A scene in the bus and remembrance of things past..

I ususally come to office by office bus/van. But in days when I wake up late, like today, I prefer to take MTC (a.k.a Pallavan) to office. There is a bus stop nearby and there are frequent buses to OMR where the office is located. I prefer not to take the autorickshaws for two reasons. One is that I tend to be a little frugal and the other is that MTC provides a variety of life happening which I will miss if I take an auto ride. Today, I got into a 19B after being dropped by my brother in the Saidapet terminus. There was a 20 minute interval from the time I boarded the bus to the time it started its journey. First the usual vendors (water packets, cotton candy and there was a man who was a mini-stationary shop!). Then came the myriad of passengers from girls in capris(probably from Malaysia/Singapore) with their mom complaining heavily to the husband about the non-availability of taxis and then the kids who ran around without bothering about anything and ofcourse, the most interesting piece of conversation in my back seat. They look like newly married couple and from their conversation I deduce that both are working as lecturers (Have I got no scruples listening to other people's conversations? apparently, Yes). Looked like they had their fight started back in home and the female was fuming and the guy was actually very nonchalant about the whole thing. He didn't bother to pacify her but was just casually letting some snide remarks escape his mouth now and then. It was not a street fight or anything, just a very decent quarrel conducted in hush tones. The female was complaining about how bad it is going to be in the coming days if they are fighting even as newly marrieds. It was interesting and I was trying to think of the first fight we(me and wifey) had. Surprisingly I dont seem to remember. Although we fight frequently over various things, it is not possible for both of us to sustain it for long so the fight fizzes of in no time. I think its because we love each other and understand each other very well. Love uda..

Before getting too mushy here, I was going through my old diaries yesterday. I have the diaries from 1988 onwards and somewhere around the year 2000, this habit has stopped (or at least slowed down to a large extent). But reading the diaries is like a little window into the mind of self and the evolution of the same over the years. Fascinating. One thing is the poems I have written. While most of the ones written (there is a statistics in one page claiming that in 1988 a total of 74 were churned out!) between 1988-90 were praises to nature or laments about the country or calls to revolution(with lots of exclamation marks!!), the ones in 1990-92 are primarily love-lorn scribbles. There is a marked improvement in the standard of the writing from 1992 onwards (when I started reading books other than 'vaaramalar'). I hope to publish all these in net and hopefully soon. Infact one of the things I want to do is to do a complete publication of the diaries in another,say, 20 years. But it is purely my discretion and so I may even say 'boo' after 20 years, so dont wait for it anyway.