Chapter 2: Plant response to elevated CO2 - DRUM - University of ...

set the alarm, and spread the comforter with a giant sweep so that it covers my
toes. Then I snuggle in for my dreams to take me back home.
The overcrowded red coloured BEST bus. A rude conductor with an acerbic
tongue, ready to lash out at anyone who doesn’t have the requisite change. The bus full to
the brim with people talking and balancing themselves on their toes, with one hand
catching the hanging black rexine straps, moving to and fro to the traffic rhythm. Stop.
Move slowly, pick up speed, fast, sudden stop. Lurch forward. College students,
labourers, sales executives, families returning from weddings all aboard on bus no. 81
from Hutatma Chowk till Dadar.
Here it’s different the first time when I walked into the bus, I looked at the
ticket and then turned it over to diligently read the fine print. That happened
with everything that came in my way when I arrived to USA. Bus tickets,
vending machines, railway platforms, microwaveable food packets, I read
instructions on all of them. I watched ‘Friends’ and ‘Smallville’ and listened in to
conversations at the school library and food courts. I observed people walking
inside the bus, the way they would politely smile at each other or look absently
into space, a practiced avoidance of looking at people. At the grocery store I
watched the way people swipe their cards and look at the people conversing
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