Chapter 2

Chapter 2 -

February 13^th 2009- Although 13 is considered an unlucky number by almost all of us; it was a really lucky number for all the people in the village of Bosenagar. It was the first time someone from the village was stepping foot outside the village. Young, twenty four year old *KRVSB* was travelling to Bangalore to embark on a journey which will remain in our minds for a long long time.

The first paragraph of this story itself left me confused. I had never heard of any place called Bosenagar. And I reread the last line a few times to make sure I got the name right. KRVSB??? What sort of a name is that?

I looked at the bottom of the word document and found what KRVSB meant.

KRVSB – Krishna Rama Vishnu Shiva Bramha. The boy’s parents didn’t want to displease any God, so they decided to name their son with all the God’s that they could remember.

So that left me with the Bosenagar. I tried Googling for the name but with no luck. But I knew a friend who was very good with his trivia, so I called him up. He advised me to check out some site called Indiatownsandvillages.com which had a huge database of even the smallest villages of our country. So I went to the site and searched for Bosenagar.

Bosenagar – This small village near Vishakapatnam is more familiarly known as Boskar. Called Bosenagar since Subhash Chandra Bose had once been near the vicinity of the village (I later found that he passed about 15km away from the village). Since this was the closest that someone had passed by the village, their 250 inhabitants decided to call it as Bosenagar. The village currently has a population of 5 lakhs or half a million (Now that’s called progress!!!). Cricket is an extremely popular sport and Sachin Tendulkar has his own temple here. After Tendulkar’s brilliant performances against Australia in 1998, the villagers wanted to have a part of Sachin’s name in the village without wiping out Subhash Chandra Bose altogether. The village was then renamed as ‘Boskar’ although the elder inhabitants (who have no cricketing interests) still prefer to call it as Bosenagar.

I couldn’t believe what I was reading; this is only possible in India. After another sip of coffee I tried looking for the village in Google Maps, but even with maximum zoom, couldn’t find the slightest trace of any Bosenagar or Boskar (They should get a Oscar for this Boskar name; they even rhyme each other!!!) . Anyway I went back to the word document and continued reading.

10 am – There was a huge crowd at the village square, near the bus stand. All of them had come to see of KRVSB (let’s call him Krishna from here on). The bus to take him to Vishakapatnam was due to arrive at 11. Krishna was really excited as he started to get ready; he had never even visited the neighbouring village, let alone travelling as far as Bangalore alone.

“Krishna, have your food now before you leave”, his mother Sitalakshmi called.

“Don’t call him just Krishna, his granddad shouted. That would be an injustice to all the other Gods. Call him by his full name, Krishna Rama Vishnu Shiva Brahma.”

It was already 10:50 when Krishna finished his lunch. Looks like his mother decided to feed him for the next one month since her son would be away. Rice with dal, chapattis, and seven different preparations of curry, meat, chicken, eggs, curd, sweets and kheer all served between moanings from Krishna that he couldn’t have any more.

“Have more Beta; his mom persisted after triple helpings of rice and dal. God knows what sort of food you will have to eat when you are away.”

11 am - The small bus had already arrived at the village; but Krishna had to still make it through the crowd of well-wishers who had come.

“Be careful boy, make our village proud”, the village chief said.

“I’m not waiting any longer, its already getting late”, said the bus driver after quarter of an hour.

“Wait Sahib, he’s coming.” one of the villagers pleaded.

“Try to get an autograph of Sachin, Krishna”, one of the boys yelled among the chaos.

“You’ve been saying that for the past five minutes.” the driver said holding his head and he started his engine.

As the driver started his bus and pushing the accelerator, the bus didn’t even move an inch. He pressed harder as the engine of the bus roared with power, but with no forward movement.

“This bus isn’t going anywhere till Krishna comes”, the village chief commanded.

The bus driver looked back puzzled to find the village pahalwan grabbling hold of the bus. He just had to wait now. Finally Krishna got in and the bus proceeded towards Vishakapatnam uneventfully.

Wondering what how this story would next unfold, I checked the time in my computer. 1 pm, time for lunch with my friends.