As soon as she got into the bus, she was asked to show the ticket. Rajeev told her that he registered her under different name to keep her in safety, but it came to her mind that what if they had her photo. So, she turned back and about to get out of bus and ask Rajeev about that, but she wasn’t given chance as Ram (incharge) asked the driver to start the bus after she showed her ticket. Ram was bored of waiting for her from half an hour and even after that, Rajeev and she had a long conversation which annoyed him. He asked her sarcastically,”Ma’m, don’t you and sir talk to each other at home? “
“Rajeev is not my husband. He is a police officer and he promised me to protect me from someone who are trying to kill me if I help him bring them down”, she answered him. He showed her seat and asked her to be seated. She was surprised to see few singles in the bus. As soon as she got into her seat, Ram started giving instructions as well as information about the trip.
“It is a 7-day trip. You will be given a Identity Card to make sure that you belong to this bus. We dont provide you the food, but we will stop at the hotels with whom we made contracts, there you can eat and rest there. Finally, you have to take care of your luggage. We are not responsible for anything you lost in this trip. Our Schedule, we will spend 3 days in Goa and use the other 4 days efficiently so that we cover important places in all the 4 capital cities of the 4 states Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra”.
Shweta’s seat was next to Aruna who is married and she has a 6-month old baby. Shweta thought that it is not a good idea to start conservation with her because she is busy trying to make her little child sleep. Aruna tried and couldn’t succeed and her child keeps on crying. Shweta first thought of reading a book she brought to read during the journey, but couldn’t read due to this disturbance. She tolerated for a while and later raised from her seat to call Ram. She went to him and told him,” I cant sit there and that little one is making a lot of noise and I cant even read the book.”
Then he said,”Ma’m, kindly adjust for a while and she will sleep after a while as her mother is trying to sleep her.” She doesn’t want to sit there. So, she told him,” I cant enjoy the journey if I am seated there. She is a housewife and I am single. She will talk about her child, husband and different types of curries. I am not interested in those things. I want to be seated beside a single like me. Can you arrange one?”. She is a journalist who want to be free and independent. So, she obviously wont like such things.
He thought and replied,”I understand your situation and I will try to arrange with someone who approaches me with the same problem. Now please be seated.”
One hour passed. She thought that none except her was facing such a problem, but he received complaints from almost every single. So, he made an arrangement in such a way that all couples are seated in the front and all the singles are seated in the back. There are 8 singles, out of which 5 are men and 4 are women. The other 3 girls other than Shweta are Archana, Swathi and Swapna. They are studying in a college. One of the 5 men looks more older than all of them. The other 3 are Arjun, Sanjay and Satish. They all are in 20’s and he is in 30’s. They asked him if he is not married and the reply is a no. They thought it might be some personal reason as he didnt tell them. They introduced themselves and our journalist introduced herself as Shweta and she is a school teacher and none asked her about her relationship with Rajeev as they thought she was his wife. The elder guy introduced himself as G.K. Subbarao and he is a software engineer.
Rahul is seated besides Shweta and he is good looking and innocent. He thought he is lucky to be seated besides such a beautiful girl. Their conservation is about various rumours in Telugu Film industry and also about politics. This went on until the bus stopped for lunch near Hotel. They were asked to return within 30 minutes as they were already late and behind the other buses. He told them to take it as a warning. Rahul separated from them saying that he had some work to do. After having finished the lunch, they got into the bus and took their respective seats. Ram gave signal to the driver to start the bus. Then Shweta shouted that Rahul hasn’t returned yet. Then Ram said,” Everyone are asked to return within 30 minutes. Then, its not our fault as we warned. We will wait for 5 minutes and then we start the bus.”
When the bus is about to start, a new guy entered the bus. His face is full of sweat and looks highly tensed.
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