to sleep right? But well, whoever it is who makes plans from up above had something else planned for me. The moment my head hit the pillow, the stupid cough started!! I didn't lose heart, I woke up, rubbed vicks on my throat, drank hot water, inhaled vicks, went back to sleep. It was a hot night so the fan was on in the room. I again started coughing. So I again thought- "Ok, alright, fan is not helping me. I'll just get up one last time put off the fan. open the window and sleep nicely." I did exactly that and went back to sleep.
Little did I know my neighbors ( or whoever it was) would decide to burn something in the middle of the night on this very night when my room window was open :( So well, they did and the smoke was inside my room! I was sick in the first place and to top that the smoke, I guess cough didn't need any more reason to start all over again! So again I got up closed the window, drank some hot water from the flask. I decided no fan, no open window for me. It's ok I can sleep now.
I slept, I guess, for half an hour. And then, the next round of cough started. This was more strong and so bad. The worst cough! I just couldn't sleep. I sat up on my bed giving up all my attempts to sleep!! I just sat up staring into the dark night. I felt empty, all energy drained off! I sat there for I don't know how long and then I guess somehow I dozed off while sitting. This cough is such a cunning thing. It doesn't come that much when I am awake, but the moment I sleep, it just starts. So I just dozed off for I guess two minutes and it started off one more time! :( I gave up all my attempts to sleep after that. Left it to fate. Drank up all the water in the flask. I don't remember the time of the night. I just sat. But guess what? I slept afterwards I don't remember how. Or when and how the cough stopped. I found myself on bed sleeping peacefully till the alarm rang!! :) And thankfully it's a holiday today, so more good news, I didn't have to wake up early in the morning when it rang :P I put it off and went back to get another couple of hours of nice, peaceful sleep.