In Which We Do Not Sleep. Can't Sleep. And Fly.

So there we are, in adjacent berths, at 9 in the night.
Ensconced in warm blankets, a pleasant chill created by the AC, and the bus starts.
Limbs pleasantly tired, droopy eyes, murmured good nights, and the prospect of eight hours of the dreamless.

We hit the first speedbreaker. A rude jolt passes through the body - but it's not too bad, the bus isn't really travelling yet. Both of us open our eyes, wonder what the hell that was, and go back to sleep.

And then we hit the first pothole with the bus going decently fast. The same rude jolt through the body, accompanied by the two of us achieving levitation - effortlessly. One second after that, we crashed back onto our berths. We groaned, and looked at each other and laughed.

I mean, there we were - nearly 24 hours in the saddle, 900 kms done, and all we wanted to do was sleep. Instead, here we were, in the last berths, right at the very back, and being thrown about mercilessly. Ha ha ha.

Until we hit the next speedbreaker. Rude jolt, levitation, crash back onto berth. Ouch.

And then the pain of having to WAIT for the next pothole starts. You lie on your berth, eyes wide awake, seemingly comatose. But all you're doing is lying there, body taut, waiting for the next one...

AND there it is. Jolt, Levitate, Crash, Ouch, Wait.

JLCOW. JLCOW. JLCOW. JLCOW. JLCOW. JLCOW.

JLCOW. JLCOW. JLCOW. JLCOW. JLCOW. JLCOW.

Brief nap for an hour or so, when the road is mercifully smooth.

JLCOW. JLCOW. JLCOW. JLCOW. JLCOW. JLCOW.

Doze off again... JLCOW. JLCOW. JLCOW. JLCOW. JLCOW. JLCOW.

I mean, do you get the picture, or should I go over that once more?

And so we landed in Jalgaon, tired to the bone, at six in the morning. Got into a rickshaw, mumbled our way to the lodge where a bed awaited us - one that was not a trampoline - and slept.

Attended the wedding, and tried to get a bus back to Pune - only to realise that there are no buses to Pune until ten at night.

What we could do, instead, is take an ST up until Aurangabad, and take a bus from there to Pune.

And what is an ST, you ask?

Right. Riiiight.