Speed Bumps

Chapter 1 - Free ride, my ass (Part 1)

The Majestic metro station was where common sense came to die. 

Hordes of commuters change the intercity train lines, letting go of basic decency, education, hard learned adulting skills, and fall victim to their lizard brain.

The train came to a smooth halt at the station. It bears a green colored bar throughout its length, indicating which parts of Bengaluru it connects, standing out amidst the dull grey surroundings. There are yellow and black arrow marks on the floor indicating where commuters can queue up. I watched in absurd fascination as the doors opened, and that single event evaporated the last shred of reason. People from inside the train and those waiting outside move at the same time.

College students, in uniforms of dark greens and blues; corporate workers, in business attire, modest kurtas, sarees, and every other assortment of passengers, have decided that they must hurry.

It's 8:30 AM, and it's understandable. They're in the same position as I am. Desperate to be on time to work, travelling from one end of the city to another, losing their mind as every second goes by, and the threat of losing their job hangs over them like an executioner's sword. Or maybe the last one was just me.

But the pushing continued. People were being squeezed out, like a broke college student draining the last ounce of toothpaste from the tube. People were also getting stuffed in, like a broke, hungry student, cramming her mouth at the chance of free food. And there I was, inside the train, unable to get out at my stop. Neither requests nor yelling helped. And crushed behind me was Ankita, who was becoming 2 dimensional.

"Did we miss our stop?" She yelled over the din of the people and the beeping sounds of the doors closing.

"Yes, yes, we did. What is this? Our 3rd time in the month?" I called back as the train lurched forward.

In 3 dimensions, Ankita was 5ft 7 inches tall, and on most days, you had to look up at her to talk. Ankita was a software engineer at Wipro. Something, Quality Analyst, something, she had explained. After the 3rd time, we'd just decided to save my dignity to call her a techie. She believed in work-life balance as much as the next Gen Z, but when you start to get late by half an hour, suddenly, work becomes your life.

"I cannot be late," she said, trying to twist her body and shoot out her elbows like blades on a rotating cutter.

"I have a meeting with our CEO. I'm presenting!" She wriggled, eliciting yelps of ouches, stops, and waits, as she rotated and faced me. She scrunched her eyebrows and pressed her lips into a thin line. "I cannot, absolutely, cannot be late."

Ankita is photogenic pretty, the kind of pretty that guys stopped by on the way to do a double take. The kind of pretty that had guys asking her out in the office, in bars, and just randomly on the street. She had an angular face and a small, sharp nose, which gave her a perpetual bitch look. And today, the bitchiness was dialed up to the extreme.

"Girl, you're already late."

"I can't be late!"

"You're already late."

"I CANNOT," she yelled.

"Yelling will help," I said sarcastically. She was not the brightest woman.

"Because sarcasm definitely will?" She glowered at me, "You and your stupid sarcasm. Find a way to invent time travel, make me not late, and get us in. Instead of your stupid, stupid sarcasm."

"You're just being yelly. Why didn't you just wake up early?" I protested, with no intention of rhyming.

"Because," She tugged at her bag, her energy crashing, her voice slipping down an octave, "I was lazy. I wanted to sleep in. The fan was on. And it was not that hot? Do you know how rare it is? For Bengaluru weather to not be that hot in April?" she asked clenching her hands. Her oxidized jhumkas made a pleasant tingle as she shook her head, groaning in misery. She looked resplendent in her dark blue paisley kurta, and I couldn't help what came out next.