The Rs. 3000/- Bus Ride

Last Monday, I had a spark of genius. I was home at Noida, and I had class to attend in college. This is the middle of May when most people start planning their summer vacations. College begins to get empty. The interval between the loos being cleaned starts touching fortnights. All around, one sees only people one is likely to never see again. And I was attending class in such a time. The “why” is a different story. It is for this class, that I needed to get to college, and wanting to beat the mid-day heat, I thought I’d leave early. My genius was my choice of time.

I set out at eight in the morning. At five past eight I was in a fairly empty bus. Sadly, though, there weren’t any seats. But it was comfortable still, specially because it was too early for the familiar armpit smell to take overwhelming proportions. The bus left the Noida Gol Chakkar and made its way to college. It seemed particularly comfortable, as I realised later, and that comfort should have been a premonition for things that were to get worse. But we’re all wiser in retrospect.

The first signs of comfort began to vanish when the bus hit Laxmi Nagar. Some labour got on the bus. Typical to people from that economic strata, there were around ten men, an equal number of women, and approximately twice as many kids as the total number of males and females. The bus moved a few metres till the next bus stop and some more people got on there. Then a few metres more, and still more people got on. This continued, till someone in the back of the bus fainted. Of course, the fainting just provided a brief break, after which the ailing gentleman was debarked and in his place two more people climbed on. The bus continued to move at snail pace.

An important component of this story is a bag that I was carrying with me. It didn’t have anything precious, apart from some laundry that I had taken to Noida to get washed. That Uttar Pradesh doesn’t have enough power for me to wash a few shirts and some items of underclothing is quite another story. I was carrying that bag of laundry, which, though not heavy, had slightly inconvenient dimensions considering the crowd on the bus. Initially, the bag was on my back. There it acted as an impediment to the free passage of goods and people in the aisle. So I asked a kind looking lady sitting right where I was standing if she would be nice enough to take care of it for me. She, old enough to be my mother at least, thought that I was trying to get cosy with her, god bless her poor soul. She just plainly refused. My only option then was to put the bag between my feet and continue standing.

The new location of the bag had the advantage of allowing people to move freely behind me. The disadvantage, as it didn’t take me long to realise, was that it rendered me completely immobile. There was no space in the aisle to shift anyways, and compounded with the bag, I had to stand completely erect with one hand on the handrails to prevent myself from falling at every emergency stop that the driver made. With one hand occupied with the handrail, I had only one hand free to put in my pocket containing my wallet.

As the bus got progressively more crowded, I got more nauseous. Eight thirty, I discovered the hard way, was not sufficient reasons for the armpits to not smell. It wasn’t, I learnt, the best time to travel in a bus in the summer because every genius like me wanted to beat the heat. Placing ones bag between one’s feet was, I realised, one of the most stupid things one could do. In between all the nausea and self-pity at being so uncomfortable, I saw someone jump of my bus and get onto a bus in front. Smart guy, I thought. But we’re all wiser in retrospect.

When I reached Kashmere Gate, I realised my phone was missing. But there is nothing to worry about, I told myself. After all it wasn’t the first time that I had left my phone at Noida. There was this time I’d left my keys there and I’d gone all the way back to get them only to forget my specs. These were minor inconveniences, I told myself. I was still telling myself this when I boarded the metro. I continued telling myself this till the time I reached the CMS and called my phone, expecting my Aunt to answer.

A man answered. “Hello?” he said.

“Hello. May I know who I’m speaking to?”

“Who are you?”

“What number are you talking from?”

“You should know, you dialled it.”

“Well, this is my phone number. How did you get it?”

“I found it on a bus.”

“I see. Well it is my phone. How may I get it back?”

“Well, lets see. I want to keep the handset. If you want, I could throw away the number.”

An extremely obliging gentleman he was. I didn’t know what to say. I guess he realised that I was at a loss for words. Not wanting to embarrass me further, he hung up. It didn’t strike me until a few hours back that the smart guy who changed buses, might, indeed, have been the one who forcibly made me part with my phone. And all without my knowing. After all, saying that he found it could be both active and passive. And he never specified where on the bus he found it; it could have been my pocket. And then again, it could have been anyone—the labour kids, the kind aunty, the bus conductor; anyone. But somehow, I like telling myself that it was that smart guy.

I’ve taken a moral from this all. If one values one’s pockets, one should never try beating the summer heat, for the summer-heat-beating rush is a lot more dangerous.