On his first day at the Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation, twenty-five year old Masti Govind Swamy, named after the village of Masti, where his father, not he, was born, found to his dismay that he was assigned Route 13—from Banashankari in the south of Bengaluru to Shivajinagar in almost the center of the city. Coming from a family of astrologers, Masti believed that the number signified the very nadir of inauspiciousness. Didn't the ancients warn that 13 people should never assemble at any one place? Didn't tradition demand that one should avoid houses and streets given that frightful number? And was it not true that the unique compression of the lunar cycle to 13 days during the great Mahabharata war foretold the loss of thousands of lives at Kurukshetra near Delhi?

 

He pleaded with the BMTC Superintendent for a change in the allotted route, but the latter said nothing could be done—all 5563 routes for the 6798 buses plying all over the city were computerized. "Even the Chairman cannot tamper with the system," he declared.

 

When Masti blurted out his problem to three drivers he befriended at the Bus Depot canteen over idli, vada, and coffee, one laughed, "Perhaps 13 would turn out lucky for you, who knows?"

 

The second mocked. "It's because of people like you that India has to bear the cross of superstition and mumbo jumbo."

 

The third lit up a beedi, deliberated over Masti's problem for all of three puffs, and suggested in all seriousness: "Why don't you look for another job?"

 

Masti retreated to the restroom, ran his fingers through his curly black hair several times, and finally prostrated before the portrait of Lord Venkateshwara who had turned even more inscrutable behind all the heavy garlands and gaudy lights. 

 

"O most powerful and yet most benign," Masti uttered, his mouth close to the floor, making the dust rise in solemn puffs, "I am at your mercy. I surrender to your will completely."

 

As many looked on, Shekar, the conductor, an old hand in the corporation, pushed through the melee. "What are you doing down there? We are already late."

 

Masti rose and with a self-pitying grimace trudged over to the bus that bore Route No 13 on its back, front, and sides in LED lights. Perhaps the accursed number was lit up beneath on the axle as well, thought the unfortunate man. 

 

More than fifty pairs of eyes were locked on him as he eased the blue and cream Leyland out of the gates. Ten seconds later he almost rammed a speeding car on the main road. A minute later he avoided running over two stray dogs. Two minutes later at the first stop called Sangam Circle, 23 people got in.  At the second stop near Life Insurance Office in Jayanagara 5th Block, 17 more rushed in. When Masti eased out of the third stop near New Age Styles Hair Salon, the bus was bursting with 72 passengers, twenty-two more than its stated capacity. 

 

Shekhar the wise conductor pushed his way to the front through the throng of standing fares. "No more stops unless I give you the signal."

 

"If you say so," shouted Masti as he narrowly avoided bumping into a cow that majestically sauntered across the road. 

 

Hardly had he gone a kilometer, when something yellow moving on the pavement caught his eye. A young woman in a yellow sari frantically waving one hand. Her other hand was supporting a large clay pot on her head. Even though her sweaty face bespoke a pathetic desperation, even though her sari looked cheap and worn, Masti saw in her a rare beauty. He slammed the brakes and half the passengers slammed into one another. The woman clambered up with youthful agility, ducking just the precise amount for the mud pot on her head to clear the roof of the door. As every inch of the aisle was crammed, Masti indicated with a jerk of his head that she should stand behind his seat.

 

"Who the hell asked you to stop?" It was Shekhar the conductor, frustrated with issuing tickets in the sweating and smelling throng.

 

"Emergency," replied Masti.

 

"You mean if it was a man it would not have been an emergency?"

 

There was hearty laughter all around, and even the woman with the pot on her head hid her mouth with a palm. But young Masti was not amused.

 

"Let me tell you that I come from a family which respects women," he retorted.

 

"And pray which is this noble family?" elderly Shekhar asked with searing civility.

 

"My father hails from Masti village made famous by the noble litterateur Masti Venkatesha Iyengar. And my mother is from royal and ancient city of Thanjavur. And I am . . ."

 

". . . the most generous BMTC driver," said Shekhar.

 

Thus the laughter and banter continued for the next minute and Masti failed to see the large block of stone in the middle of the road. The front right wheel climbed the stone with a protesting judder, the steering wheel slipped from Masti's grasp, the bus tilted to the left and all he could do before the bus kissed the large gul mohr tree on the pavement was press on the brakes with all his might. Except for a lot of cursing and bodies falling over one another, no one was injured. The damage to the bus was minimal, just a dent on the body and a smashed headlight. But what befell Masti was different. He was drenched in curds that the lass behind him had carried in the large clay pot for sale at Russell Market.

 

Masti looked like the world-famous Gomateshwara statue that stonily accepts an annual ceremonial bath of curds, milk, honey, and other blessed fluids. And that was how an earthily beautiful curds seller came into Masti's life. For good.

 

She apologized profusely and he grandly accepted the apologies and invited her home to meet his mother, and she said yes, give me a call, what is your number? He blurted it out and the entire bus heard the ten digits in silence. The woman pressed the full number and Masti's phone rang in his pocket, and now the entire bus clapped as one.

 

By the way, if you happen to be in Bengaluru and would like to meet him, ask anyone at Banashankari bus depot: "Where is this man who loves curds and No. 13?"

 

You will be transported faster than a Leyland bus to the supremely lucky man.