5 Common Things in a City Bus in Guwahati.

With exams finished, it was time for me to meet up with some of my genius friends who were back in Guwahati after a hiatus exam season. Curiously waiting to meet them up, I was late as usual from the scheduled time of the unofficial meeting. Even as I was beginning to get excited over the thought of exams being finished, my experience on the way misled my innocent feelings. Here’s why:

1.    The curious case of the bus-fare ticket: And I thought exams were the most mysterious creations. And as I paid the equally mysterious bus fare of 10 bucks, I began enquiring about the ticket, which the conductor needs to hand out, when someone pays the bus fare but what I received were ugly smiles from fellow passengers. I felt as if I had just asked for the conductor’s hand for marriage.

2.    The mysteriously empty bus: Some 5 minutes into my awfully worse journey through the crowded city, the bus halted at a stoppage. The conductor was in the act again, this time shouting: “Khaali gaari…..Khaali gaari…..khaali gaari….” for a million times even if the bus didn’t have space even for an extra molecule of air. I came to the conclusion that the conductor was suffering from a combination of mental irregularity syndrome and an eye-sight problem.

3.    Lack of common sense amongst the passengers: As the bus began filling itself with people to the core, the number of people inside the bus was equal to trillion times the number of seats available in the bus. It was as if the whole world decided to travel by bus on the same day as I did. As I saw a woman of my mom’s age standing uncomfortably amongst the crowd, I offered my seat to her. Clearly a modest lady, she declined my offer at first, but decided to accept my second offer. As I had just stood up, two bald persons who were standing behind me already began fighting for the seat. Ultimately the fatter of the two won my priceless seat. I lost my seat as well as my anger.

4.    Pseudo bus stoppage to pick up passengers: As the bus made its illustrious journey through the heat and dust of the city, I observed random people along the road waving their hands to stop the bus to make their grand entry into the already loaded bus. As I asked the conductor to stop the bus at a particular place so that I could get off, he shrugged off my request and said that I can get off only at the particular designated stoppage. So, the veto power to stop the bus was used only to pick up passengers, not to deport them. One way traffic. Sigh!

5.   The Super-Man act of getting off the bus: As the bus was already filled up, the bus didn’t stop at the stoppage at which I was to get off, as if it was a Universal rule for the bus to halt only for incoming passengers and not the other way round. Instead, the driver slowed it down and his partner-in-crime, the conductor commanded me to jump off. As I was no Super-Man, I didn’t have a clue about getting off a moving bus. I just stood there like Manmohan Singh. Fellow brainless passengers began smiling again at my dismay. The conductor was angry and ordered his fellow love-mate to move the bus. I had to get off at the next stoppage. And walk back to my destination in that afternoon heat. Thanks to that, I was doubly-late. And yes, probably, people in the bus gossiped more about me than Mr. Narendra Modi for the first time in their shrewd lives. Huh!

So till the next time you travel by bus, be happy. Be good.  Respect women. Respect all. Happy reading.