RIDING A REFLECTION

Thursday, November 24^th, 2011

In my room, at 9:40 PM

Imagine yourself at a rock concert. You are in towards the front of the crowd, surrounded on all sides, and lost in “the pit.” You are so close together that you can smell the breath from the guy next to you and the hand of the pretty girl on the other side of you brushes yours inadvertantly...

The loud music comes on and startles you, and you bring your head up. It hits something hard above you and you realize then that it is past dusk, and you are in Nepal, and your head just hit the roof of a bus. You are standing there with everyone else, swaying to and fro to the song of the moving vehicle...

As the bus boy climbs out and calls out the destination points, some polluted air blows in from the door, and you actually welcome it because it provides some cool relief from everyone's warm breath suspended inside the bus. You look down to see more people getting on board. This can't be, you think to yourself; we're way past capacity. Everyone gets more smushed. You reach up for a bar to hold onto, and in the process you almost take out a kid standing in front of you. There's no place to put your hand so you awkwardly grab the bar right near the kid's hand at the last second before the bus brakes again and the mass lurches forward. He then kindly takes his hand off and presses it against the roof for leverage, so you can have a good grasp on the bar. You feel like you are in a strange yoga position, using muscles that you didn't know existed just to make sure you don't plow into the persons on any side of you. Apparently Nepali people like to play Twister when they ride the bus...

Some people finally get off and you collapse into a seat. You look out the window and notice that the power has gone out in this part of the city. You squint to make sure you can see where you are. The music blaring on the bus radio is a traditional Nepali love song. A man and a woman take turns singing their parts and there is a steady beat and a memorable melody playing over and over again. When you finally wake up from the trance the music has put you in, you realize you missed your stop, you are already 15 minutes out of the way. You get off the bus, cross the street and get on another bus to head back toward your abode.