I suppose the one good thing about my job is that it forces me to, in my father's words, "live a regular lifestyle". Gone are the oh-my-god-its-11:01-and-class-started-at-11 rushed morning ablutions of my NYU days; the staying up all night-nope, not pulling all nighters-but just because I liked living on IST in US; the lazy hazy 2 p.m. mornings of my extended non-job-hunting summer ...all of it. See, I live now in Delhi. Work at Jindal Law School in Sonipat, which well, is in a different state altogether. My only means of transport to work then, is the College bus, which leaves from Lajpat Nagar at 7:40 every morning. So. Late start to the day equals no going to work. And well, in my first week, that's already happened once. Anyway. The point being that i simply HAVE to get up at 6 [by that I mean, have my first wake-up call/alarm, at 6] every day to be able to make it to work. And, as Shagun would attest, considering that she was my morning alarm during my NALSAR hostel days, I am most definitely NOT a morning person. So new job, it turns out, equals new lifestyle too. The whole early to bed early to rise, little birdie getting worm, becoming healthy wealthy and wise, thing. Such a good child I have become, it transpires. :)
So well. We have three alarms going off faithfully at 6, 6:15 and 6:30 everyday-my phone, Su's phone, and the alarm clock. This is how my day invariably proceeds. 6 a.m. Alarm. Hand creeps out of comfy blanket nest. Fumbles around for infernally loud phone. Finds phone. Snooze. Ah, bliss. 6:15. Alarm. The log that is Su mumbles indistinctly. Her phone alarm, unlike mine, is more mindful of our slumber, and buzzes almost apologetically. Before either of us has to reach out to switch it off, it goes off on its own. Polite phone, that. But extremely ineffective I must say. FINALLY, Su's Beatles alarm clock starts screaming at 6:30. "Ruch. Ruch. RUCH. Wake UP." (All of this ofcourse, sounds more like: "r..u. mumble mumble..Rrrruurr, wa-mumble mumble up" ) But effective. I wake up. Trudge to Su's side of the bed. Switch off alarm. And start to get ready for the day. Grumbling all the while about the various injustices of life. Like being forced to wake up at ungodly hours. [As an aside, can you imagine the sheer BLISS it is, to sleep till 10 a.m. on weekends?? Sigh.]
Anyway. Day begins. With zombie-like stumble to kitchen to put water on boil for morning chai. (Come what may, I simply CANNOT do without that morning cup of chai. I would miss my BUS, miss my bath, but NO missing of morning chai). Anyway, while the water boils merrily away (making happy "plop"ping sounds), I complete my morning ablutions. Add the chai patti, let it simmer, and go for a bath. The bath manages (generally) to shake off zombie-Ruch. Get dressed. Add milk to very very VERY kadak chai. Pick up paper (if it's outside the door by then). Sit on the living room mattress, paper in one hand, chai in the other. Depending on what time it is, I skim through headlines and sip through chai. (Sometimes, I can manage to take only 2 sips of piping hot tea before rushing out, leaving my tea to grow despondently cold in Shagun's Leopold mug. But even if it's just two sips, the chai MUST be made every morning).
