picnic

So I get up early in the morning and haul my ass to college. It is usually very difficult to find rickshaws so early in the morning (so much so that it is considered impossible even an hour after the time I had left home), so I was afraid I'd have to use the bus. Fortunately, this fellow stopped, and he didn't even know the WAY to the station. Found out that he was just a wannabe driver practicing on a rick he had got his hands on. Cut me back by thirty five bucks. He drove the rick like I drive my father's bike, in non-elegant and jerky bursts of speed. There was always a totally rotten way of changing the gears, and he was actually worse there than I am. The rick took me to the station in time to catch an early train to Sion, and guess what I find in the first class compartment - people sleeping like the seats were bunks or beds in their homes. They are not regular first class passengers either - they were just men from the streets grabbing a nap. Or people who had come from out of town. I have no clue - they were pretty clean and well dressed to be people actually living in the streets, but their clothes shopped they were from the lower middle class background. Donno how and why they sleep in the trains - maybe all night. I traveled amidst a malsynchronised chorus of inhumanly loud snores, and reached Sion station. I was at college at five forty five, and we were told to be there by six or the bus would leave without us.

The bus did not come a minute before seven, and neither did most of the crowd that eventually came for the picnic. Meanwhile, I helped the marketing department pack up the prizes to be transported to the college office. Then all the volunteers piled up into the bus, and we took the western express highway to Kelva beach.

Two camps were formed even within the bus, and those who were not insulting the other side or drinking beer or listening to music or sleeping were (a) stupid and (b) bored. With a few stops for the sake of bladders and alcohol, we ended up at the beach. Everyone made a group and headed out with that group. I looked around for a likely group to attach myself to, found out that they planned to play football, talked with them, and they accepted me, only to find that they were not even from the college, just locals who had come to play. After that the people I was most comfortable with had gone off somewhere, so I went on a four kilometer walk to the nearest village and back. Took photos of the locality on the way, and will blog pics later. Really cool place. Realized exactly how fragmented the farmland in India has become. I knew the situation was bad, but I didn't realize how bad. Fields are TINY. Had this lemon-tea-pepper beverage which was not at all ingestible, but I was tired after the long walk. I took the long walk in the first place, not only to take in the feel of the location, but also to find myself some shorts for the beach. I did take along shorts, but unfortunately, they did not have any pockets in them. There was nowhere to keep my wallet and my cell, so I had to wear the bloody pair of Jeans. Took the strong drink, and headed back to the beach. Drank some pepsi, and then asked if there was anyplace I could hire a bicycle. Apparently there was, so I walk another kilometer or so only to find out that they did not lend cycles to tourists/strangers. Headed back to the beach and roamed it for shells and such. Noticed the different kinds of sand.

[Everything about the beach will be posted with pictures later]

After I came back from the beach, hung out with different people, had a few cokes, sat in the bus, and then made the four hour journey home. Came home dead tired, and the journey was tiresome too. People were singing, but I was too sleepy to join in or even take it all in. It was exhausting, but not as much as a picnic as it could have been. It was like two exs going to a movie together - you've already broken up and there is this uncomfortable space created.