Now, back to my tale. Since I am posted at an office quite a distance away from home, my only mode of transport are the buses, which seem to be moving in the direction opposite to whichever I am going, So, last evening, I was quite happy to see a bus in the bus stand. In my hurry to get in, I happened to step off the road and into a puddle, whose depth I had misjudged. Of course, there wasn’t any major damage except that my slipper decided that it had enough and gave way. Fortunately, I managed to get into the bus and also got a seat .

 
         All was well, till I reached my stop. On normal days, I could get an auto rickshaw, just near the bus stand and I would reach home without any problem. But yesterday wasn’t a normal day. Now I had not realized that Murphy’s law was working overtime in my case. Reaching the stand, I looked out for an auto and saw a few parked in the auto park. Wondering why they didn’t come forward, while I tried to call them, I somehow hobbled up and saw that there were no drivers sitting inside. Little did I know that the auto drivers of this city are such cricket fans that they wont mind giving up their fares to see the match. Just then, it started pouring, so there I was waiting in the stand, hoping that there would be some way out. A few autos passed by, but before I could reach them, there would be someone else, who was faster in reaching  it.

 

         Finally, after a fruitless wait, I decided to walk. So, I took up my slippers, wrapped them and dropped them into my bag and walked up the hill to reach my house. On the way, I have to pass a shopping centre and a busy cross road, but fortunately for me, all fellow citizens were patriotic enough to stay indoors and boost the morale of our cricket players, so the usually crowded roads were free of pedestrians. If at all, people did observe, they probably thought that this lady is reliving her childhood days, walking barefoot in the rain. And it was a nice feeling, having the cold streams of water flowing under the feet, though the few stones and pebbles did give me a pedicure.

            Later, in the night, when I was narrating my tale of woe to my family, my son consoled me with these pearls of wisdom “ Mum, your sacrifice didn’t go in vain, because of you,  India won the match”.

            Now that was some balm to my wounded ego and bruised sole(s).