Einstein revealed to us that nothing else beats light in terms of speed. But I feel that time comes close on its heels. Memories, however, do not blot out as fast: reminiscence of those who I often met on my way to the college. Meeting them was a beautiful monotony. It made my each day unreasonably blissful. Every morning at eight I used to rush to Swayambhu to catch a tempo. It was then I met all sorts of people. First the heavy old lady who joined the rest of us near Chauni. Her face painted with a layer of white paste, gold earrings dangling down her earlobes and the devilishly red lips, still gives me nightmares! Then the elderly man also from Chauni who would never stop his monologue. The pretty schoolgirl who joined later was alarmingly studious. No matter how bumpy the ride, she used to dig into a book, like nothing else was going around her. And my own chemistry teacher would hop in near Kalimati, often volunteering to pay my fare. At Kalimati, many people used to get off. But often a pair of twittering girls got in. They acted as if the rest of us were non-existent and chirped like a hundred finches. Once when I looked at one of them in awe, she threw back a “Yuck, not my type” icy look. Well, she was not my type either!

After I got off at Tripureshwor I had to take a short walk to my college, and the saga continued. I still remember the gorgeous lady with permed hair and a fancy bag clamped within her arm. The pink lipstick perfected by an outliner, her matching kurta, the hazel eyes and the beauty she donned would have made any Angelina go green with envy. The conductor of the trolley bus, the mad man who would salute the police station across the road at Thapathali, the small schoolboy going to school with his little sister, who had even started smiling at me, and so many others still come to my mind. We knew each other and yet we didn’t. That made us known strangers. In this world of six odd billion, some of us were destined to cross our lanes. That is so engrossing in itself. A twist of fate had brought us closer. However, our unnamed bond broke loose the next second and we parted our ways. Once inside the college, well, it was another story altogether.