Work has been a series of complicated, political conundrum lately.Yesterday, I felt twisted and unhappy. It seemed like the inner working of the mind, the sub - conscious finally had to heed the call and call it quits. The imperceptible and unexplainable got explained. The unwanted and unforgiven things, were put up on a platform, and finally got executed, one by one.
Everyday to work, I regularly happen to catch a bus, the same time, the conductor is now my acquaintance. I don't even have to utter the name of my bus stop. I just get the ticket in my hand. It feels like luxury. Lol. Anyways. But on my way to work and on my way back, I do bump into situations that are moving, drastic and raging wild.Once while I sat next to a young woman with a hyperactive little boy of around 1 and 1/2 years old, he simply wouldn't let her be, he would stick his tongue out, and jump on her lap, look out the window, play with the thread she would hand him over and throw them right out the window. A game he was beginning to enjoy. In between the woman would feed him only to know he would get hyperactive later. This excitement I enjoyed at the cost of that poor little woman. She herself seemed a tad over 23 to me. But the responsibility she had taken up made her seem around 30. It's a little saddening to how some young women give themselves up at the cost of society. There's just no fun left for them. It's like someone took the fragrance out of a flower and wind out of a ride in the car.But something that happened, pissed me off. She pulled out a plastic off the back of the new seats of the bus, and made the kid play with it. Incidentally, that little boy not knowing what to do, put it in his mouth. And before I saw it almost disappear, I stuck my hand in his mouth before hers reached it, and I pulled the damn thing out. And threw it out the window, I didn't know my reflex action was so sharp. I'd have beaten Micheal Jordan if I were playing Basketball. But that woman looked at me with a thankful consideration and I only felt anger for her. I don't know I should have felt pity, but it was anger. I got up and sat behind and left her and her child at their own antics.
One more incident that occurred in the same bus a while earlier.
A man with his wife sat on a seat that read " Only for ladies", well isn't it funny while women are struggling to find equality in the country, some boards still go on to show that there is a teeny weeny discrimination going around? But if men were even a tad bit chivalrous, which a few of them are, all women in the bus would get a seat once they stepped in a 80 % male dominated bus. The old buses inserted with new cushions and reclinable seats that the Mumbai Mirror talked about a few days back, well there's a major flaw to the system. Firstly, the seats despite being hardly comfortable for the passengers, are making it a problem for those in the aisle, as the aisle gets a seemingly larger place to walk around the ones sitting in the seats themselves don't get comfortable space to park their buttocks as India's buttocks increasingly expand over time. So I guess the previous seats were much better. And sturdy, while these seem frivolous.
Coming back to the point.
While I was at it, let me also say that the new bus stops installed over the city are pathetically done. When you go to rest your behind, the space provided is so small that it becomes uncomfortable to sit, then you prefer to stand. And the entire purpose of the bus stop is lost. it is elaborately done for advertisement purposes. But it is sadly, very uncomfortable to sit on, its main purpose incidentally. So most people at the bus-stop stand outside it, instead of sitting inside it.The people who made it should have at least sat in it to know how the entire city is going to feel when it wants to rest.At least in Ahmedabad, they have incredibly comfortable seats installed with a comfortable back provided as well.
Ok now to the point.
There was a man sitting on a seat that read " Only for ladies", suddenly there was chaos, and a short adamant man told this brute to get up and said, "Mr. please get up, the seat you're sitting on is "only for ladies" and the brute showed such unconcern, that the other man told him to get up, and let a patient sit. The little girls seems like she was losing hair, and was incredibly weak. My heart went out to see her parents in such a weak state.So the brute grudgingly got up, and let the girl sit, now is when the chaos increased, when another man said, "Why are you making him get up?, when the seat reads "only for elderly" there was a sign which read that but it read for the seat next to where the man sat, and interestingly instead of the board being written behind the seat, it was written way above, so it gave the impression that both seats are reserved for elderly. Well, as the argument ensued, the little girl and her mother who came to accompany her to sit on the seat, got up and headed back to standing up, but some kind people in the bus offered them a seat to sit in. And the brute of a man, came and sat again next to his gorilla looking wife. Looking accurately orthodox and uneducated. Another woman came and stood next to me in the bus, and I told her to sit in the seat marked "only for ladies" and to my dismay she said, "It's ok, already people have fought over it, I don't want to intensify the war".
Well, shouldn't she have done it, fought for her rights??
Taking a leaf from Pavan Varma's Being Indian, I realised that Indians are really timid people, who are not wanting to push the limit, they are pacified for what they have and they follow the Gandhian principle to the heart, to not insitigate trouble.
Well, so the man sat in the seat and got down only at the Bandra station.
Well, and my journey ended, with another lesson in my pocket of a pacified India.
