Movie review - The Mummy - Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - the trip begins

i was lying in my room playing NFS hot pursuit when suddenly i got a call from siddhe (siddhesh happens to be a very good friend from college). to be precise, he had tried to call me the day before but me being me, could attend to his call since i was busy in a conference with some US guys. though i promised to call him later couldnt do so since the call got stretched to bit too long and passed beyond the hours of calling a friend however you close might be. the next day did bring its surprises though.

Afternoon was its boring self. (how am i supposed to know where did morning go; i was half dead in my bed :P ). so continuing the story, i got a call. so in the next few minutes i actually managed to finish my game and some R&D and set off towards my target for the day "Sigma Mall". Sigma mall is a big mall situated on cunningham road .The plan for the evening was to watch the movie "The Mummy - Tomb of the Dragon Emperor".

In all of my jaunts to "Nimma Bengaluru" i had never been to a multiplex to watch a movie so literally jumped at the idea. My first and most difficult task was to first have an idea where the mall was. though i have been in bangalore for the most part of last year i haven't really been about the city barring the confines of my office and place of stay. So i donned the hat of the intrepid tourist and set out.

I reached CMH road which happens to be an arterial road connecting indiranagar to halasuru. the scene at the bus-stop was the same that anyone can see in any city for that matter. people waiting; waiting alone, waiting for someone, waiting with someone and craning their necks to the object of their desire; the BMTC bus. Its a trance like state that people enter into a bus-stop and they generally dont want anyone to disturb them. I managed to catch one guy about to go into the lost state and asked him how was i supposed to reach the place. Thankfully he directed me to the correct bus.

As the bus rambled towards the bus stop, i noticed it resembled more with the state transport buses that play near my village in Maharashtra rather than a city bus. the chassis was very old with paint almost chaffed off and embellished by dents and corrosion. Though i wasnt much concerned by how the bus looked on the outside i braced myself for a few surprises in store once i entered; and i wasnt disappointed.

As i climed the couple of steps into the bus, i immediately felt at home
for i was watching familiar scenes. Not that i had expected a driver less bus; but it was surprisingly similar to a city bs in "Mumbai". two rows of seats which could seat two normal sized individuals with space between the two for those who didnt have an empty seat and have to stand. things appeared pretty much in order without any inconveniences. Even though there were no seats unoccupied the bus was more or less empty. i found a comfortable corner and stood watching the proceedings. People sat in their seats patiently, the lucky ones being those sitting next to windows.

As any good passenger my first reaction after finding a place to stand/sit was look out for a person called the "Conductor". I didnt have to look far. he was right there beside me standing with is customary leather bag slung over his shoulder with change and the paper tickets; and not to mention the same expressionless features on his face as all other conductors i have seen. but this wasnt the interesting part.

what happens when you want to handle cash/coins, ticket and punch tickets before handing it over to a passenger? well if you are successful, chances are your DNA resembles an octopus's than a humans'. theres no way a person can do all that all through the day and repeat it day in and day out. but did i say conductors are normal people? its impossible for us lesser mortals not bus conductors. The guy i was watching was doing a good job vending tickets and a better job of entertaining people. well at least i was entertained. he had the coins saddled in the bag; nothing unusual about that. but between each of his fingers on the left hand were different denomination notes neatly folded, so that he didnt have to fetch it from his bag. Ingenious!!! but what was more than ingenious was the way he punched the tickets.

with the notes snugly fit into his left hand he held the ticket box in the palm of his left. so whenever he had to pick a ticket he reached with his right hand, pulled out some ticket and handed out the passenger. Now the magic happened just before handing over the ticket to the passenger. tucked into his right palm almost unseen to the naive eye was the ticket puncher; a small stapler like device used to punch holes in to the tickets. as soon as the ticket was pulled out, with a flick of the thumb and other fingers the ticket would be punched without anyone even noticing!!! The action amazed me so much that it immediately reminded me of an illustrious colleague of my conductor friend.

that colleague was his senior by quite a few years and million dollars atleast. "Rajanikant" the superstar of the Tamil film industry was a bus conductor himself before getting a break in movies. He used to work for BMTC itself. Anecdotes about his those days as a conductor are as famous as him. His unique style of giving tickets, and doing tasks like wearing sunglasses used to amaze people so much that they used to wait for his bus just to watch him go about his job doing all that. the result was that his bus always used to be full!! dig that.

So this guy went about as coolly about his job as if nothing special and maybe the others agreed too as no one took interest. Eventually i got a seat to sit and my mind was diverted from watching the conductor to watching the scenes go by the window.I managed to get down at some stop eventually and so ended my trip thru the BMTC bus.