It had been drizzling since our jouney began. The daylight faded away and was replaced by sickly gloom of yellow, street lamps. All the windows were shut, and the rain drummed a staccato beat on the wet panes. The passengers had settled down to a gentle murmur of snooze as the bus sped by lush paddy fields brimming over with the monsoon bonanza.The sky grew darker as the occasional distant roll of thunder was audible The road stretched before us like a wet strip of ghostly silver.
It must have been near abouts 2200hrs. The only sounds in the bus were muffled sounds of drunken revelry emanating fom the bus drivers cabin.Strains of bawdy songs disturbed our slumber.
A sudden screech of the tyres followed by a loud thud jolted us all awake. The bus heaved and shuddered to an uneasy stop, creaking and groaning.
My companion and me had slid to the floor. Lying in a confused heap of loose footwear and suitcases, we could hear the emerging sounds of pain from the people behind us. In the darkness of the night, people slowly got to their foot, and the numbed minds coming to senses.A slight movement of the inmates sent the bus lurching forward and we knew that it was hanging half in and half out of the rice field. We were teetering
on the edge of the road.
From our window we could see the remains of the truck our bus had hit, turned askew, its rear end smashed.Agroup of people started hammering the door to the bus drivers cabin, jammed due to the impact.
The cabin itself was abandoned and in the dim street lamp of the village we could make out the shapes of driver and his cronies, one of whom kept dabbing at blood oozing from his forehead, standing out in the rain.Almost immediately, a crowd of villagers materialised, carrying umbrellas. Passengers were getting hysterical, being trapped as it were in a locked, lurching bus.Some one was about to miss his connecting flight from Guwahati, and he unleashed a volley of invectives directed against the bus driver and company.Taking the cue, they turned tails and quickly vanished into the crowd, leaving us to fend for ourselves.
Luckily, a young man, about twenty year old, took charge, and climbed aboard the shattered cabin. The bus groaned and lurched ominously. Despite the obvious danger, he made a battering ram of an uprooted bench and smashed open the door, miraculously saving us. Someone from the crowd had propped another piece of wreckage against the now non-existing foot board, so that we slid to safety out, instead of landing in the muddy field.
In our hurry to attend to various cuts and bruises and in the panic to catch the next minibus to our destinations, we could never discover the identity of the good samaritan whose bravery saved so many lives.
It must have been near abouts 2200hrs. The only sounds in the bus were muffled sounds of drunken revelry emanating fom the bus drivers cabin.Strains of bawdy songs disturbed our slumber.
A sudden screech of the tyres followed by a loud thud jolted us all awake. The bus heaved and shuddered to an uneasy stop, creaking and groaning.
My companion and me had slid to the floor. Lying in a confused heap of loose footwear and suitcases, we could hear the emerging sounds of pain from the people behind us. In the darkness of the night, people slowly got to their foot, and the numbed minds coming to senses.A slight movement of the inmates sent the bus lurching forward and we knew that it was hanging half in and half out of the rice field. We were teetering
on the edge of the road.
From our window we could see the remains of the truck our bus had hit, turned askew, its rear end smashed.Agroup of people started hammering the door to the bus drivers cabin, jammed due to the impact.
The cabin itself was abandoned and in the dim street lamp of the village we could make out the shapes of driver and his cronies, one of whom kept dabbing at blood oozing from his forehead, standing out in the rain.Almost immediately, a crowd of villagers materialised, carrying umbrellas. Passengers were getting hysterical, being trapped as it were in a locked, lurching bus.Some one was about to miss his connecting flight from Guwahati, and he unleashed a volley of invectives directed against the bus driver and company.Taking the cue, they turned tails and quickly vanished into the crowd, leaving us to fend for ourselves.
Luckily, a young man, about twenty year old, took charge, and climbed aboard the shattered cabin. The bus groaned and lurched ominously. Despite the obvious danger, he made a battering ram of an uprooted bench and smashed open the door, miraculously saving us. Someone from the crowd had propped another piece of wreckage against the now non-existing foot board, so that we slid to safety out, instead of landing in the muddy field.
In our hurry to attend to various cuts and bruises and in the panic to catch the next minibus to our destinations, we could never discover the identity of the good samaritan whose bravery saved so many lives.
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