Bus ride to Goalpara

I did most of my travel on the roof, even when the seats were empty, on that stony road between my school and Goalpara- a standard-operations-procedure to avoid getting caught by staff members, who might be travelling. It was another Sunday in the autumn of 1999, as I made some notes of things that some boys wanted me to get for them from Goalpara. Escaping to Goalpara, without getting caught involved meticulous planning, and some sort of a team work, esp. during those probable surprise ‘head counts’. I carefully scrutinized the open grounds that lay between where I stood and the boundary wall, and hastily started to walk across it. I avoided waiting in the bus shed, where wary looking, lungi clad villagers stood looking towards the direction from where the bus would come anytime. Apart from the bus that can come unannounced anytime, any of my teachers and the armyman principal were equally unpredictable. So I waited amongst the moist shrubs and tall grasses, alongside a few others, living a similar fate.

An emerging cloud of dust at a distance announced the arrival of the bus, that triggered a mild commotion as villagers, started to move towards the road, in order to occupy the seats before the rest. As the bus screeched to a halt, pushing forward the rickety seats momentarily, I climbed the rooftop and found several more, from my school. They must have boarded (climbed) the bus in the shed that came before where I waited. A petite junior repositioned himself on a bundle of jute, to create a space for me, with an indistinct salutation.

The bus swayed and rattled dangerously everytime it gave way to a passing vehicle in the narrow road, as the wind hit us right on the face. Dodging dangling branches from the roadside trees and lying low, everytime the bus stopped, to avoid being seen, I finally climbed down after 30 mins, and looked around for possible predators. My schoolmates dispersed to various directions, carrying out their respective missions. A group went towards the cinema, as I took leave from them.

There was something about the air in that town those days. It was intoxicating to know, that no walls surrounded me at that moment, and I was, even if temporarily, FREE. I went to a shady restaurant and had a sumptuous meal, followed by desserts in the form of stale sweet meats. I made a mental note of the shops that I needed to visit as I paid the waiter. The sun was right above my head and it was a race against time. As I motioned a cycle rickshaw to pull over, it swayed towards its left, only to reveal another behind it carrying a tall black person and a shorter version of him beside him. I turned away in a swift move, trying to hide behind the thin wooden frame of the rickshaw. It went away without stopping and I had no way to verify if they had seen me.

5 p.m. Its not yet dark and most of the tasks have been completed. The only thing that remained undone was that I could not find a copy of the latest ‘TEENAGER’ for a friend of mine. A little tired and the darkness around, gave me the leisure to occupy a vacant space in the bus shelter, instead of waiting in the shrubs behind it. The shelter was unusually empty, and the precariously hanging ‘handiman’ (conductors) in the auto rickshaws threw uncertain looks at me. The last waiting passenger, beside me, also left somewhere in the dark. I kept looking at the distance hoping to see the headlights of the arriving bus.

5.30ish. It was a great relief to find another classmate getting off from the rickshaw outside the bus shed. The rickshaw puller hurriedly pocketed the fare and said, the last bus has been cancelled. We exchanged a quick look, picked up our bags and started to walk towards the road that went to our school. The meager lighting of the town soon gave way to an eerie darkness, flanked by hills on both sides of the road. The gurgling of the water sounded menacing as we walked over the wooden bridge across some indistinct river. A little frightened, and a little excited, we walked fast and that sometimes transformed into mild running.

8pm. We crossed Surya Pahar (now a major tourist spot in Assam), a newly excavated site during those days, with rocky hills, ancient bricks and coins. It would be untrue if I said I wasn’t scared. I was and so was the other friend, as we hurriedly crossed the area. Realizing the time, it occurred to us that we had missed our dinner, and our only hope would be banking on some ‘resourceful’ friends who would siphon off some food from the mess and bring it to the hostel.

8.15. We reached an open noisy space with frogs croaking all around. It was the ‘kodal dhowa pukhuri’ (spade Washer’s pond). I really would want to find someday, how that pond got such a peculiar name! We could see the yellow halo from the halogen, covered by the tree that stood right above the guard’s cabin in the entry gate. Seeing some movement and what looked like a beam from scooter lamp, we decided to bypass the guard. We descended into the shrubs between the road and the boundary wall, and climbed it. The spot certainly wasn’t one of those usual ‘infiltration & exfiltration’ points and as we climbed down, my friend landed with a thud. A beam from the guard’s search light came towards us, as we held our breath and lied on the moist, thorny bushes.

The guard probably found something more interesting and he stopped flashing towards our direction. We crawled for a while, till we were sufficiently separated from the guard for his beam to fall on us, or for our sounds to reach him. Our shoes flip flopped on the muddy unused lands, as loose clay splashed to our face. We climbed the road that went to the ‘dhobi ghat’ (cloth washers) and then crossed the athletic ground, and again climbed down the road to the shallow between the auditorium and Aniruddha House. The silence in the Houses meant, dinner wasn’t over yet. So, we waited beside a tree, next to the pond, with a blue board, saying, ‘fishery. built with an estimated amount of Rs.X’.

We could finally hear the distinct grace marked my three ‘hits’ on the table with a wooden hammer, by the school captain followed by, ‘Thank God for what we have received’. The familiar sound of the energetic gossip, esp. after a meal brought a smile across my face. We smiled at each other and mingled with the crowd.