As I passed the hotel reception to go into my room, the old man at the reception called me, “there is a message for you, sirrra”. I went up to him and he shoved an A3 (large) size pad in front of me. On it were various scribbles in pencil in the local language that I could barely read, some of them had circles and others had rectangles drawn in pencil around them. He pointed to one of such chicken marks with his finger and looked up to me.
“I can’t read”, I quitely confessed my illetracy to him. Can you please tell me what does it say.
“Yes, Sirra, it shayes, you can pick up your mobile phone from this address and here is the mobile number to call.”
I knew and was expecting a new mobile phone to be delivered to me in my room, so I decided to call the mobile number being pointed to on the sheet. The person on the other side of the phone had no idea why I was calling him for a mobile phone. Must be wrong number, I thought. I checked the number with him, no it is the right number. So where is the problem.
I decided to call Anita who was to send the mobile phone to me.
“Oh, yes. I have sent the mobile phone via a courier company and it is their address and phone number.”, she told me.
“Ahhhh”, the penny dropped, the phone number and address scribbled on the hotel reception is that of the courier company.
I called the courier company again. The man confirmed that yes, he is a courier company, yes, he has a parcel with my mobile phone in it. Yes, It is addressed to me. No, he can’t deliver it to me because it is too far and out of his zone. No, there is no one who can deliver in my zone. Yes, I must come and pick it up tomorrow from the given address.
I thanked the receptionist who was very polite and was able to hide his amusement unsuccessfully and went to my room.
Next morning, I had an early breakfast and decided to go and pick up my parcel. I asked Anita once again before I left the hotel. She reassured me to go to the address in sector 24 and get my mobile phone. Instead of taking a taxi, I decided to travel like locals, in a bus. The receptionist told me to go to the bus stand opposite the main gate and take V**S bus going to city. There are two main gates.
“I know, take the one opposite to the car park.”, He reassured me.
I came out side the hotel. The main road is a divided road with two lanes on each side. All kinds of traffic including interstate buses, trucks, private cars, autos and other slow traffic were plying on it. As I stepped on where the footpath should have been, my feet churned the loose yellow soil and created a puff of dust covering my shoes. The patch of fine powder dust extended from hotel wall to the road which was easily crossable by a pedestrian.
I saw a zebra crossing right in front of me. Emboldened by the sight of zebra crossing, I walked to its edge and before walking on to it, I looked ahead. The zebra crossing extended from this side of the road to the median strip. The median strip was about one feet wide, about two feet high and had an eight inch wide ditch in it, perhaps for adding soil and growing plants in the future. I looked beyond the median strip.
The zebra crossing existed only on this side of the road, it did not continue on the other side. There was another zebra crossing about 20 meters further down the median strip, on the other side of the road. I will have to cross this side of the road, balance myself on the median strip, barely enough to stand on, walk 20 meters on it and then use the zebra crossing on the other side to cross the road. Unsafe, I reckon.
I saw a young boy 20 meters to my left side, crossing the road where the median strip had ended. I ditched the zebra crossing and went to cross the road after the young boy. I could keep up with him and reached the median strip, but he was too fast for me. While I was assessing the road traffic on the remaining strech of the road, he had already crossed it ahead of me.
Feeling like I have been stranded alone in the middle of a highway, I had no option but to run the jaggaurnot. I crossed the fast lane as there was no traffic. One more lane to go, but it saw a car coming on to it. I waited in between the two lanes waiting for the car to pass by before I try to make it to the safety of the other side. The slow car took its time to pass in front of me.
As the car passed in front of me, the driver honked his horn and hurled obscenities at me. I ran to cross the final lane and landed in a puddle of fine dust, the footpath. I am disturbing the normal flow of traffic. The car driver expected me to make a run for the footpath and he was ready to slam his brakes and slow down his car not to run over me. Silly me, like a fool, I stood in the middle of the road. The car driver fearing I will make a run at any time saw his job of avoiding killing me becoming more and more difficult. He could not contain his anger and relief when finally, he had passed in front of, rather than over me. I am disturbing the highway traffic with my cautious manners. I need to learn how to walk, again.
I looked down at my shoes. The black leather was covered in yellow dust. Bottom three inches of my black pant had matched their colour to that of my shoes. I looked at the shoes of the young man who had so cleverly crossed the road ahead of me. His black shoes were still shining.
I need to learn once again, how to walk without raising dust.