7:25. Wake Su up to shut the door. [During my first week, I used to leave home at 7:15, worrying about whether I will get an Auto or a Rickshaw in time, and about whether the driver will wait for me etc., etc. Now, two weeks in, I consider myself a bit of a veteran, and old-timer, so to speak :) I have realized that one, I ALWAYS get a rickshaw in the market IMMEDIATELY; two, it takes all of 7 minutes (in a rickshaw, and 4 in an Auto), to reach the Gupta Market Bus Stand, from where the bus leaves; three, the Bus is hardly ever there at 7:40 sharp; and four, my colleagues invariably get there between 7:45 and 7:55. So, I can leave quite happily between 7:25 and 7:30, and STILL be the first one on. Plus, I have the driver's number. So I can always call him to make him wait for me.] Anyway, I leave home, with an exchange of "Bye Sweetie/Darling. Have a nice day!" between Su and me. [And no, Su is NOT my girlfriend--we are both very happily heterosexual. Just good friends and loving flatmates :)]
So, Rickshaw/Auto, Rs.20/30, and 7/4 minutes later, I find myself at Gupta Market Bus Stand. Climb down subway to get to the opposite side of the road, and wait for Bus. Sometimes I have time to kill, sometimes the bus rolls in the minute I step out of the Subway, and sometimes it's already there when I get there. During the first week, I invariably had 20-25 minutes to stand around doing nothing, waiting for the bus. So earlier, I would just look around without seeing anything really, going over my plans for the day, shifting from one foot to the other, generally feeling ridiculously awkward standing there while the rest of the world rushed by. Then I realized that it was much more entertaining to observe early morning Delhi and Delhi-ites. Discretely, ofcourse. Don't want to appear a rude staring freak. And well, there is a pattern to the disorder that is Ring-Road at 7:40 in the morning. Despite the disordered traffic (sometimes sleepy and slow, sometimes crazy and rushed), intermittent honking, buses stopping in the middle of the road, people rushing about, certain things are always an expected constant.
For example, when I step out of the Subway, the first thing I invariably see is this slightly petu T-shirt (usually white) and track-pants (grey) clad uncleji-type standing at the corner of the steps, hands on hips, facing Amar-colony, and just...looking. For what, I don't quite know. EVERY single DAY. I spent one morning happily imagining what he could be looking for. My imagination it appears, is pretty wild, since the scenarios ranged from the very normal, to the absurd. That is, from thinking that maybe these 5-10 minutes are just his relaxing in the sun after a jog/gym session, to imagining (very filmy type) that he stands there every morning to catch a glimpse of his girlfriend/mistress/lover who he is not allowed to meet, getting on to her bus on the opposite side of the road :) What's odd is that I never QUITE manage to catch him leaving. He stands there for about 5 minutes, and then, when I look again, he's not there. Haha, maybe he is my special early morning ghost :P
Then ofcourse are the many MANY school-bus matadors. Usually taking tiny tots to school. So there is generally a cavalcade of hep capri and T-shirt clad mommies stepping out of hep CRVs, and other such station-wagon/SUV type cars [ok, I am not good with recognizing cars--but one thing I can say for sure, is that they are almost ALWAYS those SUV types], with tiny tots in tow. I wonder what happened to MY tiny tot days, and Mommies in nighties and rollers walking us kids to the campus bus-stop. An era gone by? Or just the difference between growing up in a small town (compared to Delhi, Lucknow IS a small town) hospital campus in the suburbs on the one hand, and in a high-end South Delhi neighbourhood on the other? Anyway. So these hep mommies see tiny tots off. Exchange air-kiss hellos with other like mommies. I do remember this one super-cute incident though. Mommy steps out of CRV with TINY green shirt, dark-blue shorts clad (I assume that this was the day for wearing PT uniforms in House colours, since I saw similarly clad kids, only with T-shirts in different colours), little girl. Also, although I have said it before, I must re-emphasize, that little thing was TINY. And CUTE beyond belief. She looked simply too small to be forced to go to school. Were WE ever that tiny in school? I suppose its the whole--the sooner you put your kid in school, the smarter IIT-cracker type he/she will become--funda of today. Anyway. I digress. So this little girl gets on to the bus, sits by a window, and smiles and waves at her Mommy. Mommy is smiling and waving back. It appears that they are early, since the other kids aren't there yet. As other tiny tots wearing Red/blue/green/yellow t-shirts and dark blue shorts are helped onto the bus by hep Mommies, my tiny tot keeps smiling and waving. As does her Mommy. And suddenly, the cute little smiling mouth turns downward, and my poor little tiny tot starts BAWLING. With one small fat round fist rubbing her streaming eyes. Awww. I think I just melted. Poor POOR baby. Being forced to get up early in the morning and go to school, and that too, to do PT!!! Makes me think of the time when I first started a new school in Class I, and would cry EVERYDAY for my "Daddy". I don't recall this at all ofcourse, since it happened 18-19 years ago, but I'm sure it happened since my then teacher (who btw, is an absolute darling, and never fails to either visit, or send cake home on Christmas), makes it a point to ALWAYS bring this up whenever she meets me. (The last time happened to be this summer, during my post NYU, non-job hunting days at home.) Apparently, Mrs. Sahai (my teacher) would, after my (rather regular) "I want my Daddy-I want to go home-I have a stomach ache" tantrum, make me lie down on her table, rub my tummy, and feed me chocolate or Toffee. Surprisingly, said chocolate/toffee NEVER managed to worsen my "stomach-ache". I WAS quite a brat huh? But I digress again. I don't quite know what happened to my cute little tiny tot, since MY bus had come by then. I hope Mommy had taken her off the bus and back home, away from the insane, unfair torture that is pre-school.
