A bus ride to remember

It was a long tiring day at the office for Ashwin, he just wanted to get out of the place and reach home, a plate full of delicious dinner and a good night of sleep is all what he wanted. Ashwin quickly walked out of his work place, to make sure that no one else catches him for some other work, he came out and stood at bus stop waiting for his route bus to come. Unfortunately the bus was not to be seen for long time, only after a wait of about 30 minutes his bus came and rushed inside a slightly crowded bus.

This was the peak hour of commutation, so the bus was almost crowded, and Ashwin did not
find himself a seat. He quietly leaned to a pole, with his drooping shoulders and head sunk low between them, just barely managing to stand. The bus moved forward and within no time was in the next step. This one was a bus stop right in front of a college, so a huge gang of college going people entered the bus. Ashwin didn’t even look up, he was not at all interested, he could hear the loud voices of excited students, talking about the days events, discussing movies and lecturers and what not, girls giggling and talking. Now Ashwin had a little interest he wanted to look up and see if there were any good looking girls around, but he was too lazy to look up. So he lifted corner of his right eye to look around, and gently looked around, he spotted on girl whom he thought was cute, and had a lovely smile, he was in too bad a mood to even think on those lines. He went right back to his semi sleepy state leaning to the pole in the bus.

Added to the tiresome day, Ashwin had to live with a bad cold from last couple of weeks, it was much better compared to the previous week, but still he had a occasional sneezing attacks, where he ended up sneezing continuously for minutes together. Ashwin, could almost sense the next one coming, he started to sniff around, you know those seconds before the sneeze, where you have a feeling its gonna come, but you just stop before the sneeze. It looked kind of funny for others, it appeared as though ht is sniffing something, its really amazing how one man’s misery can appear funny to others.

Ashwin was nearing his destination, where he was supposed to get down, when suddenly he heard a girl screaming, as he looked up he was surprised to find out she was indeed screaming at him, for some time he could not even find out what had happened, what she was unhappy about, he was too sleepy and tired to bother, but looking at how serious she was, he woke himself up. Ashwin asked her what has happened and why she was screaming. She began to
complain that Ashwin was misusing the proximity in the bus and trying to smell her hair. She had seen him sniffing her hair many a times. For a moment his face was worth a thousand bucks, he was totally surprised and was caught with no guard. He could not even think why she was making that allegation.

Ashwin began to politely tell her that he was not sniffing her hair, and it just the cold he had, she was not in a mood to her ashwin at all. She began to raise her voice and make a scene out there. As she had a gang from her college, a lot of people joined in, and began to scold Ashwin, accusing him of being a real cheap fellow, trying to take advantage of girl like her. The college gang was a mixed group, it also had some guys in it, they too started accusing Ashwin, they started cursing at him, and wanted him to apologize and may be even fall to her feet.

Ashwin was now totally furious, he could not stand the stupid girl, he could not imagine how she could blow something so small to such huge proportions, he also thought of these guys trying to grab the opportunity to score a few points with these girls standing up for them. He continued trying to tell her about the cold he has been having over the weeks, but in vain, she had no mood to hear. Now even the driver and the conductor from the bus were pulled into the fight, and other passengers tried to intervene seeing that there were girls involved in the fight.

Poor Ashwin, who had really nothing to do with all this, stood there when each of them came
up with their version of the story, how they had seen him sniffing at other girls, how one had seen him winking at one of the girls and so on. Ashwin began to think of ways he thought would surely get him out of this mess. He thought may be he can show the prescription from the doctor showing he had cold and asking him to take some medicines, but that was two weeks old, so they might not agree. He then thought of probably opening up his wallet which has his brothers picture in it, and may be claim he was gay, and that might get him out of this mess. Or may be he can admit that it was not her but the other girl whom he thought was cute. He just stood there thinking all this.

As he lifted his eye to catch glimpse of the girl whom he had thought was cute before, he
could see that they were all giggling now, surprised he turned around, looking what had happened, thats when the girl screamed out “BAKRA” you have been punked.