Well how many of you have had the honour of experiencing regular travel using the public transport?
Cause if you are or have been in anytime in the past, I am sure you will be able to connect your thoughts and emotions with that of mine.
To start with a small intro, I am one among the thousands of citizens of India who gets up every morning with the first thing next in mind that of catching a bus!
I stagger my way to the bus stop everyday and while agility has always been on my side take no chances when I notice a bus relatively unpacked and especially vacant window seats. In this manner you can even consider me relatively adament, as in..unless I am really in a haste.. I keep awaiting a bus comparitively larger, spacious and well ventilated (Now the ventilation doesnt last long...as more and more passengers keep clogging the empty spaces in between the columns of seats willing to stand, in an effort to reach sooner their destinations.) It is not surprising however for a city in which I reside (which is already overcrowded and tends to be even more with every passing day ) that there are more number of passengers standing than ones seated.
To be honest, I always take the pain of may be spending a few mins extra but atleast getting a seat.
The account of a bus travel can vary from very annoying ones to really interesting narrations. The most important person in a bus is always the conductor or the helper! He is the person whose sole discretion runs the bus. He is the one who promises and even delivers his promise to offer you a seat even in a bus not only overcrowded but over pouring with passengers.Now after you get one... it actually depends whether you consider the bargain worthy enough.. for the location can vary from... top of the warm to hot engines (Which can really make you spring up with a firey experience !) to seats crammed in with the futile effort of reserving a seat for the conductor himself lierally sqeezed in between the window and the door.. which anyways he never uses himself. (Common the extra bucks matter much more to him !!!)
From a personal point of view the largest menace in buses for me have been stout individuals. I prefer calling them double seaters. If they happen to sit by you.. God forbid.. where will you sit?
The extra pounds keep bothering your hands and legs and you would rather start praying you left behind your own appendages at home if God had created them to be detachable!
Never mind, as long as the conductors comes in with a thick bundle in hand and still refusing to give you a change for a hundred bucks.. change madam change..is what he keeps shouting at me..almost everyday!
Now I agree the runners of such systems keep eyeing at earning some grands extra but it does not stop you from loathing some pathetic passengers as well.. Some keep argueing for hours..as to when did the fare rise...the others took less blah blah... although many a times these faces are mere repetations ! On being threatened to be be thrown out... they give the money in installments a rupee at a time for several minutes (I pity the conductors' jobs that very moment )
Some days ago, I took the honour of siiting by the side of an elderly person who looked decent enough to me.. As the bus geared to a start and i took out my novel in an impulse to complete the ending, he comfortably entered into a converstaion with me..
"Do you study..."
"Do you work"..
"which is your stop"
" what does your father do...?? [:O] "
"what time do you get back home.."
...........
.....
...
in a last effort to concerntrate, I took out my cell phone..plugged in my earphone and started reading.. in an effort to be able to avoid his questions..
the next moment..he touched my arms gently and after i had unplugged my headset... spoke at length for an hour about the potential hazards of use of musical aids like head sets with cellphones...for almost half n hour..
Somehow when i looked quite convined and kept my phone inside with the cord attached, and redirected my focus on my book...he asked me for a look at the book I was reading !!!!
Though things as such might appear dull.. a bus journey has been a delight to me every morning..
When your body and soul refuses to show up at the work place and your mind is clogged.... there can be nothing more refreshing than a bus ride at 100 kmph.. a view of the highway outside the window...the fresh air gushing on your face and the smell of the fresh morning air :-)
Many thoughts cross your mind... and most of them.. happy thoughts..can really pep up your spirits.. and leave you smiling while you get down at your stop!
well...whats your bus story?
would appreciate if the reader shared a piece form his/her experience as well !!!