There are ofcourse, other constants. The rickshaw walas standing in the by-lane between Roshan's and the Subway, chewing paan. The nimbu-pani wala plying his wares. The people standing at the bus stop waiting for their respective buses to take them to their respective jobs. With eyes shifting restlessly, shifting from one foot to the other, looking around without really seeing anything, studiously avoiding eye-contact with anyone else [much like me before I decided to (discretely) observe early morning Delhi] Anonymous in a sea of people. But the little kids with their hep mommies, and my track-pant clad "just...looking" uncle are my favourites. Sometimes there are other interesting incidents, like the 12-something kid waving frantically from my side of the road, trying to catch the attention of his classmate sitting in a school bus on the opposite side of the road, presumably to get the bus to wait for him while he crosses the road through the subway [He missed that bus, btw. Poor thing]; A car splashing muck over a poor woman's salwar [ofcourse, if it had been me in her place, I most CERTAINLY would not be referring to this incident as "interesting"]; and so on. Needless to say, the wait for the bus is...if nothing else, NOT boring :)
I was talking about how my day proceeds, right? So. Bus finally comes. I clamber on. Ask driver to put on A.C. Greet colleagues that trickle in slowly. Sit in regular seat (second on the right, by the window). And SLEEP. The bus starts, goes through Ring-Road on the East-Delhi/Noida side, following the route to Sonipat, picking up other passengers on the way. But I am generally unaware of all this. I only wake up when we are rolling into campus, an hour to an hour and a half (depending on traffic), later. It is only then that I discover whoever has been sitting next to me on the journey. I'm pretty sure I don't snore, but I doubt I look very elegant, dead to the waking world as I am on that bus. I am quite sure that I have slept with my head lolling on the back of the seat, with my mouth wide open, atleast once. Since I woke up and realized that my mouth was all dry and well, open. Oops. Great way to make lasting first impressions on my colleagues huh?
My father, before I shifted to Delhi, wanted me to live with my uncle in East Delhi since the bus generally reaches the IP stop (which is a 10 minute Metro ride away from Mama's house) around 8:20. He thinks that will allow me to sleep more. But why? The advantage of being on the first stop is that I get MY seat, PLUS get an interrupted hour (atleast) of extra sleep on the bus, inelegant and distinctly ridiculous though I may look so sleeping. That, and observing early-morning South Delhi, ofcourse. I could end this with something profound, along the lines of how our separate disconnected lives are connected by those 15 odd minutes at Gupta Market Bus Stand, and how, after sharing (so to speak) those 15 minutes, we all go on with our different lives, only to congregate again the next day at the bus-stop, and other such blah blah blahs. But I won't. Since well, one, I don't think of it that way, and two, I don't quite know how to put it the way those travelogue-type writers would, without sounding ridiculously like I'm trying too hard.
So this is my "6 a.m. work days" ending: Bus reaches Jindal. Get up. Get down. Try to shake surprisingly sound sleep from eyes. Try to look and feel light-footed and alert, instead of heavy and slow and lethargic. Another day at Work.
