It was very early morning of a Saturday. The time was 1 AM. I was inside a bus at Salem bus stand. The bus stand was filled with lot of dull faces showing lack of sleep in their eyes... little boys and girls sleeping in the laps and shoulders of their mother... Few tea shop persons actively preparing tea and keep calling everyone whoever crosses the shop... Few prostitutes, with good makeup, actively roaming around the bus stand trying to catch some customers... Lot of people sleeping on the platforms using hands and some bags as their pillow... The bus stand was quite busy even at that time...
Just before the bus started, a guy came in with hands full of news papers and kept shouting "fresh morning news paper sir... just two rupees..." Initially i thought of not to buy but later i thought, 'it is just two rupees... may be some interesting news would be there to read to pass the time...' So i called him, gave him two rupees and bought one newspaper...
The guy next to me was well dressed and he kept looking at me and the newspaper at my hand... The bus started moving, reached the main road and started speeding towards Trichy... Everywhere i look through the window was so dark with some sparkling brightness here and there... The images of the trees on both sides of the roads are moving so fast as dark shadows... The cold wind was blowing all over my body through the window and forcibly making the hairs to dance...
I always enjoy my travel and won’t prefer to sleep during journey except the return journey when i got to go to work on the next day morning... So mostly when going to Trichy, i prefer taking connecting buses instead of direct bus. I enjoy watching things around me, getting down at bus stands to change bus, having a tea in the bus stands at busy nights etc...
I started reading the newspaper... There was a cover story about recently released movie "shivaji" in which rajnikanth (one of the star actor) is acting the lead role... I was quite interested to read it... I found it difficult to read the newspaper because of the forcibly flowing air through the window. Also there is no space to freely open the newspaper and read... I read it for just very few minutes then i carefully kept on my lap thinking of reading it few minutes later... I didn't want to fold it like zigzag... I wanted it to be fresh until i reach Trichy, so that my sisters can read it...
The moment i stopped reading, the guy next to me asked, "Can i read it..." I don't know why, but i really got irritated when he asked my newspaper to read, especially even before i read it completely... I definitely wouldn't have got irritated if i know him earlier. He was just a stranger and he knows that i bought it just few minutes back, and i kept it carefully because of not able to read since wind was coming in from all over the direction. Though my inside mind was saying, "you stupid, don't you know that you should not ask me before i read it completely...", my head reacted like "ok... take it"... I really wanted to say "no" but by habit i said "yeah... no problems"... and i gave the newspaper to him...
I was wondering inside, 'what a person he is'... 'doesn't he know any manners of not to ask anything that others bought even before they use it... the newspaper was just two rupees... an expense less than what you spent for a single tea... if he is so much interested to read the papers, why can't he buy one...' I was really angry, especially when he started folding my papers like the way he wants as though he bought it... I was at my peak tension... but i couldn't show it explicitly because of how we have been taught to behave in public when we grew up...
When the bus conductor came, he opened his purse and i could see few 500 rupees and lot of 100 rupees etc in his purse... Some people are very careful about how they spent (even they care about two rupees), but never hesitate to ask something what others bought and never think to take care of what they borrowed... They won't even think about 'won't they mind if we ask, they may plan to read it few minutes later etc...' They never hesitate to use others things... They don't care whether we use whatever we bought, but they want to use it... His behavior was very much disgusting...
But there was a problem on my side too... I should have told "no, i don’t want to give until i complete reading..." But because of the way we brought up, we always hesitate to say 'no' when someone asks something... I think, we should learn to say 'no', when our mind says to do so... I was so much irritated because of one main reason that the news paper was "just" two rupees... 'When he could afford it, why doesn't he buy one if he is very much interested in reading newspaper...' Anyways, that was one of the very much irritating experience i had while i was traveling...
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