BaZINGA!!

I have always believed that there is a higher power, someone who is watching over us, witnessing everything that we do, hearing everything that we think, the good thoughts, the bad ones and at times the gross ones. And whatever little doubt I have had about the existence of a HP ( not to be confused with Harry Potter ) has washed away thanks to the various experiences in my life. And I say so because no way can a person's life be an unending series of Punk'd episodes (The one that they show on VH1 hosted by Ashton Kutcher). It is as if HP is seriously pissed off with me and he mysteriously guides me or presents me with lucrative ways to innocently walk into one of his practical jokes. I must have done something seriously bad to him during my tenure upstairs. Here's an excerpt of a conversation I had recently with him,

Me: U r kidding me right?

God: No! This is all happening. You can finally have your way.

... Long Pause...

Me: God damn it! Why u....!

God: (smirk) BAZINGA!

A similar incident happened to me today while returning from Pune. I always take the evening bus from Pune on Fridays such that I reach home by 9:30 pm - 10:00 pm. Now today, being a Friday just before Diwali, there was a lot of rush with a lot of people going home for the Diwali break. As usual the bus was late (it always is, except for the one time that it reached on time and I missed it) and I was wondering what to do while I waited. I needed to pee too. Now unfortunately like most Indian guys I cannot just stand at street corners and go about doing my job. So after looking around I finally found a loo. It cost me 56 bucks to pee. Went into a CCD and got myself a cappuccino ( the main motive was obviously something else :P ). I got back and was generally checking out the crowd when I realized that a super cute girl was checking me out. I immediately puffed my chest, pulled my stomach in and stood at an optimum angle (I call it the angle of fat reduction). Its mostly an optical illusion :P Anyways just to make sure that she indeed was checking me out, I returned the favour and checked her out. Yup, she was! Our eyes met a couple of times but as I am an extremely "chooza" type of a guy, I quickly made sure that I didn't look at her again. While all the while, I was calculating the probability of her sitting beside me in the bus. To tell you the truth, the odds were against me. The chance that she was in the same bus as me was by itself very slim.

Anyways the bus came and I was about to board, when the conductor announced that the 5:45 pm and 6:00 pm buses had been combined. I didn't really bother about it and I got in. Went and sat in my place ( I have started taking aisle seats, a friend explained that girls always go for window seats, so the chances of a girl sitting at an aisle seat while I sat at the window was next to impossible). I was amused to see that the seat beside me was empty. The thought struck me once but a quick refresh of my past lucky incidents returned a NULL pointer and I realized that she was no way coming and sitting beside me.

I had just settled in when I suddenly see her enter the bus and looking through the seat numbers. She came and stood next to me. I think I had turned a slight shade of purple as a result of holding my breath for so long. She checked the numbers on the luggage compartment and turned around. Down went my hopes her sitting beside me. Well due to strange events it turned out that she had bought herself a window seat but she was in the 6:00 pm bus while some other girl had already bought the same seat for the 5:45 pm bus and had boarded at the starting point. So her seat was occupied and she had to take the aisle seat. Which basically meant that the aisle was the only thing separating us (the next best thing to her sitting beside me). I said a tiny "Thank You" to HP, smiled to myself and started listening to John Mayer.

I had a very happy trip till the Lonavla Food Plaza. Checked her out some more ( maybe I should have notched up the staring a bit more, to make it obvious to her that she was being watched ). But before I go ahead, here's a little side story. During my last trip back, I saw a girl from school in the bus. I don't think I ever spoke to her inspite of the fact that she was in the same class as me. Just knew her by face. She hasn't changed much since then. I wasn't really too interested in striking up a conversation firstly because I didn't think she would recognize me and mostly because I didn't want to. Well I saw her again today at the food plaza. It obviously means that she too, like me, comes back every weekend. Anyways, I decided that I had loitered enough and now needed to get back and enjoy the last hour of seeing the cute girl before she was lost forever. I got in and looked towards her seat to spot her and got a tiny heart attack. She wasn't there and instead sat the girl from my class. I don't know which hit me first, me saying "What the Fuck!?" or a resonating "BAZINGA!" Apparently the girl who had previously occupied CG's (Cute Girl) seat was her! During the break, they had decided to switch!

I went to my seat, sat down and just couldn't stop laughing at myself. HP had played a cruel, cruel joke on me! If Higher Powers use messengers among themselves, his message to all would have been "rotflmao" It just reconfirmed my faith that HP exists and he is out to screw my case. HP is a sadist and he better watch out cause he is going to be in some serious shit once I go back.