One Dark Night.....

New Years supposed to start with a bang right???? Well the party on new year's eve was fun but i think 2009 decided to enter my life shaken not stirred.......I need to stay away from those martinis....
NOTE:The following is based on a true incident that occured a few days ago. I have however taken the liberty of changing the names of the people involved since I have no intention of getting whipped in public. One more thing, i've been told the narraive gets boring in the middle. I've tried making amends but if its stll a bore let me know.

It was about 8.30 in the evening. In this part of the world it's pretty late. A bunch of students (me included) had just left a pretty well known college somewhere near Manipal after attending an inter-collegiate event. We were all worn out but then, when your having fun, you don't notice it. Now all of the girls' cell phones were ringing nonstop courtesy of our anxious parents since all of us had to get to manglore and thats a good 2 hours journey by bus. A few of the guys were chivalrous enough to leave the party early so that they could escort us home, they had no intention of letting the girls travel alone this late appearenty though I'm pretty sure that wasn't the only reason.
So there we were at the bus stop praying for a bus to come by soon. The bus came all right but I'm pretty sure the conductor got the shock of his life to see a bunch of 30 youngsters rushing in. That was one of the last buses for the evening and none of us wanted to be left behind. After settling in, we were out to ruin the sleep of the other passengers but screaming and shouting at the top of our voices, well what else can you expect? We were having fun.
The road from manipal to manglore is pretty scary, because the area is sparsely populated and street lights are found only at junctions. Everythings going all hunky dory until the engine starts sputtering. Now that starts giving Ria, Hina and Vinny the jitters coz the three of them had just missed being seriously injured in a bus accident the previous day. Some of the other pasengers weren't so lucky. The bus moves fine for a while but then starts making odd noises again. Ria starts panicking. Ash tries calming her down but Ria just gets more agitated.Pretty soon she's screaming and crying that she wants to get off the bus. The bus rolls to a stop and Ria jumps out that instant totally refusing to get back on the bus.The bus didnt look like it was going to start again so we all trooped out.
We had absolutely no idea where we were, no street lights or signs around anywhere. A few minutes later the conductor asked us to get in coz the engine was up and running. Ria didn't want to and we couldn't just leave her and go. So the guys requested the conductor to wait for a while until another bus came along.
Nope he didnt wait, the bus went off and we were stranded in the middle of no where. Needless to say, most of the girls started freaking out. The scene might as well have been out of some horror movie.A dark road in the middle of the jungle, no light for miles around, and boy was it chilly.
The guys finally decided to get serious. Since our group was the first to leave, Adi tried calling up the others to see if they'd left yet. Fortunately they hadn't but they were still an hour away. There wasn't much we could do. Neeta and I were actually having fun,couldn't help it. We both love the outdoors and are always game for adventure, adds some spice to an otherwise boring life. The situation would actually be pretty hilarious if it wasn't for the fact that Ria was getting hysterical.
"What now?" I asked Adi. "Well I spoke to the guys, they said they'd arrange a vehicle for you girls. Once we send you off safely we'll jump into another bus. Till then I think it'll be a good idea to walk back to the last junction. No one's gonna be able to able to see us here."
"We could stop a passing bus and get in," Ali chips in.
"yeah right, you any bus passing by is gonna be speeding. you expect them to stop?"
"Any harm in trying?"
Ali tries being the daredevil and starts a curious jig in the middle of the road once he spots a bus. Didn't work.
9.30 and still no sign of any vehicle. We'd been stranded for about 30 mins by then. Finally another bus comes by. It's crowded but the guys force us in. Ria'd calmed down by then but was still pretty upset. Anyhow, she agreed to get in and the rest of the jouney was quite uneventful. Reached manglore at round 10.30. Yes the others did get quite a lecture. Me, well, I'm enjoying the advantages of living alone. If my parents ever find out i'm pretty sure they're gonna ban me from outstation trips, but then who's gonna tell them?;-)
Still, I enjoyed the new year.