By Tony Sebastian whose stories are most often met with the phrase "Bus karo yaar" by his readers

There are few things in life as trying as travelling to and from Kerala. Don't get me wrong, those travel brochures speak nothing but the gospel truth. You won't find a more scenic place than Kerala. In fact, a bus in Kerala is perhaps the only place where you are allowed to make the statement "Vista from windows is awesome!". However, what the brochures fail to mention is the heat and humidity that'll liquefy you in next to no time, irrespective of the season. And if you think that you'd be fine travelling in a non a/c bus from Kochi to Bangalore because it's February and Bangalore was cold when you left it and after all nights are generally cool, that's fine - we have a huge population crisis anyway. I made this incredibly stupid mistake and I am alive only because I had a window seat and I paid attention in Sunday school when they taught about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

I had just got into the bus and completed one of the many sweat baths that awaited me when the phone rang. This particular fiery furnace is the last place you want to have a phone call except for the ones that go "Hello... er Hello? Hello? Hello, Hello, Hello.. Ohell it got cut". To have any kind of meaningful conversation, one must shut the window and that is when the backseat boys pounce. "Who?" you ask? The guys you share a window with of course. They, for some weird reason, assume that you've begun to sympathise with the many animals you consumed for lunch and dinner and now out of guilt and remorse, you want to feel what they felt like just before they were turned into a delicious meal. To help you in this noble cause, they slide their window over yours and you are left with all of the window and all of the pain and unless you are the kind of guy who likes to shout at random strangers in a bus, that window stays shut even after you are off the call. I knew this because I had done it to them 10 minutes back.

And the last thing you want to do is have a long-winded conversation with a girl. I'd rather prefer a short wind-ed conversation like the one I previously mentioned. But when a friend calls; you answer the phone, if it's a girl you answer double quick and if you have your phone in general mode which you use only at home and your ringtone is set to a backstreet boys song, you answer immediately.

However I hesitated for a bit. It's not like this girl was the bad sort, she actually did appreciate my humour. Once. I was telling her how one could tell if summer had arrived -

"If you go out somewhere and you come back and you feel so tired that you gulp down two glasses of water back to back, you know summer's here." I said, setting her up.
"Why? It's not summer if I only gulp one glass?" she asked walking into the trap.
"No, haven't you heard? One swallow doesn't make a summer :D" I grinned, delivering the line, pleased as punch.
"Tony, do you watch 9X?" she asked out of the blue
"Er no I've never been beyond triple" I answered, very much in the blue, surprised by her brazenness
"Eh? Anyway, there are these small bits on that channel called Bakwaas Bandh Kar, ever seen them?" she continued, obviously talking about something else
"Not really, why?" I answered laconically, giving the narrator of the story more space to describe this routine conversation in a lame way. Okay I must stop this.
"Well in that bit, there is this green, ugly looking thing - sort of like a frog, but uglier"
"Ohkaay...!?"
"You remind me of it."
"I remind you of a green thing that is uglier than a frog?"
"Yes. Oh also it cracks horrible jokes like this one"

So you see she was the kind of girl I loved talking to. Having not spoken to her for the past couple of days when I was in town, I knew answering the phone would be my death. But I chose to be brave. I shut the window and answered.

"Hello"
"You rock!"
This was rather unexpected. Even though I was being slowly roasted in the oven, a compliment lifted my spirits.
"Why thank you :)"
"Eh? Why did you thank me?"
"Oh you said I rock.. so.."
"I didn't say you rock, I called you a rock, you rock."
"Oh"
"You insensitive iguana, you were in town and you didn't even let me know you numbskulled nincompoop...."

I interrupted her at this point to enquire whether she was in some way related to Captain Haddock, but she did not stop. It is very difficult to get a word across when a girl is in that sort of form, kind of makes you wonder why girls don't do well in JAM competitions or group discussions. The alliterative allegations carried on for an hour during which time I was thinking about purgatory and how much more difficult it could be. And suddenly she asked me some question. I hadn't the slightest as to what she was asking so I took a random guess. "Belinda Clark" I said, going with probability based on current affairs. This apparently wasn't the answer she was looking for, so she carried on with some more creative cursing and then she abruptly hung up.

By this time it didn't really seem to matter because I was reduced to a small lump in the middle of an ocean of my sweat. My polite request to push the window back gave me about 10% of ventilation. I decided to get off the bus. There was no point in doing this for another 8 hours. And then just when I was about to do the you-open-the-window-or-I-puke-in-your-face routine, it happened. He closed the window. He picked up the phone and he called home. I had the window all to myself now. I was not going to die of heat. I had the full window to myself and it appeared he wouldn't hang up any time soon. The finale of "Star Singer Junior" was being telecast live and he wanted to know about the results. It appeared the show was still going on and there were only two contestants left. So he was getting a note-by-note update of all that was happening and he was tense. As was the rest of the bus. Everyone shut their windows and eavesdropped in rapt attention as he narrated the happenings. I couldn't care lesser. What a bunch of idiots, I thought to myself, those judges were. How could they kick little Vishnu out in the first elimination round?

And then just as he had hung up when the show ended and took back his 50% share of the window, my mom called - to tell me that Swetha had won and I told her I was about to lose my life. I thanked her and hung up and got up to get off the bus. I was too young to die this way. And suddenly everyone started closing their windows. It had suddenly become cold and all was well again. I got back to my seat and wondered why. And then it struck me. We had crossed Palakkad and we were now in Tamil Nadu, the climate was very different here. I facepalmed at my stupidity. How could I have even thought of getting off the bus at Palakkad? How could I have forgotten that wise and inspirational saying passed on by our ancestors? That one saying that was tailor-made for a crisis like this? I closed my eyes with the cool breeze on my face and smiled and whispered to myself "No ghats, no glory."
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