The daily bus trip to office is a true blessing in disguise. Though it is a 10 min drive, everyday it a new experience, other than the pushing, rushing and crushing process. I am deliberately erasing the ticket passing procedure from end to end which requires the skilful tucking of the ticket and coins with two fingers.
Few days are extra special when I meet a long lost friend from school after 10 years and make up for the missed years in a 10 minute drive.
Some days are nostalgic when I smile to the child which recites a nursery rhyme to his mom and nudges the toddler sister in her lap to recite along. When I see the excitement in a child’s face when it sneaks into its lunch box to check the food that is been packed, I rewind back to the old hot pack owned during school days. Then is the nerdy chap with glasses whose twists at weird angles to see the time in my watch worried about being late, but turns red and looks away when I tell him the time, doesn’t realise I was just preventing a neck sprain.
The septuagenarian couple who board the bus with shaking hands and yet offer each other the only seat available are sure to mend all broken hearts. I am left wondering at a mother rushing to office balancing a kid and an oversize tote bag and still wading through the bus at ease. I am more shocked when I see her in the evening with an additional bag full of groceries and a tired mind planning the dinner meal. Kudos to the woman!!
Let me not forget the BPO men at the footboard, laptop bags slinging to the shoulder, i phones secure in their pockets which are already bulging because of the in numerous credit cards but are clinging to their dear.
The journey doesn’t always show me the brighter side. There are people with this lost look and remind to every second to alert them at their stop which I invariably forget busy watching another drama in bus. There are school children screaming at me when I break the miniature model of their science project in a hurry to get into the bus and are equally shocked when I mend it for them with the cutter and fewibond ready in my bag. (They gave a final stare that meant thank your stars for being an architect that carried a stationery supply handy, else you were dead.)
There are d days when the bus will break down as per written norms and I will have empty my wallet to the autowallah, what would have been my entire monthly bus allowance. Another unpleasant experience was the day when my new branded rimless glasses got crushed in the unexpected sudden break from the driver and I smashed my face right into the handle bar, I swore never ever to wear glasses during my bus travel.
In spite of all this, the 10 minute is most exciting moment I eagerly wait for everyday and at times wished I lived far from work. Tickets anyone?!?
